James
“Whitey” Bulger was sentenced on Friday to two life sentences in federal prison
for eleven murders committed over decades when he effectively ran the criminal
underworld in Boston. The New York Times reports that the judge, when she handed down the sentences took umbrage not
only at the “scope, callousness and depravity” of his crimes, but also that he
had become the face of Boston. Bulger
was also ordered to pay $19.5 million in restitution to his victims’ families
and forfeit $25.2 million to the government, though no is sure where the
millions he made running drugs, prostitution and extortion rackets is or how to
get it..
There
was some mention of the appeal, but the Times thinks he has little chance. The times
cites legal experts who say that Bulger’s appeal, based on his claim of de
facto immunity given by Boston FBI agents that he grew up with in a South
Boston housing project, have little chance of success, since during the trial,
Bulger maintained that he wasn’t an informant.
The
judge referred to law enforcement officers who were “on your payroll and
in your pocket.” The new special agent
in charge of Boston’s FBI field office addressed this too stating: “I
realize that the actions of a small percentage of law enforcement many years
ago caused some people to lose faith and confidence in us,” Mr. Lisi said. “Our
job now is to make sure that we can regain the faith and confidence of those
people who may have lost it years ago.”
This is pretty well ignoring two
facts: first, Bulger was denied the right to claim that he was an FBI informant
and because of that relationship had de facto ability to commit crimes. That left
him no incentive to claim to be in informant. Once he’s prevented from making a
legal argument, he shouldn’t be bound to continue to argue the same argument in
the trial. Second, it ignores how
pervasive were Bulger’s crimes in Boston and how deep was his relationship with
the Boston FBI.
At the time of his conviction, weposted about it, here, but it bears repeating:
Len Levitt on Huffington Post: We know the outlines of the
Bulger case: how FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, having failed for decades to
recognize the existence of organized crime, sought in the early 1970s to
destroy its Italian part, La Cosa Nostra. Enter FBI agent John Connolly from
Southie, Bulger's home turf, and Connolly's organized crime squad supervisor
John Morris. The two agents allowed Bulger and his Winter Hill Irish gang to
kill not just the Italians but civilians with no connection to organized crime.
While Bulger and his associates were allegedly committing 19 murders, Connolly
and Morris tipped Bulger to investigations of him by the Boston Police, the
Massachusetts State Police and the Drug Enforcement Agency, ultimately allowing
him to take it on the lam for the next 16 years until his capture two years
ago.
Meanwhile, the FBI hierarchy went along in lockstep and protected both Bulger and his two FBI handlers.
A dozen FBI agents -- many of them supervisors, both in Boston and in Washington, were so fearful of short-circuiting their careers by rocking the Bureau boat that they lacked the courage, honesty, moral outrage and common sense to stop both Bulger and the Bureau's betrayal of its law enforcement partners.
Meanwhile, the FBI hierarchy went along in lockstep and protected both Bulger and his two FBI handlers.
A dozen FBI agents -- many of them supervisors, both in Boston and in Washington, were so fearful of short-circuiting their careers by rocking the Bureau boat that they lacked the courage, honesty, moral outrage and common sense to stop both Bulger and the Bureau's betrayal of its law enforcement partners.
Bulger
was deep into the Boston FBI, and the FBI’s battle with the Italian Mob. He was allowed to murder, deal drugs, and
extort with impunity for decades. He had
de facto immunity, even if it was not official.
The government really, really, doesn’t want to have a trial about
that. Bulger preserved the argument for
appeal. It will be interesting to see
how it plays out in the future. Unless he dies in prison before the appeal is
heard (and he’s in his 80s now), it could get a lot more interesting. And it
should. There should be a long, hard
discussion about why the people of South Boston had to live with this devil of
a man extorting and terrorizing them for decades because the FBI thought the
Italian Mob in other cities was more important than them.
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