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Thread: James "Whitey" Bulger

  1. #81
    Senior Member CnCP Addict one_two_bomb's Avatar
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    I'd prefer all these turds were just executed for their original murder conviction(s)

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    Note to self: never ever argue with a mobster over Tony Bennett tickets.

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    UPDATE: U.S. Attorney Powell in WV: His office & FBI will be investigating death of mobster Whitey Bulger

    By Matt Harvey
    WVNews

    BRUCETON MILLS — The death of Boston mobster and federal informant James “Whitey” Bulger in the federal prison at Hazelton will be investigated by the office of Northern West Virginia U.S. Attorney Bill Powell and the FBI, according to a spokeswoman for Powell.

    No other information will be released at this time, said the spokeswoman, Stacy Bishop, in an email.

    The Bureau of Prisons issued a news release stating that Bulger was found dead around 8:20 a.m. Tuesday at the high-security U.S. penitentiary. The news release states that life-saving measures “were initiated immediately by responding staff,” and Bulger was pronounced dead by Preston County’s medical examiner.

    The New York Times, citing two Bureau of Prisons employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Bulger was beaten by inmates to the point he couldn’t be recognized.

    Bulger, 89, was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts to life for racketeering conspiracy, racketeering, extortion conspiracy, money laundering, possession of unregistered machine guns, transfer and possession of machine guns, possession of firearms with obliterated serial numbers and possession of machine guns in furtherance of a violation crime, according to the Bureau of Prisons.

    He had arrived at the Hazelton prison Monday, according to the agency.

    His health was deteriorating, and reports indicated his death appeared imminent.

    Bulger had been moved from a Florida prison to one in Oklahoma in the past week. No reason was given for the moves or the latest transfer to Hazelton, one of the federal system’s roughest prisons with 1,270 inmates from across the country.

    An email message left with the U.S. Bureau of Prisons main office wasn’t immediately answered, and a phone message left with a prison official also wasn’t immediately returned. An FBI official referred inquiries to the Bureau of Prisons.

    The union representing correctional officers and staff at the Hazelton prison issued a news release in the wake of Bulger’s death.

    “Today’s reported death at USP Hazelton, while concerning, is unsurprising,” said J. David Cox Sr., president of the American Federation of Government Employees. “Federal prisons across the country are suffering from severe understaffing, and the situation is perhaps no more dire than at Hazelton.”

    The union reported that one in five positions authorized two years ago is vacant, and teachers, administrative assistants and accountants have had to fill in shifts as officers and first responders to violent incidents.

    “Our union’s call to fill these vacant positions unfortunately has fallen on deaf ears,” said Rick Heldreth, president of the union’s Local 420, which represents more than 800 employees at Hazelton. “We weren’t even notified by the prison warden about today’s death for hours after it had occurred. This incident only exacerbates the tense work environment at the prison and highlights how neglectful management is readily putting all staff in danger.”

    Back in April, after an inmate died following an altercation in a housing unit at the penitentiary, which is part of the Hazelton Federal Correctional Complex, Heldreth said fatal violence was part of a “very disturbing trend with increases in drugs and weapons being found in the complex.”

    “Just since Jan. 1, 2018, there have been over 60 documented violent incidents at the FCC, and prisons at the complex have been ‘locked down’ nine times due to violence,” Heldreth told Preston County News & Journal Editor Joseph Hauger in an April 4 email. “It has become an everyday occurrence. For example, there have been at least 11 weapons confiscated at the facility in the last two days that I have seen documentation of.”

    Heldreth told the Preston County News & Journal that staff vacancies at the center had grown to 104 (759 positions filled out of 863 authorized) by last March.

    On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-District of Columbia, issued a news release calling for an Inspector General investigation “into the operations and prisoner conditions at this federal prison.”

    Two other inmates killed at Hazelton this year were from the District of Columbia.

    “Based on reports from my constituents who are housed at Hazelton and their relatives, there appears to be a serious shortage of staffing and other resources, leaving prisoners and guards vulnerable to attacks,” Norton wrote. “James ‘Whitey’ Bulger’s death, which occurred one day after he was transferred to Hazelton, underscores reports of a culture of violence at Hazelton and the need for the Inspector General to begin an investigation immediately.”

    When inmates are killed at Hazelton, it generally takes years for the cases to go to trial.

