Three inmates indicted over the death of Boston Irish mob boss James ‘Whitey’ Bulger
Three inmates have been indicted in connection with the prison murder of infamous Boston Irish mob boss James ‘Whitey’ Bulger.
The US Department of Justice has charged Fotios Geas, 55, Paul J. DeCologero, 48, and Sean McKinnon, 36, for conspiracy to commit first degree murder of Bulgar, 89, in a West Virginia prison in 2018.
Geas, known as ‘Freddy,’ and DeCologero, known as ‘Pauly,’ are accused of striking Bulger in the head multiple times, eventually leading to his death in October 2018 while incarcerated at the US Penitentiary Hazelton in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia.
The two men have also been charged with aiding and abetting first degree murder and assault resulting in serious bodily injury, with Geas facing an additional charge for murder by a federal inmate serving a life sentence.
McKinnon has also been accused of making false statements to a federal agent.
Fotios Geas (right) and Paul DeCologero (left) are accused of striking James Bulger in the head multiple times, eventually leading to his death in October 2018 while incarcerated at the US Penitentiary Hazelton in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia
Like Geas and DeCologero, Sean McKinnon, 36 (above), faces conspiracy to commit first degree murder. He has also been accused of making false statements to a federal agent
Pictured: James ‘Whitey’ Bulger’s 2011 mughshot. The notorious Boston Irish mobster was serving a life sentence when he died in prison in 2018
According to investigators, Geas and DeCologero brutally attacked the wheelchair-bound Bulger, beat him with a lock in a sock, tried to gouge out the mobster’s eyes with a shiv and attempted to cut out his tongue.
His body was found wrapped in a sheet 12 hours later by prison officers, who said the gangster was hardly recognizable.
Geas is still jailed at the USP Hazelton facility, according to the DOJ, and DeCologero remains housed in the federal prison system.
McKinnon, who has no known mob ties but is serving an eight-year prison sentence for stealing guns, had been sharing a cell with Geas at the time of Bulger’s death.
McKinnon had been released from prison last year after spending two years in solitary confinement despite never being previously charged.
He was arrested on Thursday in Florida at the time of the indictment.
Bugler, 89, was brutally beaten to death in his cell at Hazelton federal prison, West Virginia, with a padlock hidden inside a sock.
Officials said the gangster was hardly recognizable following the brutal attack
Bulger was a leading figure in Boston’s underworld before he was finally captured in Santa Monica with girlfriend Catherine Greig in June 2011 after being on the run for 16 years.
Prior to going on the run, Bulger had terrorized Boston from the 1970s into the 1990s with a campaign of murder, extortion and drug trafficking.
Details of his capture and subsequent death in jail are laid bare in a recent book, Hunting Whitey: The Inside Story of the Capture & Killing of America’s Most Wanted Crime Boss, by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge.
It revealed how Bulger remained defiant even as feds armed with multiple automatic weapons closed in on the then 81-year-old in the garage of his apartment complex.
FBI agents were finally able to corner Bulger with the help of Josh Bond, the manager of Princess Eugenia Apartments, where the fugitive had been hiding.
Bulger, who at the time was one of the FBI’s most-wanted criminals, was sentenced to life in prison for his role in 11 gangland killings.
His girlfriend, Catherine Greig, 70, was freed in 2020 after serving a nine-year federal prison sentence for helping him evade capture for 16 years.
More than $822,000 and 30 guns were found hidden in the walls of the couple’s rent-controlled apartment.
Whitey Bulger: Life and crimes of a mob kingpin
Sept. 3, 1929: James Bulger is born to Irish immigrant parents living in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. He is the second of six children. His shock of platinum blonde hair earns him the nickname ‘Whitey.’
1956: Whitey Bulger is sentenced to federal prison for bank robbery. After he’s suspected of plotting an escape from one prison, he’s transferred to Alcatraz.
1960: Bulger’s younger brother, William, is elected to the state House of Representatives. John Connolly, a childhood friend from South Boston, works on the campaign.
1965: Bulger is released from prison and returns to Boston. He becomes a top underling to local mobster Howie Winter, boss of the Winter Hill Gang.
1970: William Bulger is elected to the state Senate.
1975: Bulger cuts a deal with Connolly – now a Boston-based FBI agent – to provide information on the Italian Mafia in exchange for protection.
1978: William Bulger becomes president of the state Senate.
1981: Roger Wheeler, owner of World Jai Alai, a gambling enterprise from which Bulger was skimming money, is shot between the eyes in the parking lot of his country club in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Bulger, pictured in 1994, disappeared on the eve of his indictment on racketeering charges in 1995
1982: Bulger and Stephen ‘The Rifleman’ Flemmi gun down a former henchman in broad daylight on a South Boston street to silence him over the Wheeler murder. Connolly files a report with the FBI saying rival gangsters made the hit.
July 1982: Flemmi and Bulger order a hit on John Callahan, the former president of World Jai Alai.
January 1995: Bulger disappears on the eve of his indictment on racketeering charges.
1997: The FBI, under court order, admits that Bulger was a ‘top echelon’ informant launching a federal probe into the agency’s corrupt ties to its mob informants.
June 22, 2011: Bulger is arrested in Santa Monica, CA, with girlfriend Catherine Grieg.
Aug 12, 2013: Bulger is found guilty of a raft of racketeering charges, including his role in 11 murders.
Nov 13 2013: Bulger, aged 84 , is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus five years. Before announcing her sentence, the judge tells Bulger that the ‘scope, callousness and depravity of your crimes are almost unfathomable.’ She says they are made ‘all the more heinous because they were all about money.’
Oct. 30, 2018: Bulger is found dead inside USP Hazelton at 8.20am, the day after he was transferred to the federal prison in West Virginia.
