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Thread: James "Whitey" Bulger

  1. #11
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    Witness recalls escape from death in Bulger trial

    Frank Capizzi was on his way to see his mother in Boston's North End when a torrent of gunfire struck the car he was in, riddling him with lead and decapitating one of his friends.

    "I was hit in the head and could feel warm blood running down my neck," the 78-year-old testified on Friday. He said he reached for a fellow passenger "and my hand went into his neck where his head should have been."

    Capizzi testified Friday as a witness in the trial of accused mobster James "Whitey" Bulger who is charged with killing or ordering the murder of 19 people as head of Boston's Winter Hill crime gang in the 1970s and '80s.

    Other witnesses, including Bulger's former associate John "The Executioner" Martorano, have sought to link Bulger to around a dozen of the killings, including one in which Bulger is accused of gunning down a man in a Boston phone booth for talking too much.

    Prosecutors on Friday paraded an arsenal of assault weapons through the courtroom that ballistics experts said were seized from Winter Hill Gang members and their associates - ranging from World War Two-era machine guns to pocket-size revolvers.

    Testimony from Capizzi, who claims he is unsure of his age and sometimes hears plain English as Sicilian due to a medical condition, was some of the most riveting to date in what is expected to be a four-month trial.

    Capizzi, who has admitted to living a criminal life, was granted immunity by U.S. District Judge Denise Casper for anything he says in the Bulger trial.

    He has said he suspects the shooters who injured him on March 19, 1973, were from the Winter Hill Gang. He said doctors removed 11 bullets from his back during a four-hour operation, but left many others in.

    "I was imbedded," he said.

    Bulger, now 83, has pleaded not guilty to all charges. If convicted, he faces the possibility of life in prison.

    The accused gangster fled Boston after a 1994 tip from the corrupt FBI agent that arrest was imminent. He evaded arrest for 16 years before law enforcement caught up with him living in hiding in Santa Monica, California on June 22, 2011.

    His story inspired the Academy Award-winning 2006 film "The Departed."

    On Friday, Bulger had another brush with Hollywood. Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall, who is in Boston shooting a film called "The Judge," sat at the back of the courtroom observing the trial.

    The trial took a tearful turn on Thursday, with family members testifying about the intended and accidental victims of the Winter Hill Gang. Among them was Nancy Ferrier, who described the call to her house when she was 14 reporting that her father, Al Plummer, had been shot in the face.

    "I was home alone with my sister, my mother wasn't at home," Ferrier said, adding that the family was first told her father had survived the attack but later learned he had been pronounced dead on arrival at Massachusetts General Hospital.

    Prosecutors are preparing to submit as evidence the 700-page file that the FBI developed on Bulger in the years when the agency claims he served as an informant.

    Through his attorney, Bulger denied ever being an informant, insisting that he paid a corrupt FBI agent for information but never provided any of his own.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...95K0W620130621

  2. #12
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    "Whitey" Bulger said 'no one' would believe him an informant: FBI files

    James "Whitey" Bulger told his FBI handlers he had no fears that his more than decade-long cooperation with them would put him in any personal peril because "no one" would believe the accused mob boss was talking to them, according to evidence introduced at his trial on Monday.

    Even as he killed criminal associates out of fear that they were providing information to law enforcement, Bulger met regularly with Boston FBI officials to expose rival gangsters or focus blame for his crimes elsewhere, a bureau official told Bulger's murder and racketeering trial.

    "No one would dare believe that he was an informant. It would be too incredible," the FBI report described Bulger as saying in a 1980 meeting. His reported comment came in response to a warning from his FBI handler - the now disgraced agent John Connolly - that he could be in danger of being found out.

    Bulger's attorneys, meanwhile, continued to argue that their 83-year-old client never served as an FBI informant and said the bureau's 700-page file introduced as evidence at trial was not proof that he had talked to investigators.

    The accused former leader of Boston's Winter Hill crime gang is on trial for charges including 19 murders he is alleged to have committed or ordered in the 1970s and '80s. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted.

    His case stands as a black mark on the FBI's history. Bulger and Connolly shared an Irish background and grew up in the same South Boston neighborhood, and for years the agent turned a blind eye to Bulger's crimes as he worked to build cases against gangsters of Italian ethnicity.