    For instance, Michael A. Owle, 29, of Cherokee, North Carolina, and Ruben Laurel, 39, of San Antonio, weren’t indicted until May 1 in the alleged Aug. 29, 2012, stabbing death of fellow Hazelton prison inmate Anthony Morris Dallas, 31, as well as the stabbing of another inmate.

    And their trial in a death penalty charge case isn’t scheduled to go to jurors until the spring of 2020.

    In another Hazelton slaying case that dated to 2007 and took several years to wrap up, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Flower wrote to U.S. District Judge Irene M. Keeley in 2012 seeking a protective order.

    The motion by Flower, who handles Hazelton prosecutions, offered a glimpse at some of the difficulties of prosecuting cases at the prison,which is said by many to be its own world of violent criminals and gang life.

    The motion noted that “inmates in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons, particularly at federal penitentiaries, are reluctant to cooperate in investigations of criminal activity in prisons because they do not want to be labeled as a ‘rat,’” Flower wrote.

    “An inmate’s safety can be placed at risk if it is disclosed that they even spoke with law enforcement regarding criminal activity,” Flower wrote. “Merely because an inmate is not incarcerated at USP Hazelton does not ensure their safety. Although many of the witnesses involved in this matter are no longer incarcerated at USP Hazelton, inmates can readily share information throughout the Bureau of Prisons system.”

    And in that 2007 prison slaying, another detail came out during the pendency of the case that points to just how tough it is to police a prison such as Hazelton.

    The victim of the fatal stabbing and his two attackers all passed through a metal detector moments prior to the Oct. 7, 2007, homicide.

    https://www.wvnews.com/news/wvnews/u...f32ba6121.html
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  4. #84
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    Official: Mafia hit man suspected in Whitey Bulger's slaying

    BOSTON (AP) - A Mafia hit man who is said to hate "rats" is under suspicion in the slaying of former Boston crime boss and longtime FBI informant James "Whitey" Bulger, who was found dead hours after he was transferred to a West Virginia prison, an ex-investigator briefed on the case said Wednesday.

    The former official said that Fotios "Freddy" Geas and at least one other inmate are believed to have been involved in Bulger's killing. The longtime investigator was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

    Authorities have not disclosed the cause of death.

    Among the many unanswered questions after Bulger was found dead on Tuesday: Why was he moved to the prison? And why was a frail 89-year-old like Bulger - a known "snitch" - placed in the general population instead of more protective housing?

    Geas, 51, and his brother were sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for their roles in several violent crimes, including the 2003 killing of Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno, a Genovese crime family boss who was gunned down in a Springfield, Massachusetts, parking lot.

    Private investigator Ted McDonough, who knew Geas, told The Boston Globe: "Freddy hated rats."

    "Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. It's probably that simple," McDonough told the newspaper, which first reported that Geas was under suspicion.

    It was not clear whether Geas has an attorney. Several other lawyers who represented him over the years didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

    An FBI spokeswoman in Pittsburgh declined to comment on Geas. Federal officials said only that they are investigating the death as a homicide.

    "What I don't understand is why the Federal Bureau of Prisons would transfer a super high-publicity inmate, who is a known snitch, to general population of a high-security prison," said Cameron Lindsay, a former federal prison warden who now works as a jail security consultant. "You've got to be smarter than that."

    He added: "If I was the warden of Hazelton, I would have never, ever allowed him to be put within my general population. It is just too risky."

    Bulger's death was the third killing in the past six months at the prison, where union officials have raised concerns about dozens of vacant jobs. Two inmates were killed in fights with other prisoners in September and April.

    Five members of Congress wrote to Attorney General Sessions last week about what they saw as chronic understaffing at USP Hazelton and other federal prisons.

    Bulger led South Boston's Irish mob for decades and became an FBI informant who supplied information on the New England Mafia, his gang's main rival, in an era when bringing down the Italian mob was a top national priority for the bureau.

    Tipped off that he was about to be indicted, Bulger became a fugitive and eluded authorities for 16 years before being captured in 2011. He was convicted in 2013 in 11 underworld slayings and a long list of other crimes and was sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

    He had just arrived Monday at USP Hazelton, a high-security prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. He had previously been in a prison in Florida, with a stopover at a transfer facility in Oklahoma City. Federal Bureau of Prisons officials and his attorney declined to comment on why he was being moved.

    Bulger's attorney, J.W. Carney Jr., blamed his death on prison officials, saying Bulger "was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty."

    Bureau of Prison officials had no comment on Carney's remarks.

