James J. Bulger

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James J. Bulger (2011)
James J. Bulger (1959)

James Joseph "Whitey" Bulger (born September 3, 1929 in Boston , Massachusetts , † October 30, 2018 in Bruceton Mills , West Virginia ) was an American criminal who was arrested in 2011 . As of 1999, he was the 458th person on the list of the FBI's ten most wanted fugitives . US $ 2 million was exposed when he was captured. He was accused of 19 murders , extortion , drug trafficking , criminal conspiracy and money laundering , among other things . He is also said to have been the head of the Winter Hill Gang , a criminal gang in Boston.

Life

Bulger was the son of Irish immigrants. His younger brother William "Billy" Bulger (* 1934) became a well-known politician. As a teenager, Bulger was a member of a gang and served a prison sentence in Alcatraz for bank robbery . He later worked as an informant for the FBI and used that position to his own advantage to cement his position in Boston Organized Crime by betraying rival gangsters to investigators.

After being warned by an FBI agent who was later arrested that he was being investigated, Bulger and his girlfriend Catherine Greig, who was also wanted by the US judiciary, left in 1995. Years of manhunt followed. He was seen in London in 2002 , and in July 2005 FBI investigators traveled to Uruguay to investigate possible leads there.

References to a sighting of Bulger and Greig in spring 2007 in Taormina , Sicily , turned out to be false; after audience reactions to a search contribution in the television series Aktenzeichen XY… unsolved by ZDF , two people who were visible on an amateur video and who looked similar to Bulger and Greig were identified as uninvolved holidaymakers from Germany.

According to a wanted manpower by the FBI, Bulger was considered armed and dangerous. He was also described as bibliophile and historically interested. In addition to using various aliases, he is said to have traveled through the United States, Canada , Mexico and Europe using various disguises .

After 16 years on the run Bulger on June 22, 2011, at the age of 81, after a new investigation calling the FBI in Santa Monica in the US state of California arrested along with Catherine Greig. According to his neighbors in Santa Monica, he had lived there for 16 years under the name Charles Gasko in a 75-square-meter apartment.

The first trial began on June 12, 2013, in which he was charged with 32 racketeering , money laundering , manslaughter and gun misconduct, as well as involvement in 19 murders. On August 12, 2013, after a trial lasting more than two months, a US jury found him guilty on 31 of 32 counts. He was sentenced to double life imprisonment plus five years for racketeering and 11 murders on November 14, 2013 ; on this occasion he denied having betrayed other criminals as an informant. On January 10, 2014, he was transferred to the United States Penitentiary, Tucson , Arizona; later he was in the United States Penitentiary, Coleman II, in Florida.

On October 30, 2018, Bulger died after being violent at the United States Penitentiary Hazelton in West Virginia. According to the prison authorities, immediately after his transfer to the detention center, he was attacked by two other inmates and beaten to death; the perpetrators are also charged with links to organized crime.

Brother William Bulger (r.) With Raymond Flynn (Mayor of Boston, US Ambassador to the Vatican) in the 1980s.

Bulger's brother was William Bulger , one of the most powerful Massachusetts politicians. William Bulger was President of the Senate of Massachusetts for 18 years and included Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry as party friends, and from 1996 to 2003 he was appointed President of the University of Massachusetts . William Bulger always claimed to have had virtually no contact with his criminal brother. In 2003, however, he had to resign under pressure from Mitt Romney .

Bulger in popular culture

Bulger's life served as a template for the novel Brutal , written by his former collaborator Kevin Weeks , which formed one of the templates for the film Departed by Martin Scorsese (2006).

The television series Brotherhood , which was made in the same year, was based on Bulger's life and focused on the relationship between a criminal and his brother, who was successful as a politician. Jason Isaacs played the leading roles as a criminal and Jason Clarke as his politically active brother.

Bulger's life and career in the Boston Underground were filmed in 2015 under the title Black Mass . Among other things, the novel Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill served as the basis.

On December 6, 2016, the 1st episode of the 4th season of Gangster - Without Scruples and Morals, an episode entitled James 'Whitey' Bulger appeared .

The first episode of the four-part docu-drama series Kingpin - The biggest crime lords station's history from the year 2018 is about Bulger.

Web links

Commons : James Joseph Bulger  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chronological Listing of The FBI's “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” March 14, 1950 - March 1, 2010 at the FBI, accessed August 10, 2011
  2. ^ Profile ( memento from November 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) at fbi.gov, accessed on November 11, 2011
  3. ↑ Embarrassing mishap: file number XY shows a wrong mug shot . Spiegel Online, February 22, 2008
  4. ↑ Tip From Publicity Campaign Credited in Capture of 'Most Wanted' Mob Boss James 'Whitey' Bulger. FoxNews.com, June 23, 2011
  5. ↑ a b 16 years underground: FBI catches Boston godfather James Bulger. Spiegel Online, June 23, 2011
  6. ^ Eva C. Schweitzer: The late end of James Bulger. zeit.de, June 24, 2011
  7. ^ Christiane Hell: Gangster boss "Whitey" Bulger arrested by the FBI. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of June 24, 2011.
  8. ↑ Ex-mob boss 'Whitey' Bulger found guilty of racketeering. The Irish Times , August 12, 2013
  9. ^ "'Whitey' Bulger defense claims he was no informant, questions credibility of prosecution witnesses". The Boston Globe. Retrieved August 12, 2013.
  10. ↑ www.bop.gov Find an inmate. Accessed November 2, 2014.
  11. ↑ Ray Sanchez: Boston gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger killed in West Virginia prison a day after transfer , CNN.com, October 30, 2018
  12. ↑ Katharine Q. Seelye: Sticking by a Murderous Brother, and Paying for It Dearly . In: The New York Times , November 24, 2013. 
  13. ↑ Alessandra Stanley: In Showtime's 'Brotherhood,' Crime and Politics Meet in Providence. nytimes.com, July 6, 2006
  14. ↑ Black Mass. In: Joblo's Movie Database. Joblo Media Inc., accessed September 4, 2015 .
  15. ↑ Alex Billington: Jim Sheridan Developing Project About FBI Informant Whitey Bulger. firstshowing.net, January 14, 2009
personal data
SURNAME Bulger, James J.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bulger, James Joseph (full name); Bulger, Whitey (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American criminal
DATE OF BIRTH September 3, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH October 30, 2018
Place of death Bruceton Mills , West Virginia