    Bulger played up his hatred of the Italian Mafia in meetings with Connolly and his superiors, said FBI Special Agent James Marra, an investigator with the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General, who read from records related to Bulger's meetings with the bureau in court on Monday.

    At one point he assured his handlers that, "if he should be killed it would be because of a vendetta between the remaining Winter Hill gang and the LCN (La Cosa Nostra, or Italian mob) who have hated each other but tolerate each other because of the muscle each have to retaliate," Marra said.

    SPARRING ON FILES

    Bulger's attorneys have strenuously objected to the idea that their client was an FBI informant. To be one - a "rat," in the criminal parlance - would have been a severe breach of the underworld code, and Bulger himself is accused of murdering associates precisely because they were doing that.

    "There is not one witness that has come in and said that Mr. Bulger gave any information to anybody," one of Bulger's attorneys, Henry Brennan, of Carney & Bassil, told the judge when jurors were out of the courtroom.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Wyshak dismissed the notion that the FBI files on Bulger were anything but authentic.

    "Unless it is Mr. Bulger's contention that all of these agents got together to fabricate this file for some reason, his contention that he was not an FBI informant is simply absurd," Wyshak said.

    The section of Bulger's informant file reviewed on Monday recounted how he spent a year warning his FBI handlers that rival gangsters were souring on fellow thug Brian Halloran, and after the man's murder was quick to finger a killer.

    Halloran, who was gunned down in May 1982 outside a fish restaurant a few blocks from the courthouse where Bulger is being tried, is among the 19 people Bulger is accused of killing.

    "Source advised that the Mafia want Brian Halloran 'hit in the head' to shut him up as a potential witness," read an October 1981 memo written by Connolly.

    Two days after Halloran's murder, another report said Bulger "stated that the Mafia should not be ruled out in that they stood to gain the most from Halloran's death."

    Connolly has since been convicted of racketeering, obstruction of justice and murder for tipping off the gang's leaders of efforts to arrest them as well as for identifying informants.

    Connolly was sentenced in 2009 to 40 years in prison for the his role in allowing the gang to commit murders.

    Prosecutors have said Bulger fled Boston after a 1994 tip from Connolly. He eluded arrest for more than 16 years before FBI officials tracked him down in June 2011, living with his girlfriend in a seaside apartment in Santa Monica, California.

    The accused gangster's story has captured Boston's imagination for decades and inspired the Academy Award-winning 2006 film "The Departed."

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...95N0UP20130624

  3. #13
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    'Whitey' Bulger lawyers challenge FBI's 700-page informant file

    Reputed mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger's lawyers questioned the accuracy of a key piece of evidence in his murder and racketeering trial on Tuesday, seeking to cast doubt on the 700-page informant file that a now-disgraced FBI agent had kept on him.

    The attorneys pointed out several times that the agent, John Connolly, is in prison after being convicted on racketeering and murder charges in 2009, and that a federal investigation found that Connolly had falsified some of his reports.

    The reports were part of a file that the FBI developed through the 1970s and '80s when Bulger is accused of murdering or ordering the murder of 19 people.

    Prosecution witnesses this week told jurors about meetings during which Bulger had provided tips on gangland rivals to his Federal Bureau of Investigation handlers, including Connolly.

    But Bulger, 83, has heatedly denied serving as an informant.

    The defendant, whose story had inspired Martin Scorsese's 2006 Academy Award-winning film "The Departed," has pleaded not guilty to all charges and faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted.

    On Tuesday, Bulger's attorneys cross-examined FBI Special Agent James Marra, who headed the Justice Department probe that lead to Connolly's conviction on murder and racketeering charges.

    "Can you confirm firsthand that (Bulger) gave any of that information?" Henry Brennan, of the Boston law firm Carney & Bassil, asked Marra.

    "Firsthand? No," the agent replied.

    Brennan later asked if the federal government went out of its way to protect informants, getting Marra to admit that "it was clear to me that John Connolly was protecting them."

    Marra acknowledged that agents such as Connolly received financial incentives from the FBI to develop high-level informants such as Bulger.