    The Geas brothers were not made members of the Mafia because they were Greek, not Italian. But they were close associates of the mob and acted as enforcers.

    https://www.wjhl.com/news/official-m...ger/1564546072
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  5. #85
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    Fotios (Freddy) Geas, a Mafia hit man from Massachusetts, seen in court in 2009, is a suspect in the death of James (Whitey) Bulger.


    Whitey Bulger’s Fatal Prison Beating: ‘He Was Unrecognizable’

    By Katharine Q. Seelye, William K. Rashbaum and Danielle Ivory
    The New York Times

    BOSTON — The inmates who killed James (Whitey) Bulger, Boston’s notorious crime boss, deliberately moved out of view of surveillance cameras in a West Virginia prison before pummeling him with a padlock that was stuffed inside a sock, law enforcement officials said on Wednesday, as investigations began into how such a murder could have taken place in a supposedly secure facility.

    Despite the attackers’ efforts to hide, officials said, cameras caught video images of at least two inmates rolling Mr. Bulger, 89, who was in a wheelchair, into a corner where the attack took place. Mr. Bulger was bleeding profusely when he was found by prison authorities at 8:20 Tuesday morning. Guards immediately undertook lifesaving measures, officials said, but he was pronounced dead.

    A prison official identified one of the suspects as Fotios (Freddy) Geas, 51, a Mafia hit man from West Springfield, Mass. He is serving a life sentence at the Hazelton penitentiary in West Virginia for the 2003 killing of the leader of the Genovese crime family in Springfield.

    Daniel D. Kelly, who has represented Mr. Geas for many years, said in an interview that he had no idea whether his client was involved in killing Mr. Bulger, who was an informant for the F.B.I., a relationship he manipulated as a cover while he betrayed and murdered rival gang members.

    But Mr. Kelly did say that Mr. Geas “has a particular distaste for cooperators.” Mr. Kelly said that Mr. Geas’s feelings about informants were so strong that when he was given a chance to avoid a life sentence by cooperating with the authorities, he did not take it.

    Mr. Bulger’s death, within hours of his arrival at the prison, raised numerous questions. Mr. Bulger, a longtime federal informer and a prolific killer over several decades, knew many who would want him dead. But how was he left vulnerable to a beating so forceful that it displaced his eyeballs?

    “I’m not surprised that he got hit; I’m surprised that they let him get hit,” said Ed Davis, the former Boston police commissioner.

    Mr. Bulger’s eyes appeared to have been dislodged from his head, although it was unclear whether his attackers gouged them out or if they were knocked out because he was beaten so severely in the attack. This information was relayed by a senior law enforcement official who oversees organized crime cases but is not involved in the investigation into Mr. Bulger’s death, and who said he had learned it from a federal official.

    “They apparently tuned him up to the point where he was unrecognizable,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case.

    Officials said the beating was carried out at least in part with a padlock-stuffed sock, a not uncommon method that inmates use to attack one another.

    At least two inmates were quickly sent to solitary confinement after Mr. Bulger was found, according to three employees of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, who requested anonymity because the investigation was not public. Mr. Geas was among those sent to solitary, according to prison documents obtained by The New York Times.

    Mr. Davis, the former police commissioner, said he was baffled that the prison had not done more to keep Mr. Bulger “away from a convicted organized crime hit man from Massachusetts.”

    The United States attorney’s office in West Virginia said Wednesday that it and the F.B.I. were investigating Mr. Bulger’s death as a homicide. It had no further comment.

    Mr. Bulger was serving two life terms in prison for his role in 11 murders committed when he controlled the Boston underworld over several decades.

    He was killed after being in Hazelton for less than 12 hours, after he was transferred from another facility. By then, he had already established a record of troubling activity in other prisons.

    At the Coleman prison complex in Florida in September 2014, he was disciplined multiple times, including once for masturbating in front of a male staff member and once, in February, for threatening a female medical staff member, according to the prison documents.

    In February, Mr. Bulger told the female staff member that her day of reckoning was coming, according to a prison official with knowledge of the event. Mr. Bulger was sent to solitary confinement as a result and remained there until October when he was transferred to a facility in Oklahoma, according to the documents. On October 29, he was transferred to Hazelton.

    The documents indicated he was transferred to Hazelton because he had completed medical treatment, not for disciplinary reasons.

    But Mr. Bulger was said to be in questionable health. He was in a wheelchair for several years, according to Henry Brennan, one of his lawyers.

