Early life
A mug shot of Bulger taken in 1953
Bulger's father, James Joseph Bulger, was the son of parents from
Newfoundland, now part of
Canada. His father married Jane Veronica McCarthy, a first generation Irish-American, after he settled in
Boston, Massachusetts.
[14][15][16] Their first child, James Jr., was born in 1929.
The elder Bulger worked as a laborer and occasional
longshoreman. However, he lost his arm in an industrial accident,
[17] and the family was reduced to poverty.
[18] In May 1938, the
Old Harbor Village public housing project (formerly known as the Mary Ellen McCormack Housing Project) was opened in
South Boston.
[19] The Bulger family moved into it and the children grew up there. Young James preferred the streets, but his younger brothers (
Billy and Jackie), excelled at school.
Jimmy Bulger was arrested in 1943 at the age of 14 and charged with
larceny.
[citation needed] He by then had joined a juvenile gang known as the "Shamrocks" and would eventually be arrested for
assault,
battery and
armed robbery and was sentenced to a
juvenile reformatory. Shortly after his release in April 1948, he joined the
United States Air Force.
[20] After his
basic training, he was stationed first at the
Smoky Hill Air Force Base in
Salina, Kansas, and later in
Idaho. Hardly a model airman, he was sentenced to the
stockade for several assaults. He was also arrested in 1950 for going
absent without leave. Nevertheless, he received an honorable discharge in 1952 and returned home to Massachusetts.
[20]
[edit] Early criminal career
[edit] Prison
Alcatraz mug shot of Bulger, 1959
In the 1950s Bulger was first in federal custody at
Atlanta Penitentiary (1956–1959) for armed robbery and hijacking. There, according to mobster
Kevin Weeks,
[21] he was involved in the
MK-ULTRA program, the goal of which was to research mind-control drugs for the
Central Intelligence Agency, headed by CIA chemist
Sidney Gottlieb.
[22] For eighteen months, Bulger and eighteen other inmates who had volunteered to lessen their sentences were given
LSD and other drugs.
[21] Bulger later complained that he and the other inmates had been "recruited by deception," and that they were told that they were helping to find "a cure for
schizophrenia".
[23]
He was then transferred from Atlanta to
Alcatraz Island, arriving on November 2, 1959, as prisoner #AZ1428. He became a close friend of fellow inmate
Clarence Carnes, alias "The Choctaw Kid". In November 1962, he was transferred to
Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary (1962–1963), and in the following year to
Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary (1963–1965). He was released after serving nine years in prison.
[edit] The Killeen Gang
After his release, Bulger worked as a janitor prior to becoming an enforcer for
Donald Killeen, the boss of the dominant crime family in South Boston. In 1971, Killeen's younger brother allegedly bit off the nose of Michael Dwyer, a member of the rival
Mullen Gang. A gangland war soon resulted, leading to a string of killings throughout Boston and the surrounding suburbs. The Killeens quickly found themselves outgunned and outmaneuvered by the younger Mullens.
According to
Kevin Weeks:
"One day while the gang war was still going on, Jimmy was driving down Seventh Street in South Boston when he saw Paulie (Paul McGonagle) driving toward him. Jimmy pulled up beside him, window to window, nose to nose, and called his name. As Paulie looked over, Jimmy shot him right between the eyes. Only at that moment, just as he pulled the trigger, Jimmy realized it wasn't Paulie. It was Donald, the most likable of the McGonagle brothers, the only one who wasn't involved in anything. Jimmy drove straight to William "Billy" O'Sullivan's house on Savin Hill Avenue and told O'Sullivan, who was at the stove cooking, 'I shot the wrong one. I shot Donald.' Billy looked up from the stove and said, 'Don't worry about it. He wasn't healthy anyway. He smoked. He would have gotten lung cancer. How do you want your pork chops?'"[24]
According to former Mullen boss
Patrick Nee, Paul McGonagle was enraged by the murder of his brother. Certain that Billy O'Sullivan was responsible, McGonagle ambushed and murdered Bulger's mentor. The end of the war has usually been related as follows. Bulger, realizing that he was on the losing side, secretly approached
Howie Winter, the leader of the
Winter Hill Gang. He allegedly told Winter that he could end the fighting in South Boston by murdering the leaders of the Killeen gang. Shortly thereafter, Donald Killeen was gunned down outside his home in the suburb of
Framingham.
