'Whitey' Bulger guilty of 11 murders in Boston mob case

James 'Whitey' Bulger, a brutalgangster who ruled over Boston's criminal underworld in the1970s and '80s and evaded capture for 16 years, was found guiltyof murder and racketeering by a jury on Monday and will likelyspend the rest of his life in prison.

The 83-year-old Bulger, dressed in a gray shirt, dark pantsand white sneakers, stood quietly as the verdict was read,showing little emotional response to the decision by jurors toconvict him after five days of deliberation in Boston federalcourt. His sentencing was scheduled for Nov. 13.

A legendary figure in Boston's underworld, Bulger ran the"Winter Hill" crime gang after coming to power in a mob war thatresulted in the death of members of rival gangs. He cemented hisgrip on Boston's crime scene through ties with corrupt FederalBureau of Investigation officials who shared his Irish ethnicityand turned a blind eye to his crimes in exchange for informationthey could use against the Italian Mafia.

During the two month-long trial, the 12 jurors heard vividdescriptions of Bulger's crimes. They included brazen daylightshootings of fellow criminals, the terrifying extortion of avictim at whose crotch Bulger aimed a machine gun and how oneassociate would pull teeth from the mouths of dead victims,hoping to make the bodies harder to identify.

Nicknamed "Whitey" because of the shock of light-coloredhair he had as a young man, Bulger fled Boston in 1994 after atip from a corrupt agent that his arrest was imminent.

He spent 16 years on the run, many of them on the FBI's "TenMost Wanted" list along with 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Ladenuntil May 2011 when bin Laden was killed. Agents caught up withBulger in June 2011, living in a seaside Santa Monica,California apartment.

The jury convicted him of all but one of 32 criminal counts.

"Thirty-one out of thirty-two counts in such a complicatedcase covering such a long period of time is a fabulous resultfor the government," said Michael Kendall, a former federalprosecutor in Boston who is now with the law firm McDermott Will& Emery. "He's going to go to jail for the rest of his life."
 
NEVER EXPECTED FREEDOM

Defense attorney J.W. Carney told reporters afterward thathis client was pleased by the outcome, and noted that Bulger hadavoided the death penalty. That would have been a possibility ifhe had been tried on state charges in Oklahoma or Florida, wheretwo of the murders were committed.

"This trial has never been about Jim Bulger being set free,"he said. Carney said that from the moment FBI officials arrestedBulger, his client knew "he was going to die behind the walls ofa prison or on a gurney, getting injected with a chemical thatwould kill him."

Bulger's lawyers, who on the first day admitted their clientwas a drug dealer, extortionist and loan shark and laterdescribed him as an "organized criminal", mounted an atypicaldefense, rarely directly addressing many of the charges.

Most of their efforts focused on denying prosecutors'assertion that Bulger had served as an FBI informant, or "rat,"for more than a decade. On Monday, Carney called that assertiona "myth."

Carney said he planned to appeal the conviction, citing aclaim by Bulger that he had a deal with federal prosecutors thatgave him immunity for his crimes. Carney said he would appeal onthose grounds, but he did not discuss a reason Bulger would havebeen given an immunity deal.

He reiterated his earlier assertion that Bulger had neverbeen an informant. Bulger has contended that he paid a corruptFBI agent for tips but provided none of his own.

Before the trial began, US District Judge Denise Casperhad told Carney that he could not argue immunity, saying no dealthat allowed a person to commit murder without consequence wouldbe legally valid.

Bulger declined to take the stand during the trial and toldthe court earlier this month, "As far as I'm concerned ... thisis a sham and do what you want with me."
 
ELEVEN MURDERS

The jury found Bulger guilty of 11 of the 19 murder charges.They decided prosecutors had failed to prove their case inmurders that dated back to a 1970s turf war with anotherorganization, the Notorangeli gang. The victims included members of that gang and people who were killed by accident inbotched hits who had nothing to do with the gangs.

The jury reached no finding in the death of one woman, DebraDavis, a girlfriend of Bulger associate Stephen "The Rifleman"Flemmi. Flemmi testified at the trial that Bulger strangledDavis in a South Boston house after she learned of theirdealings with the FBI. Other witnesses had testified that Flemmiactually killed Davis with Bulger present.

The murders were part of a racketeering count that was themost complicated jurors had to decide. They needed to find hecommitted just two of the 38 crimes contained in that count fortheir guilty verdict.

Relatives of Bulger's victims, who had been a constantpresence at the waterfront courthouse during the trial, pouredout onto the street after the verdict to tell their stories.

Steve Davis said he was at peace with the jury not reachinga finding on the murder of his sister, Debra.

"I don't feel that he hands-on himself killed my sister, butI do know that he was guilty of conspiring or taking part of thewhole thing," Davis said. "But a no-find is better than a notguilty."

William O'Brien was angry after the jury found that thegovernment had not proven its case in his father's 1973 murder.

"That prosecution dropped the ball," said O'Brien, whoshares his father's name. "Five minutes they spent talking abouthis murder. That jury should be ashamed of themselves."

The jury found Bulger not guilty of only one criminal countof extortion.

The government's case relied heavily on three former topassociates of Bulger including Flemmi, John "The Executioner"Martorano, and Kevin Weeks, who detailed 19 murders the gangcommitted.

Carney said that Bulger was glad to have his story told attrial. "At the end of a person's life, when people think he isthe only bad person in the courtroom, it's important to showthat that's not true," he said.

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