    “He could stand up by himself, but he could not walk,” Mr. Brennan said in an interview Wednesday. “He was looking forward to getting out of solitary confinement to try to teach himself how to walk again.”

    Mr. Brennan said that Mr. Bulger damaged his hip during his two years of pretrial incarceration in solitary confinement.

    “He was continuously falling off the bed and injuring his hip,” Mr. Brennan said, adding that his inability to exercise also contributed to several health problems.

    In his younger years, Mr. Bulger was a fitness fanatic who obsessed over taking care of his body and keeping in top physical condition.

    Many in Boston, particularly in Mr. Bulger’s old stomping grounds in South Boston, were relieved at the news that the long, deadly saga of Mr. Bulger finally appeared over.

    An 85-year-old man named Ed, who did not want to give his last name because he said he knew one of Mr. Bulger’s brothers and did not want to alienate him, spoke for many when he said that Mr. Bulger’s death represented a kind of justice.

    “I hate to be morbid, but knowing the way of person he was, it’s probably a long time coming, seeing that he was responsible for so many other families’ and people’s misery over the years,” he said as he walked around Boston Harbor’s Castle Island, where Mr. Bulger frequently strolled with his associates.

    “There’s an old saying, ‘What goes around comes around,’” he added.

    Many of the families of Mr. Bulger’s victims did not hide their glee.

    “All I really wanted to do was get that champagne bottle and pop that cork,” said Patricia Donahue, whose husband, Michael Donahue, was killed in a shooting linked to Mr. Bulger in 1982. Mr. Donahue was giving a ride to his neighbor, Edward (Brian) Halloran, an F.B.I. informant who had implicated Mr. Bulger in a murder, when he was killed in a spray of bullets intended for Mr. Halloran.

    “It’s been a long time waiting,” Ms. Donahue said. “Now my family can relax a little bit, now that we don’t have to worry about hearing his name all the time.”

    Steven Davis, the brother of Debra Davis — whom Mr. Bulger was said by his former associate, Stephen (The Rifleman) Flemmi, to have strangled to death in 1981 — also said he was pleased.

    For one thing, he said, Mr. Bulger’s killing would provide a suitable ending to a nonfiction mini-series that he and Ms. Donahue are helping to develop, based on the transcripts of Mr. Bulger’s trial.

    “He died the way I hoped he always was going to die,” Mr. Davis said.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/u...gtype=Homepage

  6. #86
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    Plot thickens in Whitey Bulger murder case with transfer of 2 prisoners

    By Rich Shapiro
    NBC News

    In the hours after Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger was found beaten to death in his prison cell, three inmates were hauled away to solitary confinement. There they remained for two years, eight months and more than 20 days, as the investigation into Bulger’s murder dragged on.

    But earlier this week, two of the prisoners, Paul DeCologero and Sean McKinnon, were transferred out of the federal prison in West Virginia, according to online records and family members. The man left behind, a former Mafia hitman named Fotios “Freddy” Geas, remains in solitary.

    The transfer of DeCologero and McKinnon marks a fresh twist in the federal prison system’s most high-profile investigation. It also sparked renewed outrage from Geas’ family over what they consider to be his inhumane treatment behind bars.

    “Enough is enough,” said Geas’ son, Alex, 26. “It’s 23 hours a day in a cement cell with no connection to the outside world.”

    Alex Geas said he last spoke to his father, who gets two phone calls a month, three weeks ago. He said his father doesn’t complain to him about his captivity, but he has made clear that he doesn’t want to be kept in limbo any longer.

    “Two and a half years is insane,” Alex Geas said. “It really is inhumane. If they had the evidence, go ahead and indict him. If not, transfer him and release him out of solitary.”

    The 89-year-old Bulger’s battered body was discovered by prison guards about 8:20 a.m. on Oct. 30, 2018.

    Nearly three years later, no one has been charged with the crime and questions remain over how the notorious mobster and longtime FBI informant ended up in a prison unit with at least two other gangsters from Massachusetts, Geas and DeCologero.

    McKinnon, who hails from Vermont and was locked up for stealing guns from a firearms store, was Geas’ roommate at the time of Bulger’s killing. He was moved into a cell in a special housing unit, commonly known as solitary confinement, where inmates are segregated from the general population and denied privileges such as access to TV, regular phone calls and time in the yard.

    Inmates placed in special housing units sometimes share a cell; McKinnon spent much of his time in solitary in the same cell as DeCologero.