[20] Former Mullen Gang boss
Patrick Nee disputes this claim. According to Nee, the slaying of Donald Killeen on May 13, 1972, was carried out not by Bulger but by Mullen Gang enforcers James Mantville and Tommy King.
[25]
Also according to Nee, Bulger and the Killeens fled the city in the aftermath of their boss's murder, fearing that they would be next. Instead of murdering Bulger, however, Patrick Nee arranged for the dispute to be mediated by Howie Winter and
Patriarca crime family captain Joseph Russo. After a sit-down at Chandler's restaurant in the
South End, Boston, the two gangs joined forces, with Winter as overall boss.
[26]
Nee stated,
Nobody talked fault, although at first it was tense while we ran down the 'who killed who' list. Whitey was a defeated warrior looking to keep as much honor as possible. He knew the Mullens had courageous, fierce men willing to die for theirs, and he was perceptive. Deep down, Whitey knew that he couldn't take over for the Killeens without cutting the Mullens in on their bookmaking and loansharking. Tommy [King] and I felt victorious, but we didn't want to gloat. The meeting lasted for six hours. We ate good steaks, chasing them down with nothing stronger than ginger ale. It was business, and contrary to media stereotype, we weren't a bunch of lowlifes who sat around drinking beer all day and all night.[27]
According to Nee,
The balance of the meeting was spent forming an alliance, and by far the hardest part was deciding whom to protect. After a war, each side usually gets to protect so many people from harm. Those who aren't protected are fair game for retribution and 'shake-downs.' Everything was split down the middle. All the horses, dogs, bookmaking, and loansharking were now going to be under our mutual control. This was the beginning of our relationship. Whitey and I were now officially partners and nobody at that table could ever have possibly imagined how this treacherous fuck would treat his partners.[28]
[edit] The Winter Hill Gang
Journalist and radio personality
Howie Carr argues that Bulger rapidly became
Howie Winter's man in South Boston by helping the Winter Hill Gang shake down the
bookmakers in
Boston's North End. To do this, they had to remove the Notarangeli crew, headed by "Indian Joe" Notarangeli. Bulger allegedly played an important role in the Winter Hill Gang's victory and subsequent domination of organized crime in the
Irish-American neighborhoods of Boston. It has been alleged that he was involved in the shooting of two members of the Notarangeli crew that killed Al Plummer and wounded Hugh Shields. Because of this, he became an influential member of the Winter Hill Gang.
[20] This has never been confirmed, however.
By 1973, Bulger and Nee were in control of the rackets in South Boston. FBI Special Agent Condon noted in his log in September 1973, that Bulger had been heavily shaking down the bookmakers in the area. After the gangland war ended, Bulger began to use his influence to remove opposition by persuading Howie Winter to sanction the killings of those whom he viewed as having "stepped out of line". These included Mullen Gang veterans
Spike O'Toole,
Paulie McGonagle and Tommy King. It is also alleged that he had direct involvement in the murders of Eddie Connors and Buddy Leonard in November 1975.
[20] After 1975, he also began to use his FBI deal to send his rivals to prison.
In 1979, Howie Winter was arrested, along with many members of his inner circle, on charges of fixing horse races. Bulger and
Stephen Flemmi, who were left out of the indictments, stepped into the vacuum and took over the leadership of the gang. They transferred its headquarters to the Lancaster Street Garage in Boston near the
Boston Garden in the North End.
[20]
[edit] FBI informant
In 1971, the FBI, searching for reliable information in their battle against the
Patriarca crime family, approached Bulger and attempted to recruit him as an informant. FBI Special Agent Dennis Condon was assigned to make the pitch. Although some information is alleged to have been passed on, Condon noted that Bulger was too concerned about his own safety to start working with the FBI.