    "I don't know if it was an enormous incentive, but the agents were encouraged to cultivate informants," Marra said.

    Bulger's attorneys have argued that Connolly made up at least some of the information in Bulger's file to justify his frequent meetings with the gangster.

    Connolly's former boss, John Morris, is due to take the stand as soon as Wednesday.

    Jurors also heard on Tuesday how Connolly had set up alerts in U.S. Justice Department computer systems that ensured he was tipped off whenever another law enforcement agent ran a background check on Bulger.

    'RATTING PEOPLE OUT'

    The families of some of Bulger's victims said they were not buying the argument that he had not worked with the FBI.

    "He was obviously an informant, he's been ratting people out left and right, even his own colleagues," said Tom Donahue, son of Michael Donahue, one of the people Bulger is accused of killing. "That wasn't even a question of mine."

    Cooperating with the FBI was enough of a breach of mob ethics that prosecutors contend it was the motivation behind several of Bulger's murders, but this was not uncommon - as the testimony of some of Bulger's former associates in the past two weeks showed.

    Prosecutors say Connolly, who shared Bulger's Irish background, turned a blind eye to Bulger's crimes in exchange for information on the Italian Mafia, which was the top priority of the Justice Department at the time.

    Prosecutors also scoff at the idea that Bulger was not an informant, noting that he met with several other FBI agents and supervisors in addition to Connolly.

    In an exchange before jurors were brought into the courtroom on Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Kelly accused Bulger's defense of wanting to "play the game of ‘Let's pretend. Let's pretend he wasn't an informant.'"

    Bulger's story has fascinated Boston for decades. He was one of two brothers to rise from gritty South Boston to positions of power. James was a feared gangster, while his brother William was the powerful speaker of the state Senate.

    "Whitey" Bulger fled the city after a 1994 tip from Connolly that arrest was imminent. He spent 16 years evading arrest, many of them on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list, before authorities caught up with him in a seaside apartment in Santa Monica, California, a little more than two years ago.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...95O1F020130625

  4. #14
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    Ex-FBI agent takes stand at Bulger's trial

    A former FBI agent who admitted taking $7,000 in payoffs from James "Whitey" Bulger (BUHL'-jur) has testified that his first meeting with Bulger was "more of a social meeting than business."

    John Morris began testifying Thursday. He was a supervisor of former FBI agent John Connolly, who was convicted of racketeering and second-degree murder for leaking information to Bulger's gang.

    Morris, who has been given immunity, has admitted protecting Bulger from prosecution.

    He testified that he first met Bulger in 1977. Morris said he, Connolly and Bulger met at Morris' home because Connolly "wanted Mr. Bulger to be comfortable."

    The 83-year-old Bulger is accused of participating in 19 murders while he allegedly led the Winter Hill Gang. His lawyers deny the prosecution claim that he was a longtime FBI informant.

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  5. #15
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    Whitey Bulger curses old FBI nemesis in federal trial

    James “Whitey” Bulger glared at a disgraced former FBI official who was testifying against him and told him, “You’re a [expletive] liar,” a federal prosecutor said today at the notorious gangster’s trial.

    Assistant US Attorney Brian T. Kelly said Bulger shouldn’t be allowed to intimidate John Morris as he once threatened 15-year-old boys in South Boston. Speaking after jurors had left the courtroom, he asked US District Judge Denise J. Casper to admonish Bulger.

    It was unclear if any of the jurors had heard Bulger. Neither the judge nor the media in the courtroom did.

    Casper advised Bulger to rely on his lawyers’ advice. “Do you understand?” she asked.

    “Yes,” he said.

    The outburst came after Morris had testified that Bulger was the informant who warned the FBI that loanshark victim Peter Pallotta was having second thoughts about going into the Witness Protection Program and had sent a letter to the Winter Hill gang offering to stop cooperating with authorities if they gave him money to flee.

    But Bulger has long had an animus against Morris. He grew to hate him after realizing it was Morris who told The Boston Globe in 1988 that Bulger was an informant. And after Bulger went on the lam, he telephoned Morris and threatened him. Morris then suffered a heart attack.

