The inmates accused of killing one of America’s most notorious gangsters in prison in 2018 reached plea deals this week, according to federal court filings.
James “Whitey” Bulger was killed in his cell by three inmates who knew the infamous mobster was being transferred to U.S. Penitentiary Hazelton in West Virginia, one of the most violent federal prisons in the country, prosecutors have said.
Bulger, who was 89 at the time, was alive less than 12 hours before Fotios “Freddy” Geas, a Mafia hit man, along with Paul J. DeCologero and Sean McKinnon, snuck into his cell, beat him for seven minutes and left the once-feared kingpin to die, prosecutors said in court documents.
Gaea and DeCologero delivered the fatal blows, while McKinnon served as the lookout, the August 2022 indictment says.
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FILE – In this June 30, 2011, file photo, James “Whitey” Bulger, right, is escorted from a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter to a waiting vehicle at an airport in Plymouth, Mass., after attending hearings in federal court in Boston. Three years after he was bludgeoned to death in a West Virginia prison, no one has been charged in the beating death of murderous Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger. Bulger was 89 when he was fatally beaten in October 2018. (Stuart Cahill/The Boston Herald via AP, File) (Stuart Cahill/The Boston Herald via AP, File)
On Monday, each inmate accused of involvement in Bulger’s murder “executed a binding plea agreement” and now await sentencing. The court filings didn’t detail the terms of the plea deals.
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Bulger was known “as a rat” and “snitched” on competitors as an FBI informant.
“That’s ground for getting whacked,” an inmate who served time with Bulger in a Florida prison told investigators, the defendants’ lawyers wrote in a court filing on April 27, 2023.
Boston gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger, Jr. poses for a mugshot on his arrival at the Federal Penitentiary at Alcatraz on November 16, 1959 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Donaldson Collection/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) (Photo by Donaldson Collection/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images))
Bulger has been the subject of numerous books, shows, documentaries and podcasts. He was convicted by a jury for his involvement in 11 of the 19 murders he was charged with.
The FBI released hundreds of pages of original reports about phone and wire recordings related to Bulger.
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Many of the documents are redacted, faded or difficult to read. Here are three takeaways from the document dump.
Fotios “Freddy” Geas; James “Whitey” Bulger (Associated Press)
1. Bulger took handwritten notes in a steno notebook
In September 1984, law enforcement confiscated a “Woman’s Day’ magazine from 1983 headlined “Meals in Minutes” and a spiral notebook with handwritten notes.
The year 1983 is significant in Bulger’s notorious life.
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At that point, Bulger was embedded as an informant with corrupt FBI agents, most notably John “Zip” Connolly, and turf wars between Bulger’s Winter Hill Gang and the Patriarca family grew increasingly more violent.
In one instance, members of the Patriarca family were kidnapped and later found on meat hooks in a Bulger’s butcher shop.
A spiral notebook with Whitey Bulger’s handwritten notes were found by law enforcement. (FBI )
A 1983 edition of a magazine was also confiscated at the same time as the notebook. The year 1983 was a year of escalating violence between Bulger’s gang and rival gang. (FBI)
The notebook included mundane notes, like “gone to the food store” and there was cut-up papaya.
Many of the notes ended with “Love” and a redacted name.
Here’s a link to all the notes.
Many of the letters in the steno notebook were signed “love” with a redacted name. (FBI)
Many of the letters in the steno notebook were signed “love” with a redacted name. (FBI)
2. FBI tracked Bulger and ‘five different hoodlum groups in the Boston area’ for loan-sharking since the early ’70s
A 300-page report, which was released by the FBI in 2021, first mentions Whitey Bulger by name as part of a December 1974 law enforcement sting into loansharking in and around Boston.
In a January 1975 report, a victim “continually receive(s) incoming calls from individuals from whom he obtained the loans,” but law enforcement pushed the unnamed victim to make payments with the hope “he will eventually receive threading calls of evidentiary nature.”
The report details the call that the unnamed victim received, but who made the calls and other names were redacted.
First time Whitey Bulger appears by name as a target of a 1974 FBI sting First time Whitey Bulger appears by name as a target of a 1974 FBI sting into loan-sharking in the Boston area. (FBI)
Victim (who isn’t named) works with law enforcement, who pushes him to wait to get threatening calls. (FBI )
“All the above conversations conspired highly incriminatory and will corroborate victim’s potential testimony,” the report says. “Loans and detailed information RE loans has been corroborated on majority through conversations to date…
“It is anticipated telephone calls of threatening nature will develop … Boston continues to feel the matter presents outstanding potential RE prosecution of major figures.”
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This is when law enforcement began to make its case. Whitey Bulger’s name appears several times as a main target.
In one instance, Bulger “slapped around” one of the FBI’s informants, who was “in constant fear for his life” and later robbed at gunpoint.
“It is anticipated telephone calls of threatening nature will develop … Boston continues to feel matter presents outstanding potential RE prosecution of major figures.” (FBI)
An original photo released by the FBI in 1984 shows James “Whitey” Bulger. (AP/FBI)
2. Bulger was involved in horse-racing scam in the ’70s
Bulger’s name came up again when the FBI investigated and took down a major race-horse fixing scheme that included organized crime groups from California to the Winter Hill Gang in Massachusetts, which Bulger and his partner, Stephen Flemmi, were a part of.
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Jockeys were bribed, and horses were drugged at several major race events, which were detailed in the full report.
But Bulger’s name was suddenly redacted in federal court documents in the late 1970s, which is when Bulger started working as an FBI informant.
Whitey Bulger was part of the mid-to-late ’70s racehorse fixing scheme with other organized crime groups. (FBI)
Whitey Bulger was part of the mid-to-late ’70s racehorse fixing scheme with other organized crime groups. (FBI)
Finally captured
FBI agent Connolly, who was convicted of several crimes, tipped Bulger off that federal law enforcement officers were closing in on him.
Bulger fled Boston and was on the run for 16 years until he was finally arrested in Santa Monica, California, where he hid with his girlfriend, Catherine Greig, and lived off hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash that he hid in the walls.
The early morning scene at Southie’s Castle Island shows a newspaper June 23, 2011, announcing the capture of James Whitey Bulger. (Photo by Mark Garfinkel/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images)
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Bulger “was both a serial murderer and a terrifying extortionist while at the same time working surreptitiously as a government informant with corrupt FBI Agents,” lawyers for the defendants wrote in a court filing on April 27, 2023. He was “one of the most violent and despicable criminals in Boston history. . . . Bulger has no redeeming qualities. . . . This Court presided over a two-month trial which graphically revealed Bulger’s sinister nature and his truly disturbing disregard for human life.”