[20]
In 1974, Bulger became partners with Stephen Flemmi, who had been an FBI informant since 1965. Although it is a documented fact that Bulger soon followed Flemmi's example, exactly how and why continues to be debated. Special Agent
John Connolly frequently boasted to his fellow agents about how he had recruited Bulger at a late night meeting at Wollaston Beach inside an FBI issue car.
[29] Author
Howie Carr alleges that Bulger had been an off-the-books informant since his teenage years. Carr further claims that, like Flemmi, Bulger had been recruited by Special Agent
H. Paul Rico. Carr argues that "the Boston FBI office 'didn't need Whitey nearly as much as they needed his brother
Billy' — and the favors that Billy could dispense on those who took care of his interests, including Whitey."
[23] Kevin Weeks considers it more likely that Flemmi had helped build a Federal case against Bulger. He writes of his belief that Bulger was caught between a rock and a hard place: supply information to the FBI or return to prison.
[30] Flemmi later remarked of his and Bulger's tenure as FBI informants: "Me and Whitey gave [the Feds] shit, and they gave us gold."
[23]
In 1997, shortly after
The Boston Globe disclosed that Bulger and Flemmi had been informants, Weeks met with retired Agent John Connolly, who showed him a photocopy of Bulger's FBI informant file. In order to explain Bulger and Flemmi's status as informants, Connolly said, "The Mafia was going against Jimmy and Stevie, so Jimmy and Stevie went against them."
[31]
According to Weeks,
As I read over the files at the Top of the Hub [restaurant] that night, Connolly kept telling me that 90 percent of the information in the files came from Stevie. Certainly Jimmy hadn't been around the Mafia the way Stevie had. But, Connolly told me, he had to put Jimmy's name on the files to keep his file active. As long as Jimmy was an active informant, Connolly said, he could justify meeting with Jimmy and giving him valuable information. Even after he retired, Connolly still had friends in the FBI, and he and Jimmy kept meeting to let each other know what was going on. I listened to all that, but now I understood that even though he was retired, Connolly was still getting information, as well as money, from Jimmy. As I continued to read, I could see that a lot of the reports were not just against the Italians. There were more and more names of Polish and Irish guys, of people we had done business with, of friends of mine. Whenever I came across the name of someone I knew, I would read exactly what it said about that person. I would see, over and over again, that some of these people had been arrested for crimes that were mentioned in these reports. It didn't take long for me to realize that it had been bullshit when Connolly told me that the files hadn't been disseminated, that they had been for his own personal use. He had been an employee of the FBI. He hadn't worked for himself. If there was some investigation going on and his supervisor said, 'Let me take a look at that,' what was Connolly going to do? He had to give it up. And he obviously had. I thought about what Jimmy had always said, 'You can lie to your wife and to your girlfriends, but not to your friends. Not to anyone we're in business with.' Maybe Jimmy and Stevie hadn't lied to me. But they sure hadn't been telling me everything.[32]
A U.S. District Court judge found on September 5, 2006, that the mishandling of Bulger and his associate Stephen Flemmi caused the murder in 1984 of John McIntyre in a lawsuit brought by the victim's family who will receive more than $3 million from the U.S. government. The judge stated the FBI failed to properly supervise their own agent John Connolly (convicted and jailed in 2002) and also failed to investigate numerous allegations that Bulger and Flemmi were involved in drug trafficking, murder, and other crimes over decades.
[33]
[edit] Crime boss
[edit] Consolidating power
Winter and most of his organization's leadership were sentenced for fixing
horse races in 1979, but the FBI persuaded federal prosecutors to drop all charges against Bulger and Flemmi. Bulger and Flemmi then took over the remnants of the
Winter Hill Gang and used their status as
informants to eliminate competition. The information they supplied to the FBI in subsequent years was responsible for the imprisonment of several Bulger associates whom Bulger viewed as threats; however, the main victim of their relationship with the federal government was the
Italian-American Patriarca crime family, which was based in Boston's North End, and in
Federal Hill, Providence. After the 1986 RICO indictment of
underboss Gennaro Angiulo and his associates, the Patriarca family's Boston operations were in shambles. Bulger and Flemmi stepped into the ensuing vacuum to take control of
organized crime in the Boston area.
