A lawyer for James “Whitey” Bulger says he will sue the federal government for wrongful death and negligence, following the beating to death of Boston mobster in a federal prison.
Bulger, 89, was a notorious killer who was found by a Boston jury to have participated in at least 11 murders.
Hank Brennan, told the Wall Street Journal he last spoke with Bulger on Sept. 28. In that call, Bulger reported he would soon be getting out of solitary confinement and transferred from the federal prison in Florida where he was being held to a prison medical facility.
“You must be glad,” Brennan said. Bulger responded that he was not sure whether to be happy about the transfer. “The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t,” Bulger had said, according to Brennan. “I don’t trust them.”
That transfer never took place. Instead, Bulger was moved to U.S. Penitentiary Hazelton in West Virginia, a facility known for violence among inmates. On October 30th, less than 24 hours after being moved to the West Virginia prison, Bulger was found dead inside his unlocked cell. He had been placed in cells with the general population despite being an internationally known figure.
[Related: The hit man who got Whitey? Bostonian mobster who ‘hated rats’ suspected of killing Bulger]
“It’s important for the family and the public to know why the prisons decided to wheel an 89-year-old man with a history of heart attacks into one of the most dangerous prisons in the country,” said Brennan, who will sue on behalf of Bulger’s estate.
A Bureau of Prisons spokesperson told the Journal they could not comment on Bulger’s medical status while in their custody. The official did say that he was transferred out of the Florida prison because he had threatened a staff member.
Previous reports stated Bulger’s medical status had been downgraded ahead of the transfer. Brennan said he believed Bulger’s health was getting worse at that time. Bulger, once the second most-wanted person by the FBI, was arrested in 2011 and then became a government informant.
Another Boston mobster in prison on a life sentence is suspected by local police to have been involved in Bulger’s death, which is being investigated as a homicide.
Fotios “Freddy” Geas, 51, also from the Boston area, was reported by the Boston Globe in November as being a part of an operation targeting Bulger, though the paper did not detail if he was responsible for planning or physically carrying out the attack in which four men are believed to have brutally beaten Bulger to death in his wheelchair.
