Bad cops all look alike.

That’s the lesson from Hammered Hank Brennan’s very telling confusion late Monday, when he mixed up incompetent state trooper Nicholas Guarino with corrupt ex-FBI agent Nick Gianturco.

It happened late Monday afternoon. Brennan was trying to clean up the disastrous testimony of the moronic trooper Yuriy Bukhenik when he suddenly blurted out:

“Are you familiar with the name Nick Gianturco?”

Bukhenik looked even more lost than usual. “Uh –“

“Guarino!” Brennan quickly said, correcting himself. “Sorry.”

Don’t tell us you’re sorry, Hank. We know how sorry you are.

But you can understand Brennan’s befuddlement. Gianturco-Guarino. Once you’ve seen one bent badge, you’ve seen ‘em all.

First you have Nick Gianturco, known to his paymaster and pal Whitey Bulger as “Doc.” Bulger and his serial killing partner Stevie Flemmi gave Doc thousands in cash payoffs, according to Flemmi’s testimony in multiple federal trials.

They had six FBI agents in Boston on the pad. Two of them were eventually indicted for underworld hits. One died in prison.

Doc Gianturco was so crooked that he was the master of ceremonies for the 1990 farewell dinner for John “Zip” Connolly, one of the Boston FBI agents who moonlighted as a hitman for the Mob.

Gianturco was so close to Whitey that in addition to the cash, Whitey once gave him a belt buckle from Alcatraz. Maybe it was a Christmas present. After all, Christmas was for cops and kids, as Whitey would say. And the feds like Gianturco rated more dirty money than everybody else.

Doc succeeded Zip as director of security for Boston Edison. His brother Charlie was the first FBI agent Stevie Flemmi demanded to see when he was lugged in 1995. Then the G-men put Charlie in charge of the worldwide manhunt for Whitey – wink wink nudge nudge.

So you can see why Hank Brennan had such a big man-crush on Gianturco. Whitey must have told him what a manly man Doc Gianturco was.

Then there’s Nick Guarino. He was the state cop in charge of investigating the texts between the pregnant 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore and the cop from Bukhenik’s hometown and high school, who is in jail, charged with murdering her in Canton in 2021.

The lovebirds exchanged 32,000 texts. Investigating their cell phones afterwards, Trooper Guarino missed all 32,000 of the texts. He didn’t find a single one.

DA Meatball Morrissey ruled the murder-by-cop a suicide. Again, wink wink nudge nudge.

You may ask yourself, what’s the difference between cops taking payoffs from mass murderers or just being so incompetent that they let the killer walk free?

Interesting question, which Hank Brennan himself raised it during the Whitey Bulger trial. He was cross-examining another of Whitey’s corrupted FBI agents, John “Vino” Morris. Vino would be rewarded for his open corruption in Boston with the directorship of the FBI training academy in Quantico.

After Morris described himself on the witness stand as “compromised,” Brennan asked him:

“Is there a difference between ‘compromised’ and ‘corrupt,’ or did you mean the same thing when you said you were compromised?”

“Same thing,” Vino Morris said.

One problem with Brennan that we’re seeing in both the Bulger and the Read trials is that he doesn’t prepare his witnesses very well. I’ve told you about Robert Fitzpatrick, his ex-FBI agent who was going to be his star witness in Bulger’s defense.

But Brennan couldn’t be bothered to do any research on the ancient drunkard. He was a pathological liar. After his sworn testimony, Fitzpatrick was convicted of six counts of perjury.

You’d think Brennan would have learned something from the Fitzpatrick fiasco. God knows, in that same trial, Stevie Flemmi tried to explain the facts of life to him on cross-examination.

For instance, he told him how to cover up a murder, which is something that Brennan really needs to have some understanding of, considering the facts of the Karen Read case.

And who better to tell Brennan how to cover up a murder than Flemmi, who has admitted to having been involved in 50-60 of them (after a while, you lose count, I guess).

“When you commit a murder,” Flemmi explained to the future persecutor of Karen Read, “you cover up on it, you don’t admit it to people. I don’t know if you’re aware of that, you should be, you’re an attorney… You don’t know what’s going on in the world. I’m giving you the real world.”

The real world now is 34 Fairview Road, Canton.

Ironically, in 2013, Brennan bitterly blamed his idol Whitey’s downfall on corrupt cops. Now he’s defending corrupt cops – oh sure, he’s technically a “prosecutor.” But he has no more chance of getting a murder conviction on Karen Read than he did of getting an acquittal for Whitey.

In his 2013 closing, Brennan complained to the jury about what the feds had just done to his pal, the forked-tongue FBI agent Fitzpatrick.

“They’ll crush you,” he said. “You saw what they did to Mr. Fitzpatrick. They bully him, they berate him, they crush him. That’s what happens when you’re not with them, you’re either with them or you’re against them.”

Now, Brennan is one of “them.” He’s out to crush Karen Read – “the defendant,” as he sneeringly calls her at every opportunity he gets. Brennan bullies her, he berates her, he crushes her. And unlike Whitey, or even Fitzpatrick, Karen Read hasn’t even done anything.

Anything for a buck, though, right Hank? You lose as a defense lawyer, you lose as a prosecutor. But the important thing is running up those billable hours, and the taxpayers pick up the tab as it runs into seven figures, combined.

Billable hours uber alles.

Brennan’s confusion over two terrible cops is just par for the course. He is not very smart, and he certainly doesn’t work very hard. Look at his witnesses, all of them, in every trial.

The judge in the Whitey trial was Denise Casper. Brennan tried to keep me out of that trial by listing me as a witness, just like he tried to do with Aiden Kearney in Dedham. But Casper nixed that, just as the despicable hack Cannone allowed Turtleboy to attend this trial.

Despite being appointed by Obama, Casper isn’t a bad judge. One day in the Bulger trial, Brennan was doing his usual piss-poor imitation of a lawyer.

“Objection!” he yelled. “Blah blah blah.”

That’s what he said. “Blah blah blah.”

Fred Wyshak, the lead prosecutor, couldn’t believe it.

“Was that even a legal argument?” he asked the judge. “I mean, did this guy even go to law school?”

“Mr. Wyshack,” Judge Casper said, “that’s enough.”

Maybe, Judge, but it was a good question. And still is.

(Follow the Karen Read trial on Howie’s radio show on AM 680 and the iHeart app from 2-6 every weekday.)

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Ex-FBI agent Nick Gianturco (Herald file photo)
In this June 30, 2011 file photo, James “Whitey” Bulger is escorted back to prison after a day in federal court for his trial on multiple murders. (Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)
Steve Flemmi (Herald file)