    Morris testified this morning about having Bulger over for dinner at his home in upscale suburban Lexington.

    Morris, now a wine consultant, was nicknamed “Vino” by Bulger and his gang when they knew him because of his taste for wine.

    Morris said Bulger’s handler, corrupt FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr., whom he supervised and considered his best friend, recommended the meeting place, telling Morris he wanted Bulger to feel comfortable.

    “He wanted it to be pleasant surroundings, not the surroundings you would ordinarily meet an informant,” such as a hotel, or in a car, Morris said.

    He also said he later met Bulger and Bulger’s cohort Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, and he found it extraordinary that the two informants would be meeting together.

    “I’ve never seen it before or since,” he said.

    Morris, now 67, retired from the FBI in 1995. He later admitted to taking gifts from Bulger and Flemmi, including $7,000 and bottles of wine, and has agreed to cooperate in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

    He told jurors today that he had been assigned to FBI units across the country and returned to Boston in the 1970s, where he met Connolly. He said he knew Bulger as a leader in the Winter Hill gang, and later as Connolly’s informant.

    He said Connolly’s “forte was informants.”

    Morris said he became familiar with the Winter Hill gang and the Mafia as part of his work on the case of Pallotta, a Revere club owner.

    Also this morning, jurors heard from Paul McGonagle, the son of alleged Bulger victim Paul “Paulie” McGonagle.

    The son, now 53, told jurors that he was 14 when his father went missing in November 1974.

    “My dad had always told me to try and take care of my mom and brother if anything should happen,” he said. His brother was 10 at the time.

    A year later, Bulger approached him with aviator sunglasses and told him his gang “took care of the guys who got my father,” McGonagle said.

    The elder McGonagle, who was 36 when he went missing, was a reputed leader of the South Boston Mullens Gang and a Bulger rival. His remains were unearthed in September 2000 from a grave at the edge of Tenean Beach in Dorchester.

    Prosecutors say that Bulger committed his crimes under a cloak of protection from the FBI as a prized informant who worked for agents with whom he had become too cozy. Defense attorneys insist Bulger was not an informant.

    Federal prosecutors are in the midst of presenting a massive case against Bulger. The trial began June 12.

    http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013...XUO/story.html

  6. #16
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    Disgraced FBI supervisor, John Morris, says he feared being prosecuted for his own crimes

    A disgraced former FBI supervisor told a US District Court jury today that he panicked in 1995 when federal prosecutors arrested Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, out of fear that the member of the Winter Hill Gang would expose the FBI agent’s own crimes.

    “I was worried about everything surfacing,” said John Morris, a former supervisor of the organized crime unit at the Boston FBI office who retired that same year. “I certainly did not want my bad behavior known in any way, shape or form.”

    Morris, now 67, is testifying in the federal trial of James “Whitey” Bulger, who faces a sweeping federal racketeering indictment charging him with 19 murders. Prosecutors say Bulger, 83, was able to carry out crimes for so long because he was being protected by corrupt FBI handlers.

    Bulger has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is being held without bail.

    Under cross examination by Bulger’s lawyer Henry Brennan, Morris agreed that he only agreed to testify after he was granted immunity from prosecution. Morris has acknowledged that he took $7,000 in cash from Bulger, as well as other gifts such as boxes of wine. He left the area to work at FBI headquarters in Quantico, Va., the early 1990s.

    Morris acknowledged under questioning that he panicked when Flemmi, Bulger’s crime partner, was indicted in 1995 because Flemmi knew about the bribes. Bulger, who was tipped off to the indictments by another corrupt FBI agent, fled the area and wasn’t captured until 16 years later.

    “You were concerned your secrets would no longer be secrets, weren’t you?” Brennan asked Morris.

    Morris agreed.

    Flemmi did disclose the bribes when he argued in the late 1990s that criminal charges against him should be dropped because he had been cooperating with the FBI for years. The argument, while unsuccessful, led to a series of hearings in 1998 that exposed the extent of Bulger and Flemmi’s relationship with the FBI.

    During Flemmi’s prosecution, Morris testified that his subordinate FBI agent, John J. Connolly Jr., had cultivated Bulger as an informant, but that they had a corrupt relationship. Morris testified Thursday that he feared Connolly had provided information about other informants to Bulger that led to Bulger murdering them.

