A federal grand jury has indicted three men in connection with the beating death of former Boston mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger.
Bulger, 89, was convicted of 11 murders and sentenced to life in prison in 2013. He was serving his sentence at US Penitentiary Hazleton in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, when he was beaten to death in his cell on October 30, 2018.
Bulger was believed to have been a government informant, which may have led to his death, as CrimeOnline previously reported.
Fotios “Freddy” Geas, 55; Paul J. “Pauly” DeCologero, 48; and Sean McKinnon, 36, were charged Wednesday with conspiracy to commit first degree murder, the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of West Virginia said.
Geas and DeCologero are both charged with pummeling Bulger in the head and causing his death. They have also been charged with aiding and abetting first degree murder and assault resulting in serious bodily injury. Geas faces an additional charge of murder by a federal inmate serving a live sentence, and McKinnon has a separate charge of making false statements to a federal agent.
Geas is still behind bars at Hazleton. DeCologero is housed elsewhere in the federal prison system, and McKinnon was on federal supervised release. He was rearrested Thursday in Florida.
A day after Bulger’s killing, the Boston Globe reported that Geas was suspected in the attack. He was convicted in 2011 of the 2003 killing of Massachusetts mobster Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno.
A private investigator who worked with Geas told the Globe that the convicted hitman likely knew Bulger was an informant and didn’t like “rats.”
“Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. It’s probably that simple,” he said, adding that “Freddy hated rats.”
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[Featured image: Whitey Bulger/US Marshals Service via AP, File]