    McKinnon’s mother, Cheryl Prevost, told NBC News that he called her on Wednesday from a facility in Atlanta and said prison guards had rousted him and DeCologero out of bed about 2:30 a.m. the day before.

    “They said, ‘Get your stuff. You’re going out of here,’” Prevost said. “He had no idea he was leaving.”

    As of Friday afternoon, McKinnon, 35, who has severe ADHD, was being held at a federal facility in Oklahoma that acts as a transfer point for inmates.

    His mother said he was struggling to adjust to a loud and chaotic detention facility after spending so long in solitary.

    “I’m surprised he’s even functioning,” Prevost said.

    During their call on Wednesday, Prevost said she suggested to her son that the prison transfer could mean he won’t be charged in Bulger’s killing.

    “He said, ‘Mom, I don’t want to talk about it,’” Prevost said. “He was just glad to get out.”

    McKinnon, who is serving a seven-year sentence, is set to be released from prison in July 2022. He previously told NBC News that he knows nothing about the killing of Bulger.

    DeCologero, 47, has five years left on his 25-year sentence on racketeering and witness-tampering charges. As of Friday afternoon, he was being held at the federal prison in Atlanta.

    Efforts to reach DeCologero’s family were not successful.

    The Bureau of Prisons did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

    A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of West Virginia said she had no new information to provide.

    Geas, 54, is serving a life sentence for his role in several violent crimes, including two gangland murders.

    A fourth inmate, an upstate New York man who shared a cell with Bulger the night before the killing, was held in solitary for more than five months before he was released to state custody in 2019.

    Bulger, the leader of Boston's Irish mob, spent 16 years on the run before he was captured in 2011 in Santa Monica, California. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2013.

    The older, wheelchair-using gangster was killed less than 12 hours after he arrived at the West Virginia prison in a transfer from a federal penitentiary in Florida. The decision to transfer Bulger to a notoriously violent prison and place him with the general population has drawn criticism from former wardens and other ex-prison officials.

    The slow pace of the Bulger murder investigation has also raised questions.

    Bob Hood, a former federal Bureau of Prisons chief of internal affairs and former warden at the ADX Florence "supermax" prison in Colorado, said it’s difficult to draw any firm conclusions about the decision to move McKinnon and DeCologero. Hood said there are several aspects of the case that he still doesn’t understand.

    Why were they kept in a segregated housing unit for so long? Why has no one been charged in such a high-profile case after nearly three years?

    “I’m dumbfounded by all of this,” Hood said.

    For Hood, the most critical question is not who killed Bulger but how did the Bureau of Prisons allow it to happen.

    “We might not ever know who physically killed him, but what we do know is the system killed him,” Hood said.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime...ers/ar-AAMObjJ
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    - Rev. Richard Hawke

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  7. #87
    Wilso
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    My two cents on this is that the killers should get the D.P regardless of James Bulger's extensive and evil list of crimes. Only states and the government is allowed to "kill", (I prefer to call executions euthanization like a vet putting down a dangerous animal because they are dangerous animals.)

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    In this current administration they won’t get the death penalty. Also I wouldn’t refer to murderers as Animals. Animals kill to survive. Human murderers kill for their own selfish desires
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    While I dislike calling execution "killing," as it conflates execution with unlawful homicide/murder, I don't like calling it "euthanasia," which is a noble practice of ending suffering not just in animals but in some humans. I prefer to just say execution or put to death.
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  10. #90
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    Three years after Bulger's killing, no charges have been filed

    No one has been charged in the death of James 'Whitey' Bulger

    Associated Press

    He was one of the most infamous criminals ever to be killed behind bars. And investigators narrowed in on suspects immediately after his shocking slaying in a West Virginia prison.

    Yet three years later, no one has been charged in the beating death of murderous Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger. Questions such as why the well-known FBI informant was put in the troubled lockup's general population alongside other New England gangsters — instead of more protective housing — remain unanswered.

    Federal officials will say only that his death remains under investigation. Meanwhile, the lack of answers has only fueled rumors and spurred claims by Bulger's family that the frail 89-year-old was "deliberately sent to his death" at the penitentiary nicknamed "Misery Mountain."

    "This was really a dereliction of duty," said Joe Rojas, a union representative for the correctional staff at the Florida prison where Bulger was held before being transferred to USP Hazelton in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. "There's no way he should have been put in that institution."

    Some of the families of Bulger's victims, however, feel differently.

    Steven Davis said holding someone accountable in the killing of the man accused of strangling to death his 26-year-old sister, Debra Davis, in 1981 doesn't change anything for him and other families.