[20]
By 1988, Bulger headed an organization that ran all of the rackets throughout
New England,
e.g.,
extortion,
loansharking,
bookmaking, truck hijackings and
arms trafficking. They were also the main
cocaine and
marijuana distributor in the state, receiving their drugs from a
Cuban-American gang based in
South Florida.
[citation needed]
State and federal agencies were repeatedly stymied in their attempts to build cases against Bulger and his inner circle. This was caused by several factors. Among them was Bulger's paranoid fear of
wiretaps, South Boston's code of silence, and also corruption within the
Boston Police Department, the
Massachusetts State Police, and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Although disgraced FBI agent
John Connolly remained Bulger's most infamous friend in law enforcement,
Kevin Weeks has insisted that Lieutenant
Richard J. Schneiderhan was valued far more highly. According to Weeks, this was because Schneiderhan was the
Winter Hill Gang's only source inside of the Massachusetts State Police.
[citation needed]
[edit] Drug trafficking
Bulger, Weeks and Flemmi became heavily involved in narcotics trafficking in the early 1980s. Bulger began to summon drug dealers from in and around Boston to his headquarters. Flanked by
Kevin Weeks and Flemmi, he would inform each dealer that he had been offered a substantial sum to assassinate them. He would then demand a large cash payment not to do so. Eventually, however, the massive profits of drugs proved irresistible. According to Weeks,
Jimmy, Stevie and I weren't in the import business and weren't bringing in the marijuana or the cocaine. We were in the shakedown business. We didn't bring drugs in; we took money off the people who did. We never dealt with the street dealers, but rather with a dozen large-scale drug distributors all over the State who were bringing in the coke and marijuana and paying hundreds of thousands to Jimmy. The dealers on the street corner sold eight-balls, ... grams, and half grams to customers for their personal use. They were supplied by the mid level drug dealer who was selling them multiple ounces. In other words, the big importers gave it to the major distributors, who sold it to the middlemen, who then sold it to the street dealers. In order to get to Jimmy, Stevie, and me, someone would have had to go through those four layers of insulation.[34]
In South Boston, most of the neighborhood's drug trade was managed by a handpicked crew of prize fighters led by
John Shea. Edward MacKenzie Jr., a former member of Shea's crew, has stated that this was done because Shea viewed athletes as less likely to abuse the drugs they were selling. According to Weeks, Bulger enforced strict rules over the dealers who were paying him protection.
The only people we ever put out of business were heroin dealers. Jimmy didn't allow heroin in South Boston. It was a dirty drug that users stuck in their arms, making problems with needles, and later on, AIDS. While people can do cocaine socially and still function, once they do heroin, they're zombies.[35]
Weeks also alleges that Bulger strictly forbade
PCP and selling to children,
[36] and that those dealers who refused to play by his rules were violently driven out of the neighborhood. In 1990, "Red" Shea and his associates were arrested as part of a joint investigation involving the
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Boston Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police. All refused to testify against Bulger, Flemmi, and Weeks. According to Weeks,
Of course, Jimmy lost money once the drug dealers were removed from the streets in the summer raid, but he always had other business going on. Knowing I had to build something on the side, I had concentrated on my shylocking and gambling businesses. The drug business had been good while it lasted. But our major involvement in it was over."[37]
It would not be until the 1999 cooperation of Weeks that Bulger, by then a fugitive, was conclusively linked to the drug trade by investigators.
[edit] Won the state lottery
One week in the summer of 1991, Bulger and 3 friends came into possession of the winning
Massachusetts Lottery ticket, which had been bought at a store he owned. The four men shared a prize of around $14 million.
[38]
[edit] Downfall
In April 1994, a joint
task force of the DEA, the
Massachusetts State Police, and the Boston Police Department launched a probe of Bulger's gambling operations. The FBI, by this time considered compromised, was not informed. After a number of bookmakers agreed to testify to having paid
protection money to Bulger, a Federal case was built against him under the RICO Act.
