US mobster Whitey Bulger guilty of 11 murders

JAMES “Whitey” Bulger, the feared Boston mob boss who became one of the most-wanted fugitives in the U.S., has been convicted of 11 counts of murder among a string of gangland crimes, many of which were committed while he was said to be an FBI informant.

A mugshot of James "Whitey Bulger, found guilty of a string of murders. Picture: AFP

Bulger, 83, stood silently and showed no reaction upon hearing the verdict.

Bulger was charged primarily with racketeering along with 19 murders he allegedly helped orchestrate or carried out himself during the 1970s and 1980s while he led the Winter Hill Gang, Boston’s ruthless Irish mob. The racketeering charge also included acts of extortion, conspiracy, money-laundering and drug dealing.

After 4 days of deliberations, the jury decided he took part in 11 of those murders, along with nearly all the other crimes, as well as a laundry list of other counts, including possession of machine guns.

Bulger faces life in prison. His attorney said Bulger would appeal.

One woman in the gallery taunted Bulger as he was being led away, apparently imitating machine-gun fire as she yelled: “Rat-a-tat-tat, Whitey!”

Patricia Donahue, whose husband Michael was killed by Bulger, wept as the verdict was read, saying it was a relief to see Bulger convicted for the murder.

During the two-month trial, federal prosecutors portrayed him as a cold-blooded, hands-on boss who killed anyone he saw as a threat, along with innocent people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Bulger, the model for Jack Nicholson’s sinister crime boss in the 2006 Martin Scorsese movie “The Departed,” was seen for years as benevolent, buying Thanksgiving turkeys for fellow residents of working-class South Boston and keeping hard drugs out of the neighborhood, an image that was shattered when authorities started digging up bodies.

Bulger fled in 1994 after receiving a tip-off of his impending arrest from an FBI staffer.

During 16 years on the run, Bulger was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list. He was finally captured in 2011 in Santa Monica, California, where he had been living in with his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig. She was sentenced to eight years in prison for helping Bulger evade the law.

Whitey Bulger’s disappearance proved a major embarrassment to the FBI when it emerged that Bulger had been an informant from 1975 to 1990, feeding the bureau information on the rival New England Mafia as well as members of his own gang while he continued to kill and intimidate.