James 'Whitey' Bulger

James Joseph 'Whitey' Bulger Jr. (September 3, 1929 – October 30, 2018) was an American organized crime boss who led the Winter Hill Gang, an Irish mob group based in the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts, northwest of Boston. On December 23, 1994, Bulger went into hiding after his former FBI handler, John Connolly, tipped him off about a pending RICO indictment against him. He remained at large for sixteen years. After his 2011 capture, federal prosecutors tried Bulger for nineteen murders based on grand jury testimony from Kevin Weeks and other former criminal associates.

Although he adamantly denied it, the FBI stated that Bulger had served as an informant for several years starting in 1975, providing information about the inner workings of the Patriarca crime family, his Italian-American Mafia rivals based in Boston and Providence, Rhode Island. In return, Connolly, as Bulger's FBI handler, ensured that the Winter Hill Gang was effectively ignored. Beginning in 1997, press reports exposed various instances of criminal misconduct by federal, state and local officials with ties to Bulger, causing embarrassment to several government agencies, especially the FBI.

Five years after his flight from the Boston area, he was added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list; he was considered the most wanted person on the list behind Osama bin Laden. Another twelve years passed before he was apprehended along with his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig, outside an apartment complex in Santa Monica, California. Bulger and Greig were extradited to Boston and taken to court under heavy guard. In June 2012, Greig pleaded guilty to conspiracy to harbor a fugitive, identity fraud and conspiracy to commit identity fraud, receiving a sentence of eight years in prison. Bulger declined to seek bail and remained in custody.

His trial began in June 2013. He was tried on thirty-two counts of racketeering, money laundering, extortion and weapons charges, including complicity in nineteen murders. On August 12, he was found guilty on thirty-one counts, including both racketeering charges, and was found to have been involved in eleven murders. On November 14, he was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus five years by U.S. District Court Judge Denise J. Casper. He was incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary Coleman II in Sumterville, Florida.

He was transferred to several facilities in October 2018; first to the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma and then to the United States Penitentiary, Hazelton, near Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. Bulger, who was in a wheelchair, was beaten to death by inmates on October 30, 2018, within hours of his arrival at Hazelton. In 2022, Fotios Geas, Paul DeCologero and Sean McKinnon were charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in Bulger's death.

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