According to Kevin Weeks,
In 1993 and 1994, before the pinches came down, Jimmy and Stevie were traveling on the French and Italian Riviera. The two of them traveled all over Europe, sometimes separating for a while. Sometimes they took girls, sometimes just the two of them went. They would rent cars and travel all through Europe. It was more preparation than anything, getting ready for another life. They didn't ask me to go, not that I would have wanted to. Jimmy had prepared for the run for years. He'd established a whole other person, Thomas Baxter, with a complete ID and credit cards in that name. He'd even joined associations in Baxter's name, building an entire portfolio for the guy. He'd always said you had to be ready to take off on short notice. And he was.[39]
He had also set up
safe deposit boxes, containing cash, jewelry, and passports, in locations across North America and Europe including
Florida,
Oklahoma,
Montreal,
Dublin,
London,
Birmingham (UK) and
Venice. In December 1994, Bulger was informed by retired FBI Agent
John Connolly that sealed indictments had come from the
Department of Justice and that the FBI were due to make arrests during the Christmas season. In response, Bulger fled Boston on December 23, 1994, accompanied by his
common law wife, Theresa Stanley.
[citation needed]
[edit] Fugitive
After fleeing Boston, Bulger and Stanley initially spent four days over Christmas in
Selden, New York, before spending New Year's Day in a hotel in
New Orleans'
French Quarter. On January 5, 1995, Bulger prepared to return to Boston, believing that it had been a false alarm. That night, however, Stephen Flemmi was arrested outside a Boston restaurant by the DEA. Michael Flemmi, Stephen's brother and Boston police officer, informed Weeks of the arrest. Weeks immediately passed the information on to Bulger, who altered his plans.
[20]
Bulger and Stanley then spent the next three weeks traveling between New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco before Stanley decided that she wanted to return to her children. They then traveled to
Clearwater, Florida, where Bulger retrieved his "Tom Baxter" identification from a safe deposit box. Bulger then drove to Boston and dropped off Theresa Stanley in a parking lot. He then met with Weeks, who had brought with him Bulger's girlfriend, Catherine Greig. Bulger and Greig then went on the run together.
[20]
In his memoirs, Weeks describes a clandestine meeting with Bulger and Greig in
Chicago, Illinois. Bulger reminisced fondly about his time hiding out with a family in Louisiana. He told Weeks, who had replaced him as head of the Winter Hill Gang, "If anything comes down, put it on me."
[40] As they adjourned to a nearby Japanese restaurant, Bulger finally revealed how exhausted he was with life on the run. He told Weeks, "Every day out there is another day I beat them. Every good meal is a meal they can't take away from me."
[41]
New York Public Library, 42nd Street and 5th Avenue
In mid-November 1995, Weeks and Bulger met for the last time, at the lion statues at the front of the
New York Public Library, and adjourned for dinner at a nearby restaurant. According to Weeks,
At the end of our dinner, he seemed more aware of everything around him. His tone was a little more serious, and there wasn't as much joking as usual. He repeated the phrase he'd used before that a rolling stone gathers no moss, which told me that he knew he was going to be on the move again. I got the feeling that he was resigning himself to the fact that he wasn't coming back. Up until then, I always believed he thought there was a chance he'd beat the case. However, at that point, there was something different going on with him. I didn't fully understand all the aspects of his case. It would be another six months before it became clearer. Yet at that moment, in that restaurant in New York, I sensed that he had moved to a new place in his mind. It was over. He'd never return to South Boston.[42]
On November 17, 1999, Weeks was arrested by a combined force of the DEA and the Massachusetts State Police. Although by this time he was aware of Bulger's FBI deal, Weeks was determined to remain faithful to the neighborhood code of silence. However, while awaiting trial in
Rhode Island's
Wyatt Federal prison, Weeks was approached by a fellow inmate, a "
made man" in the
Patriarca crime family. The wiseguy told him, "Kid, what are you doing? Are you going to
take it up the ass for these guys? Remember, you can't rat on a rat. Those guys have been giving up everyone for thirty years."
[43]
Retouched photo done in 2004.