    Today, Brennan suggested that Morris was only testifying to avoid prosecution for his own crimes, including his potential guilt in the murder of Brian Halloran, an informant, whom Bulger is accused of killing in 1982. Michael Donahue, an innocent bystander, was also killed in the shootout.

    Morris said he had “no direct role” in their slayings, but worried how it could have been interpreted.

    “I didn’t want to carry that burden anymore, I wanted to get out of it,” Morris said.

    Morris acknowledged under cross examination that while he met Bulger 8 to 10 times, the meetings were partly social.

    Bulger has argued he was not an informant.

    “The truth is, Mr. Bulger was buying [information], he wasn’t selling, was he?” Brennan suggested.

    Morris denied the suggestion.

    http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013...OXN/story.html

  7. #17
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    Disgraced former FBI agent apologizes to family of Whitey Bulger victim; admits passing on information that allegedly led to two murders

    Disgraced former FBI agent John Morris grew emotional on the stand in the trial of James “Whitey” Bulger Monday as he looked at the family of one of the gangster’s alleged murder victims and apologized for what he has acknowledged could have been his “indirect” role in the killing.

    “Not a day goes by that I don’t pray that God gives you blessing and comfort for the pain,” Morris said to the Donahue family, seated in the front row.

    “I do want to express my sincere apology for things I did, and I didn’t do,” he said. “I do not ask for forgiveness — that’s too much. But I do acknowledge it publicly.”

    Michael Donahue’s widow, Patricia, sat in the front row of the courtroom, looking shaken. Her son Michael had his arm around her shoulders. Her two other sons, Shawn and Tom, sat behind them.

    The elder Michael Donahue was an innocent bystander who was giving Bulger associate Brian Halloran a ride home in 1982 when Bulger allegedly sprayed their car with bullets, killing them both. Morris acknowledged that he had passed along the information that apparently triggered the attack: that Halloran was cooperating with authorities investigating a murder in which Bulger allegedly played a role.

    Patricia Donahue said she believed Morris was sincere in his apology.

    “I think he does live with a lot of guilt, and that’s his punishment,” Donahue said. But she also said she only believed Morris apologized because Brennan “put him on the spot.” She said it marked the first time anyone in the FBI had ever apologized to her for her husband’s slaying.

    “I don’t forgive it,” she said. “Their ‘sorries’ come too late.”

    In other dramatic testimony today, the defense suggested during cross-examination that Morris had asked Bulger to kill his wife while he was in the middle of a divorce. Morris vehemently denied it.

    “Did you ask Mr. Bulger to do something about your wife?” defense attorney Henry Brennan asked.

    “Absolutely not,” Morris said.

    “Do you remember Mr. Bulger telling you he’d have nothing to do with it?”

    “Absolutely not,” Morris said. “There was no such conversation.”

    Donahue and Halloran were allegedly killed after Bulger learned from his corrupt FBI handler, John J. Connolly Jr., that Halloran had begun cooperating with authorities investigating a murder in Oklahoma in which Bulger was allegedly involved.

    Morris, a supervisor in the FBI at the time investigating organized crime, acknowledged that he learned from two agents that Halloran was cooperating, and they asked him if Halloran was trustworthy. He said he was not.

    He said he then passed the information about Halloran’s cooperation along to Connolly in a conversation, later realizing it could ultimately get back to Bulger.

    “It was spontaneous. It just happened, and I wish it hadn’t,” he said.

    But Bulger’s lawyer, Henry Brennan, argued, “You knew if the information got out, you knew that could lead to danger.”

    “You knew when you were giving Mr. Connolly this information, you knew you were signing Mr. Halloran’s death warrant,” Brennan said.

    Morris denied the suggestion.

    The former FBI agent, now 68, retired in 1995, the same year Bulger and Flemmi were first indicted. He is testifying for the third day that Bulger was an informant who was allowed to carry out crimes while being protected by the FBI. He also acknowledged that he received gifts and $7,000 in cash from Bulger. He says he regrets his corruption. He has been testifying under an agreement that gives him immunity from prosecution for his crimes.

