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This mafia boss is going to jail for ever!
For 16 years, James ‘Whitey’ Bulger played hide and seek with the law. His name shared space with the likes of slain Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation’s ‘Ten Most Wanted’ list.
But in May 2011 the law caught up with him at a seaside apartment in Santa Monica, California.
Little over two years later, Bulger let go of a faint smile as the jury at the Boston federal court pronounced him guilty on 31 of the 32 counts, including extortion, money laundering, drug dealing and weapons possession. The jury also held him responsible for murdering 11 people.
The 83-year-old ‘organized criminal’ is probably breathing easy on the prospect of not having to face the lethal injection, but instead spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Bulger ruled the streets of Boston in the late 1970s and 80s.
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This mafia boss is going to jail for ever!
According to the Chicago Tribune, Bulger ran the ‘Winter Hill’ crime gang after coming to power in a mob war that resulted in the death of members of rival gangs. He cemented his grip on Boston's crime scene through ties with corrupt FBI officials who shared his Irish ethnicity and turned a blind eye to his crimes in exchange for information they could use against the Italian mafia.
A tip off from a rogue FBI agent about an imminent arrest saw Bulger go underground.
In fact, Bulger's mob-boss brutality inspired Jack Nicholson's character in the Martin Scorsese film The Departed. It won four Oscars in 2006, including best picture.
US Attorney Carmen Ortiz, speaking about the victims and their families, said: "So many peoples' lives were so terribly harmed by the criminal actions of Bulger and his crew. And today's conviction does not alter that harm, and it doesn't lessen it. However, we hope that they find some degree of comfort in the fact that today has come, and Bulger is being held accountable for his horrific crimes."
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This mafia boss is going to jail for ever!
Post verdict, relatives of Bulger's victims poured out on to the street to tell their stories.
"After 31 years -- after a lot of FBI cover-ups, deceits and lies -- we finally have someone guilty in the murder of my father," said Patricia Donahue's son, Tommy. "It's a good feeling … but my heart also goes out to those other families who are searching for that closure, and I think they got robbed from that closure."
Evelyn Cody, girlfriend of Bulger victim Eddie Connors, said the verdict meant "we got what we wanted" in terms of convicting Bulger in Connors' 1975 murder.
Steve Davis lamented the "no finding" ruling in the 1981 murder of his sister, Debra Davis, who had been the knew-too-much girlfriend of Bulger's partner, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi.
According to Boston Globe, the jury could not decide on Debra’s murder because it was only Flemmi’s word against Bulger, and Flemmi is a total degenerate who had sex with his stepdaughter when she was a young teenager.
Davis said members of the jury kept looking over at him during the reading of the verdict.
"I had to control my anger," said Davis, who had an outburst during the trial when he called Flemmi a liar. "I don't believe in closure. It's not over until I am in the ground."
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This mafia boss is going to jail for ever!
William O'Brien was angry after the jury found that the government had not proven its case in his father's 1973 murder.
"That prosecution dropped the ball," said O'Brien, who shares his father's name. "Five minutes they spent talking about his murder. That jury should be ashamed of themselves."
Bulger's attorneys are nonetheless "pleased" with trial outcome.
"I don't think he expected the jury to come back and say nine times, 'not guilty' or 'not proven,'" said Bulger attorney J W Carney Jr, referring to the eight murders and one extortion count for which Bulger was not convicted.
Carney said Bulger will appeal Monday's verdict on the grounds that he should have been permitted to argue that he had received immunity from prosecution from the Justice Department in exchange for protecting the life of a strike force chief.
His sentencing hearing is scheduled for November 13.