- By
- JON KAMP
- And
- JENNIFER LEVITZ
- CONNECT
The 83-year-old Mr. Bulger stood grim-faced, his hands clasped in front of him, while a court clerk read the verdict, which came on the fifth day of deliberations. Mr. Bulger faces up to life in prison at his sentencing scheduled for Nov. 13. He has been in federal custody since 2011.
[h=3]Who is James 'Whitey' Bulger[/h]
Associated PressBoston police booking file photo combo shows James 'Whitey' Bulger after an arrest.
Mr. Bulger, who once topped the Federal Bureau of Investigation's most-wanted list, was found guilty of 31 counts of a 32-count federal indictment that accused him of participating in 19 murders while presiding over a lucrative web of extortion, money-laundering and drug-dealing from the 1970s to mid-1990s.
The jury, however, found Mr. Bulger played a role in only 11 of the murders. Prosecutors didn't prove he had a hand in seven of the murders, jurors decided, and they declined to make a finding in the 1981 killing of 26-year-old Debra Davis. Mr. Bulger wasn't charged with each murder individually. Instead, they were included as underlying acts in the racketeering charge. He was also acquitted of one extortion charge.
The verdict came almost 20 years after Mr. Bulger was indicted and brought to a close a seven-week trial that recalled the gritty history of South Boston, the Irish-American enclave where his Winter Hill Gang was based, and resurrected an unsavory chapter for the FBI.
Prosecutors said Mr. Bulger was a top informant on the Italian Mafia who tapped his corrupt handlers for tips that allowed him to avoid prosecution and kill potential witnesses. Mr. Bulger vehemently denied being an informant. His lawyers said he paid off investigators for information.
"We just hope that [the case] is a learning lesson for law enforcement," Thomas Foley, the retired head of the Massachusetts State Police, said before the verdict was announced. Mr. Foley testified that his probes into Mr. Bulger were derailed by the FBI. A Department of Justice spokesman couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Mr. Bulger didn't take the stand and called the trial a "sham" because he wasn't allowed to mount his preferred defense: He said he had been granted immunity years ago by a former federal prosecutor in return for information that saved his life. The prosecutor died in 2009.
The government portrayed Mr. Bulger as a remorseless killer whose gang murdered rivals, witnesses, and innocent bystanders. Prosecutors called 63 witnesses, including ex-gangsters who described seeing Mr. Bulger kill and take naps afterwards, relatives of alleged murder victims, law-enforcement officials and bookmakers and shopkeepers.
On opening day, Mr. Bulger's defense lawyer, J.W. Carney Jr., surprised the courtroom by admitting to much in the indictment, saying Mr. Bulger had made millions through his criminal operation, including in the drug trade.
But Mr. Bulger didn't admit to murder. His defense, which called 10 witnesses, focused largely on attacking the credibility of the three mobsters-turned-government witnesses, including close associate Stephen "the Rifleman" Flemmi. His admissions of participating in murder with Mr. Bulger had helped prosecutors build their case. Each of the three former gangsters had received reduced sentences for cooperating. The defense portrayed them as lying out of self-interest.
The defense focused heavily on explicitly denying Mr. Bulger had strangled the only two women among the alleged victims and insisting he had never been an informant, a move seen as protecting Mr. Bulger's place in history. The lack of a finding on Ms. Davis represented a modest victory for Mr. Bulger, albeit a largely symbolic one. The defense argued that Mr. Flemmi strangled Ms. Davis, his ex-girlfriend.
"He doesn't want to be known as an informant, or rat, or someone who kills women," Boston criminal defense lawyer Harvey Silverglate, who wasn't involved in the case, said before the verdict. Mr. Bulger was found to have participated in the 1985 murder of Deborah Hussey, also 26 and Mr. Flemmi's stepdaughter.
Crime buffs, novelists and filmmakers have had a grim fascination with Mr. Bulger, who was raised in a South Boston housing project and became a crime boss, while his brother William Bulger became president of the Massachusetts Senate and later, the University of Massachusetts.
James Bulger allegedly fled Boston in 1995 after he was tipped off to the pending indictment by his former FBI handler, John Connolly, who served 10 years in prison for warning Mr. Bulger.
Mr. Connolly, who has maintained his innocence and alleged more far-reaching corruption among law-enforcement officials and prosecutors, is now serving a state prison sentence for his connection to a Miami murder. His onetime supervisor, John Morris, has admitted taking $7,000 in bribes from Mr. Bulger and an associate. He received immunity from prosecution in exchange for his cooperation with authorities.
Law enforcement for years pursued tips of "Whitey" sightings from Mississippi to London to Sicily. He and his girlfriend Catherine Greig were captured in 2011 in Santa Monica, Calif., with a cache of weapons and $822,000 hidden in their apartment. She pleaded guilty in March 2012 to harboring a fugitive and other charges and received an eight-year sentence.
Write to Jon Kamp at [email protected] and Jennifer Levitz at [email protected]
Corrections & Amplifications
James Bulger allegedly fled Boston in 1995 after he was tipped off to the pending indictment by his former FBI handler. An earlier version of this article said he fled in 1994.
