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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Whitey Bulger Guilty|of Murder, Racketeering

(CN) - Mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger was convicted Monday of racketeering and conspiracy for his role in 11 murders and other crimes.

A federal jury in Boston found the 83-year-old gangster guilty of 31 of the 32 counts he faced after being captured in Santa Monica, Calif., following 16 years on the run. He was charged with participating in a racketeering enterprise from the 1970s through the 1990s that was involved in drug trafficking, extortion and murder, among other crimes.

Bulger was convicted of 11 of the 19 murders he allegedly committed and 11 other criminal acts under the racketeering charge.

"He will spend the rest of his life in prison, far away from the beaches of Santa Monica and far away from the streets of Boston," U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said, according to NBC News.

Bulger's attorneys told NBC that he plans to appeal on the grounds that he should have been allowed to argue that a federal prosecutor granted him immunity in exchange for his work as an FBI informant. That prosecutor has since died.

The verdict in the highly watched trial came after more than 30 hours of deliberation over five days, with jurors weighing 35 days of testimony from 72 witnesses.

The Boston Globe reports that after the verdicts were announced, "Bulger gave a thumbs-up sign to family and pointed at them as he was led out of the courtroom."

The daughter of one of his victims reportedly shouted, "Rat-a-tat-tat, Whitey!" - a reference to Bulger's description of her father in a jailhouse recording played at trial.

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