His life served as a template for the gangster film "The Departed" and numerous books - James "Whitey" Bulger. Eventually he was convicted of old age - and murdered in prison. Now three men are being charged.
Almost four years after the murder of notorious US crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger in a prison, three men have been charged. Fotios "Freddy" Geas, Paul "Pauly" DeCologero and Sean McKinnon are charged with conspiracy to murder, among other things, the federal attorney's office for northern West Virginia said on Thursday.
The men were being held at the Hazelton Maximum Security Prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, at the same time as Bulger, when the then 89-year-old crime boss was beaten to death there in October 2018.
Geas, 55, and DeCologero, 48, are accused of repeatedly hitting Bulger in the head, causing his death, prosecutors said in a statement. In addition to conspiracy to murder, they are also charged with aiding and abetting murder and aggravated assault, as well as murder by a federal inmate who has already been sentenced to life imprisonment.
McKinnon is charged with conspiracy to murder and false testimony to a federal agent. While Geas and DeCologero were in custody based on previous convictions at the time of the arraignment, McKinnon was conditionally released. He was arrested in Florida on Thursday.
Bulger was the head of Boston's notorious "Winter Hill Gang" in the 1970s and 1980s - and also worked as an informant for the US federal police FBI. In 2011, after a tip from a former Icelandic beauty queen, the Irish-born criminal was arrested in Santa Monica, California, after 16 years on the run.
Bulger was later sentenced to two life sentences on charges including 11 counts of murder, racketeering, money laundering and organized crime. During the trial, dozens of witnesses reported gruesome details of Bulger's criminal life. He was found dead in 2018 just a day after being transferred to Hazelton Federal Penitentiary.
The life of the brutal crime lord has served as the basis for a number of films and books, including the Oscar-winning film "The Departed" directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Jack Nicholson in 2006. Johnny Depp embodied the role the brutal crime boss in the 2015 film "Black Mass".