    Bulger’s lawyers argue that Bulger was not an informant and was actually paying corrupt agents for information. The defense suggested in the cross-examination of Morris that Connolly was fabricating information and putting it in Bulger’s file, to make it look like the gangster was providing information.

    Morris has acknowledged that FBI agents were encouraged at the time to cultivate high-level informants to glean information about the Mafia.

    Bulger, 83, faces a sweeping federal racketeering indictment charging him, among other things, with playing a role in 19 murders during his decades-long reign of terror in Boston’s underworld. His legend grew when he eluded a worldwide manhunt for 16 years before his capture in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2011.

    During Bulger’s criminal rise, his brother, William M. Bulger, ascended himself to become one of the most powerful politicians in the state as president of the state Senate. The James Bulger saga has inspired numerous books, TV shows, and movies.

    Also today, US District Court Judge Denise Casper denied a defense request that they be allowed to comment on the evidence and witnesses to reporters, a request Bulger’s lawyers argued was needed to fully defend him since Bulger is subject of harsh attacks in the media by relatives of the people he allegedly killed.

    “Even as counsel may have a duty to respond to unfavorable coverage in the media prior to jury selection to ensure that the jury who is seated is impartial and not tainted by coverage, the need to do so after the jury is seated is greatly lessened,’’ Casper wrote.

    She added, “the need for effective assistance of counsel at this juncture of the case is in the courtroom and not the courthouse steps. There is nothing about adherence to [a federal court rule banning out-of-court comments] that prevents counsel from doing what they have been doing since the start of trial — defending Bulger before the jury seated in this case.’’

    http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013...KnN/story.html

  8. #18
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    Witness: Bulger threatened life over drug business

    He returned to his South Boston neighborhood after seven years in prison for armed robbery to a warm greeting from James "Whitey" Bulger.

    "Welcome home," the reputed gangster told William Shea when they met on a street corner. Then he passed him $500 cash.

    During the next decade, Shea worked with Bulger to build a booming cocaine-dealing business, Shea testified Tuesday at Bulger's trial.

    But, he said, Bulger created a charade to make it look like he wasn't involved in the operation in order to protect his local reputation. Shea also said his friendly relationship with Bulger took an icy turn after Shea said he wanted out.

    "You remember what happened to Bucky Barrett?" Shea said Bulger told him, referring to a safecracker whom prosecutors say Bulger killed.

    Bulger has pleaded not guilty to charges against him, which include participating in 19 slayings in the 1970s and `80s while he was allegedly running the notorious Winter Hill Gang. The 83-year-old fled Boston in 1994 and wasn't captured until 2011.

    During Tuesday's proceedings, the last day of testimony until Monday, prosecutors also played recorded jailhouse conversations.

    During one of the three recordings, Bulger mimics the "rat-tat-tat" sound of a machine gun when speaking about a local bar owner, Edward Connors. Prosecutors say Bulger and his partner, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, gunned down Connors in a phone booth because they were afraid he'd tie them to the killing of a Bulger rival.

    "The guy in the phone booth. Rat-tat-tat!" Bulger says during the 2012 conversation with a relative. He also remarks that someone threw his name "into the mix" about that murder, before making the "rat-tat-tat" sound again.

    Earlier Tuesday, Connors' daughter, Karen Smith, who was 7 when her father was killed, gave emotional testimony during which she recalled learning her father was dead by seeing the picture of his sprawled body on TV.

    Shea's testimony, by contrast, was at times light-hearted and even nostalgic. Shea was asked to point out Bulger and identified him as "the young fella there," causing Bulger to chuckle.

    Shea said he thinks Bulger reached out to him when he got out of prison in 1977 because he was in the 5th Street Crew, a violent South Boston outfit that had tensions with Bulger.

    "He was making a sincere effort ... to absorb us," Shea said.

    Shea said he later saw a money-making opportunity by reining in drug dealers who were operating independently and taking a cut of their earnings. He approached Bulger, who agreed to the plan, but didn't want to be linked to dealing.

    Instead, Shea testified, Bulger would tell people being intimidated by Shea's group to just deal with it, and they'd capitulate.