In the aftermath, Weeks decided to cut a deal with federal prosecutors, and revealed where almost every penny and body was buried. According to Weeks,
I had known all along, however, that it would not be easy for anyone to capture Jimmy. If he saw them coming, he would take them with him. He wouldn't hesitate. Even before he went on the run, he'd always say, 'Let's all go to hell together.' And he meant it. I also knew that Jimmy wouldn't go to trial. He would rather plead out to a life sentence than put his family through the embarrassment of a trial. If he had a gun on him, he'd go out in a blaze of glory rather than spend the rest of his life in jail. But I don't think they'll ever catch him.[44]
The last confirmed sighting of Bulger before his capture was in London in 2002.
[45] However, there were unconfirmed sightings elsewhere. FBI agents were sent to
Uruguay to investigate a lead. FBI agents were also sent to stake out the 60th memorial of the
Battle of Normandy celebrations, as Bulger is reportedly an enthusiastic fan of military history. Later reports of a sighting in Italy in April 2007, proved false. Two persons on video footage shot in
Taormina, Sicily, formerly thought to be Bulger and his lover, Catherine Greig, walking in the streets of the city center, were finally identified as a tourist couple from Germany. Evidence was provided by viewers of the German television programme
Aktenzeichen XY … ungelöst, which had aired an episode containing a film about Bulger.
[46]
In 2010, the FBI turned its focus to
Victoria, British Columbia, on
Vancouver Island.
[47] In pursuit of Bulger, a known book lover, the FBI visited bookstores in the area, questioned employees, and distributed wanted posters.
[47][48] Following his arrest, Bulger revealed that he had in fact travelled frequently. Also following his arrest, it was clear that he had not been reclusive, witnesses coming forward to say they had seen him on the Santa Monica Pier and elsewhere in southern California.
[49] A confirmed report by an off-duty Boston police officer after a
San Diego screening of
The Departed also led to a search in Southern California that lasted "a few weeks".
[50]
[edit] Capture
Retouched photo of Jimmy Bulger (2008)
After sixteen years at large and twelve years on the
FBI Ten Most Wanted list, Bulger was arrested in
Santa Monica, California, on June 22, 2011.
[51][52][53][54]
Bulger was captured as a result of the work of Deputy U.S. Marshal Neil Sullivan. Sullivan had only been assigned to the Whitey Bulger Task Force led by the FBI for approximately seven months. According to retired FBI agent Scott Bakken,
"Here you have somebody who is far more sophisticated than some 18-year-old who killed someone in a drive-by. To be a successful fugitive you have to cut all contacts from your previous life. He had the means and kept a low profile."[55]
A reward of US$2 million had been offered for information leading to his capture.
[56][57][58] Bulger has been featured on the television show
America's Most Wanted 16 times, first in 1995 and last on October 2, 2010. According to the authorities, the arrests were a "direct result" of the media campaign launched by the FBI in 14 markets across the country where Bulger and Greig reportedly had ties. The campaign focused on Greig, describing her as an animal lover who frequently goes to beauty salons.
[59]
Authorities received a tip on a Tuesday evening from a woman in Iceland that he was living in a Santa Monica, California, apartment near a beach.
[60] A day later, "... using a ruse, agents and other task force members lured Mr. Bulger out of his apartment", "arrested him 'without incident,' then went in the house and arrested Greig".
[59] Bulger was charged with murder, "conspiracy to commit murder, extortion, narcotics distribution and money-laundering". Agents found "more than $800,000 in cash, 30 firearms and fake IDs" at the apartment.
[59] Carmen Ortiz, U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, stated that "she believes the death penalty is not an option in the federal charges Bulger faces in her district, but that she believes he could face the death penalty for two cases outside the district."
[59] In Oklahoma, where Bulger is alleged to have ordered the killing of businessman Roger Wheeler, Sr. in 1981, Tulsa County District Attorney Tim Harris stated: "It is our intention to bring Bulger to justice and to be held accountable for the murder of Mr. Wheeler." In Florida, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said: "After a 16-year delay, I will be working to ensure that a Miami jury has the opportunity to look (Bulger) in the eyes and determine his fate."
[61]
Immediately after being brought back to Boston, Bulger began talking to authorities. He informed them that during his days as a fugitive he was able to go back and forth frequently across the border to Mexico to buy medicine that he needed for his cardiac problems.
