Inmates charged with killing one of America’s most notorious gangsters inside a prison in 2018 agreed to a plea deal this week, according to federal court filings.
James “Whitey” Bulger was arrested in his cell by three inmates who knew the notorious mobster was being transferred to West Virginia’s Hazelton Penitentiary, one of the most violent federal prisons in the country. Prosecutors said he was murdered.
Bulger, who was 89 years old at the time, survived less than 12 hours before being released from prison after Mafia hitman Fotios “Freddy” Guias snuck into his cell with Paul J. Decogero and Sean McKinnon and beat him for seven minutes. Was. The king’s death was once feared, prosecutors said in court documents.
The August 2022 indictment states that Gaia and Decogelo inflicted the fatal injuries while McKinnon acted as a lookout.
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FILE – In this June 30, 2011 file photo, James “Whitey” is escorted from a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter to a waiting vehicle at the Plymouth, Massachusetts, airport after attending a hearing in federal court in Boston. ” Bulger (right) is pictured. Three years after he was bludgeoned to death in a West Virginia prison, no one has been charged in the bludgeoning of Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger. Bulger was 89 years old when he was fatally injured in October 2018. (Stuart Cahill/The Boston Herald via AP, File) (Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald, via AP, File)
On Monday, each inmate accused of involvement in Bulger’s murder “executed binding plea agreements” and is currently awaiting sentencing. Court filings do not detail the terms of the plea agreement.
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Bulger was known as an FBI informant “as a rat” and was known to “snitches” from competitors.
In an April 27, 2023 court filing, the defendant’s attorney said that an inmate who served time with Bulger in a Florida prison told investigators, “That’s entitled to a beating.”
Boston gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger Jr. poses for his mugshot upon arriving at Alcatraz Federal Prison in San Francisco, California, on November 16, 1959. (Photo courtesy of Donaldson Collection/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images) (Photo credit: Donaldson Collection/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images))
Bulger has been the subject of numerous books, shows, documentaries, and podcasts. He was found guilty by a jury of his involvement in 11 of the 19 murders he was charged with.
The FBI released its own report containing hundreds of pages of phone and wire recordings related to Bulger.
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Many of the documents have been edited, faded, or difficult to read. Here are three takeaways from the document dump.
Fotios “Freddy” Gias.James “Whitey” Bulger (Related news organizations)
1. Bulger took handwritten notes in his Stenno notebook.
In September 1984, law enforcement seized a 1983 issue of Woman’s Day magazine with the headline “Meals in Minutes” and a spiral notebook containing handwritten notes.
1983 is a significant year in Bulger’s infamous life.
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At that point, Bulger was embedded as an informant for corrupt FBI agents, particularly John “Zip” Connolly, and the turf war between Bulger’s Winter Hill Gang and the Patriarca family became increasingly violent. .
In one instance, a member of the Patriarca family was kidnapped and later found hanging on a meat hook at Bulgers Butcher Shop.
A spiral notebook containing Whitey Bulger’s handwritten notes was discovered by law enforcement. (FBI)
A 1983 edition of the magazine was also confiscated at the same time as the notebook. 1983 was a year of heightened violence between Bulger’s gang and rival gangs. (FBI)
There were mundane notes written in the notebook, such as “I went to the grocery store” and that I had cut up some papaya.
Many of the notes ended with “love” and redacted names.
here it is Link to all notes.
Many of the letters in the steno notebook had names redacted and signed “Love.” (FBI)
Many of the letters in the steno notebook had names redacted and signed “Love.” (FBI)
2. The FBI had been tracking Bulger and “five different Boston-area hoodlums” for loan sharking since the early ’70s.
Whitey Bulger’s name was first mentioned in a 300-page report released by the FBI in 2021 as part of a law enforcement investigation into loan sharking in and around Boston in December 1974.
According to a January 1975 report, the victim “continued to receive phone calls from individuals who had taken loans,” but law enforcement told the anonymous victim that “eventually no calls of an evidentiary nature were made.” “They forced them to pay in hopes of receiving a phone call.” ”
The report details the calls received by anonymous victims, but the names of the callers and others are redacted.
Whitey Bulger first appears by name as the target of a 1974 FBI sting Whitey Bulger first appears by name as the target of a 1974 FBI sting against loan sharks in the Boston area. (FBI)
The victim, whose name has not been released, is cooperating with law enforcement and is being forced to wait out the threatening phone calls. (FBI)
“All of the above conversations constitute a highly criminal conspiracy and would corroborate the potential victim’s testimony,” the report said. “Financing and Further Information RE financing is largely corroborated through conversations to date…
“We anticipate the development of calls of a threatening nature…Boston continues to feel that this matter presents a significant possibility of reinvestigation against key individuals.”
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This is when law enforcement started making their case. Whitey Bulger’s name appears several times as a main target.
In one instance, Ms. Bulger “slapped” one of her FBI informants, who was “constantly in fear for her life” and was later robbed at gunpoint.
“We anticipate that calls of a threatening nature will unfold…Boston continues to feel that the possibility of RE prosecution against key individuals is significant.” (FBI)
The original photo released by the FBI in 1984 shows James “Whitey” Bulger. (AP/FBI)
2. Bulger was involved. Horse racing scams of the 70s
Bulger’s name has resurfaced as the FBI investigates a massive racehorse match-fixing scheme that involved an organized crime group in California that Bulger and his partner, Stephen Flemmi, were part of, to the Winter Hill Gang in Massachusetts. was investigated and exposed.
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Jockeys were bribed and horses were drugged at several major racing events. Complete report.
However, Bulger’s name was suddenly redacted in federal court documents in the late 1970s, and around that time Bulger began working as an FBI informant.
Whitey Bulger, in conjunction with other organized crime groups, participated in a racehorse match-fixing scheme in the mid-to-late 70s. (FBI)
Whitey Bulger, in conjunction with other organized crime groups, participated in a racehorse match-fixing scheme in the mid-to-late 70s. (FBI)
finally captured
Connolly, an FBI agent convicted of several crimes, tipped off Bulger that federal law enforcement agents were closing in on him.
Bulger fled Boston and remained on the run for 16 years until he was finally arrested in Santa Monica, California, where he went into hiding with his girlfriend Katherine Greig and lived off hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash hidden in a wall. Ta.
An early morning scene on Southie’s Castle Island shows the June 23, 2011 newspaper announcing the capture of James Whitey Bulger. (Photo by Mark Garfinkel/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images)
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Defense attorneys said in an April 27, 2023 court filing that Bulger was a “serial killer and terrifying extortionist, as well as a government informant and secretly working with corrupt FBI agents.” I was working.” He is the most violent and despicable criminal in Boston history. This court revealed Bulger’s evil nature and his truly alarming disregard for human life. ”
