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Topics: US News, True crime, Crime
Dominic Smithers
Three men have been charged in connection with the murder of James 'Whitey' Bulger.
The notorious criminal was found dead in his cell at Hazelton Penitentiary in West Virginia back in October 2018.
The 89-year-old was serving two life sentences for 11 murders and had been moved to the prison earlier that day.
According to the Justice Department, Fotios Geas, 55, Paul J DeCologero, 48, and Sean McKinnon, 36, have been charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
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Officials have also confirmed that Geas and DeCologero have further been charged with aiding and abetting first-degree murder, as well as assault resulting in serious bodily injury.
Geas is a former mafia criminal from West Springfield and was serving a life sentence for the murder of a Genovese crime boss in his home town back in 2003 at the time of Bulger's death.
He faces a separate charge of murder by a federal inmate serving a life sentence.
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Meanwhile, McKinnon has been charged with making false statements to a federal agent.
Geas remains imprisoned at Hazelton, while DeCologero is being held at another institution in the US.
McKinnon had been out on supervised release but was rearrested in Florida on Thursday (18 August).
Bulger, a longtime police informer, was in a wheelchair at the time of the attack and was said to have been so badly beaten that his eyes had been dislodged.
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He was attacked with a padlock stuffed inside a sock and died as a result of injuries to his head.
Speaking at the time of his death, Brian T. Kelly, a former prosecutor who worked on the case against Bulger, said: "[Bulger] lived a violent life and it's not surprising that he would ultimately meet a violent death.
"Prison is a violent place and informants are not too popular, so these things can obviously happen if proper precautions aren't taken."
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Bulger was convicted in 2013 for the death of at least 11 people, as well as numerous other crimes committed by him and his South Boston organised crime gang.
He was in control of the Winter Hill gang between the 1970s and 1990s, and was on the run after being named on the FBI Most Wanted list for 16 years until he was found and arrested in Santa Monica, California in 2011.
It's understood that Bulger was able to get away with his crimes for so many years because of a deal he struck with the FBI.
Bulger allegedly fed information to the bureau about the Winter Hill gang's rivals in exchange for avoiding prosecution for his own crimes.
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