[62][63] It is anticipated by many, and feared by some, that Bulger will have a lot to say to authorities about the corruption on the local, state and federal level which enabled him to operate his criminal enterprise for so long, and that such disclosures may earn Bulger some special treatment in sentencing.
[7][8][9]
[edit] Family
Beginning in 1967, Bulger began a
common law marriage lasting almost thirty years with Theresa Stanley, a South Boston divorcee with several children. Bulger bought her an expensive house in suburban
Quincy, Massachusetts, and acted as father to her children while commuting to "work" in South Boston. However, he was repeatedly unfaithful to her with a host of other women and was often absent overseeing the running of his organization. Stanley has stated that she is planning to publish her memoirs.
[citation needed]
Bulger is the oldest brother of John "Jackie" Bulger, a retired Massachusetts court clerk magistrate who was convicted in April 2003 of perjury to two
grand juries regarding sworn statements he gave concerning contacts with his fugitive brother.
[64]
The middle brother,
William "Billy" Bulger, is a
Korean War veteran in addition to formerly being an influential leader of the
Democratic Party in
Massachusetts. In a long political career, Senator Bulger rose to become President of the
Massachusetts State Senate. After his retirement he was appointed President of the
University of Massachusetts. In his 2002 testimony before the
United States Congress, William Bulger was grilled by legislators from both parties. When asked what he thought his brother did for a living, Senator Bulger responded: "I had the feeling that he was in the business of gaming and ... or whatever. It was vague to me, illegal but I didn't ... not all that violent ... For a long while he had some regular jobs, but ultimately it was clear that he was not, he wasn't doing what I'd like him to do. Let's just say I was naive in retrospect." He added that he loves his brother and hoped the most brutal rumors concerning him will be proven false. In addition, he grudgingly admitted to visiting an isolated pay phone in order to speak to his older brother, who was by then a fugitive. In 2003, as fallout from these comments, Bulger was forced out by then-Governor of Massachusetts
Mitt Romney from the presidency of the University of Massachusetts.
[65]
[edit] Press relations
According to Weeks,
Most of the time, The Boston Globe wasn't as inaccurate as the Herald. They just knocked the people from Southie during busing. They also liked to describe me as, 'Whitey's surrogate son', another example of the media putting labels on people they wrote about. Jimmy and I were friends, not like father and son. Even though he was the boss, he always treated me equally, like an associate, not a son. The reporter who seemed to do the most research and put real effort into getting the true story without having been there was Shelley Murphy, who had been at the Herald for ten years when she went to work for the Globe in 1993. But Jimmy and I usually ended up laughing at most of the news stories, as time and time again the media had it wrong, over and over again holding to their pledge to never let the truth get in the way of a good story.[66]
[edit] Paul Corsetti
Bulger did have a breaking point with the press. A week or so after the 1980 slaying of
Louis Litif,
Boston Herald reporter
Paul Corsetti began researching an article about the murder and Bulger's suspected involvement in it. After several days of reporting the story, he was approached by a man who told him, 'I'm Jim Bulger and if you continue to write shit about me, I'm going to blow your fucking head off."
[67] Corsetti attempted to seek out help from the
Patriarca crime family, but was informed that Bulger was outside their control. According to Kevin Weeks, "The next day, Corsetti reported the meeting to the Boston police. He was issued a pistol permit within twenty-four hours. The cop who gave him the permit told him, 'I'm glad my last name is not Corsetti.' A couple days later, Jimmy told me about the scene with the cop and was glad to hear how uncomfortable he'd made Corsetti."
[67]
[edit] Howie Carr
In his memoirs, Kevin Weeks relates his participation in an attempt to assassinate reporter Howie Carr at his house in suburban
Acton, Massachusetts. He states that, although several plans were considered, all were abandoned because there was too much risk of injuring Carr's family.
[68] Weeks has stated that, although he is fully aware of the public outcry that would have followed, he regrets not murdering Howie Carr. "His murder would have been an attack on the system, like attacking
freedom of the press, the fabric of the American way of life, and they would have spared no expense to solve the crime. But in the long run, Jimmy and I got sidetracked and the maggot lived. Still, I wish I'd killed him. No question about it
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