Left: Sean McKinnon (booking photo via Marion County Sheriff’s Office). Right: James “Whitey” Bulger appears in a U.S. Marshals Service mug shot taken in 2011 (U.S. Marshals Service).
Alleged “lookout” Sean McKinnon, one of three inmates accused in the killing of notorious Boston gangster and FBI informant James “Whitey” Bulger in 2018, has been sentenced to time served after pleading guilty in a federal court in West Virginia on Monday.
Federal court records show he entered his plea before Chief District Judge Thomas S. Kleeh. McKinnon pleaded guilty to a single charge of making a false statement to a federal agent. He was facing up to five years for the charge and has been in custody since 2018.
According to his indictment, prosecutors alleged that just one night before Halloween in 2018, McKinnon acted as a “lookout” as fellow inmates, Fotios Geas and Paul DeCologero, killed Bulger, 89.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Geas and DeCologero — both serving sentences for matters connected to organized crime — struck Bulger in the head multiple times just hours after Bulger had arrived via transfer to United States Penitentiary Hazleton in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. His death certificate described his cause of death as “Blunt Force Injuries of the Head” sustained after was he was “assaulted by other(s)” in his prison cell.
Authorities said a padlock was allegedly placed in a sock and used to beat Bulger’s head in.
The plea agreement details that McKinnon lied to the FBI about not being “aware” of what had happened to Bulger and that he also lied when he told them he hadn’t discussed the notorious Irish crime boss with Geas or DeCologero the morning of the attack.
In 2018, McKinnon was already serving an eight year sentence for stealing a dozen .22-caliber guns from a gun shop in Vermont, according to an announcement from the Justice Department in 2016. He was released in 2022 and was on supervised release when he was indicted for the Bulger-connected crime in August 2022.
Court records show both Geas and DeCologero have agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. DeCologero appears in court in August and Geas appears in September. Both men are expected to be sentenced at that time.
McKinnon also faced a conspiracy to commit first-degree murder charge but that was dismissed as a part of his plea deal.
McKinnon appeared in court in shackles Monday and received a hug from his attorneys after the judge agreed to give him credit for 22 months in custody post-indictment, The Associated Press reported.
It reportedly took Geas and DeCologero just seven minutes to kill Bulger in his cell and prosecutors claimed that DeCologero believed Bulger was a “snitch” and had planned to kill him as soon as he arrived from a different facility in Florida.
Bulger is credited with having run the Irish mob during the 1970s and 1980s. He was also a prolific informant against his rivals. He was convicted in 2013 for a series of slayings.
A 2022 report from the Justice Department found Bulger was killed, at least in part, thanks to multiple failed Bureau of Prison policies. The report did not find guards acted maliciously but noted that he was put into general population, granting fellow inmates easy access to him. His arrival also wasn’t kept under wraps.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Bulger’s family members sued prison staff after his death and claimed guards were intentionally indifferent to the danger he faced while incarcerated. The lawsuit was dismissed.
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