The Concord law firm that won a $3.1 million settlement against the government on behalf of an FBI informant killed by the mob should also be reimbursed for seven years of legal costs because the government's attorneys lied about crucial evidence, a federal judge has ruled.

"The question currently before this court is whether the United States acted in bad faith when it repeatedly lied," Judge Joyce London Alexander wrote. "This court finds that it did."

London's ruling, which could be appealed by the U.S. Department of Justice, was good news for lawyers Bill Christie and Steve Gordon of Shaheen & Gordon, who have spent nearly seven years - and more than $640,000 - fighting the case.

But Christie and Gordon said London's ruling gave them little to celebrate.

"There was some sense of vindication," Christie said. "On the other hand, it's quite disturbing that the federal court found that the lawyers for the government repeatedly lied."

In her ruling, London said government attorneys lied when they told Christie and Gordon that they had no evidence that FBI agent John Connolly had leaked the identity of informant John McIntyre, 32, to a pair of mobsters. That pair of mobsters - James "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi - responded by torturing and killing McIntyre in 1984, Flemmi told investigators.

Contrary to what government lawyers told Christie and Gordon, the judge wrote, the government's own records included a report that clearly said Connolly had given Flemmi and Bulger enough information for them to conclude that it was McIntrye who had ratted them out.

"There is abundant evidence in the record of bad faith on the part of the United States," London wrote.

The government's lead attorney on the case, Bridget Lipscomb of the federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., referred a call for comment to agency spokesman Charles Miller. He said the agency had no comment other than it was reviewing the case to determine its next step.

Christie and Gordon took the case on behalf of McIntyre's family in 2000, when a Boston lawyer referred it to them. The case required them to go through more than 500,000 documents and sort out nearly 25 years of FBI and mob history. What they learned was surprising, they said.

FBI agents and mobsters like Bulger and Flemmi often treated each other like partners, with agents accepting gifts and, in Connolly's case, agents giving mobsters the identities of other informants. Flemmi testified that the FBI agreed to protect him by tipping him when another government agency was investigating him.

Christie and Gordon took the case to federal court and argued that the government owed the McIntyre family $50 million for John McIntyre's torture and murder. The case relied heavily on Connolly's leak to Bulger and Flemmi. In January, the federal judge who oversaw the case found the government responsible and awarded McIntyre's family $3.1 million in damages.

With that part of the case settled, Christie and Gordon initiated a claim in February for their legal fees. Federal law does not allow a plaintiff to recover legal costs unless there is evidence that the government lied and acted in bad faith.

It's a tough standard to meet. Gordon said that in his 32 years of handling federal cases, he's never before asked for legal fees because he's not previously seen evidence of the government lying. This case was an exception, he said.

McIntyre was a low-level criminal who worked as a fisherman in the Boston area. Through that work, the court found, McIntyre helped Bulger and Flemmi illegally transport weapons to the Irish Republican Army in 1984 aboard Bulger's ship, the Valhalla.

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