    Bulger later helped him find suppliers as they moved from dealing low-grade marijuana to high-quality cocaine. By the mid-1980s, Shea said, they were making $100,000 a week, and Bulger was getting a $10,000 weekly cut.

    Shea said he wanted to get out of operation by 1986 or so, believing he'd earned enough and police were on to him. Bulger objected, saying Shea was essential to the operation. But Shea would leave for Florida for weeks at time, trying to show Bulger things could run without him. After one trip, an agitated Bulger mentioned Barrett.

    During one of their last meetings, Bulger, Flemmi and another gang member drove Shea to an empty housing project, where Bulger directed him to a concrete basement.

    "I'm thinking he took me down there to frighten me, or whack me, either one," Shea testified.

    But after a conversation, Bulger seemed satisfied he could trust Shea, and they walked back upstairs. When Bulger and his crew offered to drive him home, Shea politely declined.

    "I said, `No, I can walk.'"

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  9. #19
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    Bulger gang life - collections, beatings, walks on Boston beach

    Life in accused mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger's gang entailed collecting money from bookies, beating people up and taking long walks along Boston's waterfront to talk business, a top enforcer for the former "Winter Hill" gang told a jury on Monday.

    Kevin Weeks, 57, is the second of Bulger's top associates to testify against his former boss, who is on trial on charges of committing or ordering 19 murders in the 1970s and 1980s.

    Bulger, 83, fled Boston after a 1994 tip from a corrupt FBI official that his arrest was imminent. He evaded authorities for 16 years while listed prominently on the bureau's "Ten Most Wanted" list before his capture in Santa Monica, California, in June 2011.

    If convicted, he faces life in prison.

    During his years with the gang, Weeks recalled, he would routinely leave work as a track repairman for Boston's transit system to meet Bulger in the late afternoon.

    They often walked through parts of South Boston, including Castle Island, a popular beach in the city, along with fellow gang member Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi to discuss business.

    "Jim liked to walk for the fresh air and the exercise," he said. "We talked outside so we wouldn't be intercepted by law enforcement."

    Weeks served just five years in prison after confessing to five murders in exchange for testifying against Bulger. He is the second of three top associates of the gang to testify at the trial, now in its fifth week.

    Earlier, the jury heard from John "The Executioner" Martorano, who calmly recounted committing a dozen murders while working with Bulger.

    Weeks said he met Bulger while he was a bouncer at a bar, Triple O's Lounge, in the early 1980s, and that he saw Flemmi and Bulger together daily in later years.

    Weeks identified himself, Bulger and Flemmi - who is also due to testify - in photos shown in court, including one of the three sitting in lawn chairs near bleachers across from a public park.

    Weeks turned on his former boss when he learned that Bulger for years had been talking with corrupt FBI agent John Connolly, who had grown up in the same South Boston neighborhood.

    Bulger has pleaded not guilty to all charges, though in opening statements his attorney said he had been an extortionist, loan shark and drug dealer.

    Also through his attorneys, Bulger has repeatedly denied serving as an FBI informant, insisting that he paid Connolly for information but never provided any of his own.

    Connolly is serving a 40-year prison sentence after being convicted on murder and racketeering charges.

    The story of Bulger's rise from a working-class neighborhood to become one of the most feared criminals in Boston's history has fascinated the city for years. It inspired Martin Scorsese's 2006 Academy Award-winning film "The Departed."

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9670RH20130708

  10. #20
    Senior Member CnCP Legend JimKay's Avatar
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    ‘Whitey’ Bulger protege Kevin Weeks describes killings, leading police to unmarked graves

    The onetime protégé of James “Whitey” Bulger told a US District Court jury today that he led investigators to the graves of three of Bulger’s alleged victims in 2000, after he began cooperating with authorities.

    “Jim Bulger, Steve Flemmi and myself put them there,” said Kevin Weeks, 57, one of the key witnesses against Bulger in his racketeering trial.

    Weeks went on to describe the killings, starting with the murder of Arthur “Bucky” Barrett, who Bulger allegedly shot in the head in 1983.