    "He had what was coming to him and it didn't come soon enough," the 64-year-old Boston-area resident said. "He’s where he should have been a long time ago — in the dirt."

    Bulger was found dead on Oct. 30, 2018, hours after arriving at Hazelton from the Coleman prison in Florida, where he was serving a life sentence for participating in 11 killings. The ruthless gangster who spent 16 years on the lam before being captured in 2011 was assaulted and died of blunt force injuries to the head, according to his death certificate.

    Federal officials have never officially publicly identified any suspects and have said only that they are investigating his death as a homicide.

    But shortly after the killing, a former federal investigator and a law enforcement official who insisted on anonymity because of the ongoing probe identified two Massachusetts organized crime figures as suspects: Fotios "Freddy" Geas and Paul J. DeCologero.

    Geas, a Mafia hitman serving life behind bars for his role in the killing of a Genovese crime family boss and other violent crimes, has been in a restricted unit at the West Virginia prison since Bulger’s killing even though no charges have been filed, said his lawyer, Daniel Kelly.

    Kelly says Geas hasn’t been provided regular reviews to see if he can be released from the unit but has petitioned to be returned to the general prison population, where he’d enjoy more freedoms, including the ability to call his family more often.

    "He’s remaining positive and upbeat, but it's a punitive measure," Kelly said. "It's a prison within a prison."

    DeCologero, meanwhile, was moved earlier this year to another high-security penitentiary in Virginia. A member of a Massachusetts gang led by his uncle, DeCologero was convicted in 2006 of racketeering and witness tampering for a number of crimes and is scheduled to be released in 2026.

    Brian Kelly, one of the federal prosecutors in Bulger's 2013 murder trial in Boston, said the delays may indicate prison officials don’t have any witnesses or video evidence to support charges.

    "In a prison environment they are going to have a tough time finding any witnesses to testify as to who did it," said Kelly, now a defense attorney.

    A spokesperson for the federal prosecutors’ office in West Virginia that’s investigating Bulger’s killing along with the FBI confirmed this month that the investigation remains open. The spokesperson, Stacy Bishop, refused to answer further questions, saying doing so could jeopardize the probe.

    Bulger's transfer to Hazelton — where workers had already been sounding the alarm about violence and understaffing — and placement within the general population despite his notoriety was widely criticized by observers after his killing.

    A federal law enforcement official told The Associated Press in 2018 that Bulger had been transferred to Hazelton because of disciplinary issues. Months before he was moved, Bulger threatened an assistant supervisor at Coleman, telling her "your day of reckoning is coming," and received 30 days in disciplinary detention.

    Some answers may come in a federal lawsuit filed in West Virginia by Bulger's family. A trial has been set for February in the case, where prison system officials are accused of failing to protect Bulger from other inmates.

    The lawsuit — filed on the two-year anniversary of his killing against the former director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the former Hazelton warden and others — says prison system officials were well aware that Bulger had been labeled a "snitch" and that his life was at heightened risk behind bars. Bulger strongly denied ever being an informant.

    "USP Hazelton by all accounts was not an appropriate placement of James Bulger and was, in fact, recognized as so inappropriate, the appearance is that he was deliberately sent to his death" by the defendants, the lawsuit says.

    The family is seeking damages for Bulger’s physical and emotional pain and suffering, as well as for wrongful death. Lawyers representing the family declined to comment and calls to William Bulger, a former Massachusetts Senate president and president of the University of Massachusetts who administers his late brother's estate, went unreturned this week.

    Justice Department lawyers urged the judge in court documents filed this month to dismiss the claim, saying Bulger's family "cannot allege that BOP skipped some mandatory, procedural directive" in transferring him to Hazelton or putting him in the general population.

    Attorneys for the individual defendants said in another legal filing that the lawsuit "makes no mention of Bulger objecting to his transfer" or "ever requesting protective custody or expressing concern for his safety" upon arriving at Hazelton.

    Justice Department lawyers pointed to a declaration from an executive assistant at Hazelton that says staff interviewed Bulger the night of his arrival and reviewed other records to determine if there were non-medical reasons for keeping Bulger out of the general population.

    An intake screening form signed by Bulger that was filed in court says that he was asked such questions as: "Do you know of any reason that you should not be placed in general population?" and "have you assisted law enforcement agents in any way?" Both questions were marked "NO."

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/three-yea...-charges-filed
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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