    Barrett was a safecracker and thief who was involved in the $1 million-plus, 1980 Memorial Day weekend burglary of Depositors Trust bank in Medford. Bulger wanted to shake down Barrett for money, but believed Barrett received protection from the Mafia, Weeks said.

    In 1983, they lured Barrett to a home in South Boston under the guise of selling diamonds.

    “Bucky Barrett, freeze,” Bulger allegedly yelled out.

    Barrett froze.

    Then, according to Weeks, Flemmi and Bulger chained Barrett to a chair and interrogated him over the whereabouts of his cash. They confiscated $47,000 from his house, and another $10,000 from a bar.

    At one point, they stood Barrett up, and Bulger announced, “Bucky’s going to go downstairs and lie down.”

    While walking down the basement stairs, according to Weeks, Bulger attempted to shoot Barrett in the head. The gun safety was on. Bulger fixed it and fired it again.

    “Bucky Barrett tumbled down the stairs,” Weeks said.

    Weeks went on to describe how Bulger’s partner, Stephen Flemmi, gave him a lesson in cleaning up the blood, and how Flemmi pulled Barrett’s teeth out. Bulger, meanwhile, went upstairs to lie on a coach.

    Barrett’s body was buried in the basement of the home on East Third Street in South Boston, owned by the brother of Bulger associate Patrick Nee. Nee had been upset there was a murder, according to Weeks. “It was supposed to be a shakedown,” Weeks said.

    A year later, Bulger learned that John McIntyre may have been informing authorities about local drug dealing and the ill-fated effort to ship guns to the Irish Republican Army. Bulger and his crew lured McIntyre to the East Third Street house and interrogated him the same way, according to Weeks’ testimony.

    This time, according to Weeks, Bulger attempted to strangle McIntyre. But the rope he used was too thick.

    “You want one in the back of the head?” Bulger asked.

    “Yes, please,” McIntyre responded.


    Bulger shot him in the head, Weeks said. Flemmi thought he was still alive, so Bulger fired several more shots, according to Weeks’ testimony. McIntyre was also buried in the basement.

    Weeks also described the killing of Deborah Hussey, the daughter of Flemmi’s longtime girlfriend Marion Hussey, in January, 1985. According to Weeks, Flemmi brought Hussey to the East Third Street house, and Weeks didn’t think anything of it at the time.

    “She wasn’t a criminal, she wasn’t involved with us ... I didn’t think anything was going to happen to her,” Weeks said.

    But when he went upstairs, he heard a thud, he said. And when he came downstairs, he said, he saw Bulger on the floor choking Hussey, his legs wrapped around her, for several minutes. She was brought to the basement, but Flemmi thought she was still alive, so he strangled her again, according to Weeks. She was also buried in the basement, according to Weeks’ testimony.

    Weeks testified that the bodies had to be moved because the house was being sold. So on Halloween in 1995, Bulger, Weeks, and Flemmi exhumed the bodies to begin the process of burying them across from Florian Hall in Dorchester.

    Weeks led investigators to the burial site in January, 2000, after he began cooperating with authorities after he was indicted. Weeks testified this morning that he also told investigators of how Bulger told him of other killings, including the strangling of Debra Davis, the longtime girlfriend of Flemmi, who disappeared in 1981.

    Bulger, according to Weeks, told him that Flemmi put duct tape around Davis’ mouth, and that she was strangled. Weeks testified that Bulger didn’t tell him whether he or Flemmi killed Davis, but Bulger acknowledged he was present when she was slain. Davis’s body was later found in a marshy grave at the edge of the Neponset River.

    Weeks ultimately pleaded guilty to racketeering and aiding in five murders, and served a five-year sentence, with an agreement that he testify against Bulger.

    Bulger, 83, is charged in a sweeping racketeering indictment accusing him of 19 murders. He was arrested in June, 2011, after 16 years on the run. Weeks told jurors today that Bulger’s corrupt FBI handler John J. Connolly Jr. tipped them off that an indictment was pending just before Christmas in 1994.

    Flemmi was arrested in January, 1985. He is serving a life sentence and escaped the death penalty under an agreement that he testify against Bulger. He is expected to take the stand later in the trial.

    http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013...ChO/story.html

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