An ex-Mafia hitman is about for sentencing within the jail killing of gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger
CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (AP) — A former Mafia hitman is about to be sentenced within the deadly jail bludgeoning of infamous Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger after making a take care of prosecutors to alter his plea from not responsible.
Federal prisoner Fotios “Freddy” Geas is scheduled to seem Friday in U.S. District Court docket in northern West Virginia.
Prosecutors stated Geas used a lock connected to a belt to repeatedly hit the 89-year-old Bulger within the head hours after Bulger arrived on the U.S. Penitentiary, Hazelton in West Virginia from one other lockup in Florida in October 2018.
Bulger, who ran the largely Irish mob in Boston within the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s, served as an FBI informant who ratted on his gang’s principal rival, in keeping with the bureau. Bulger strongly denied ever being a authorities informant.
Bulger grew to become one of many nation’s most wished fugitives after fleeing Boston in 1994. He was captured at age 81 after greater than 16 years on the run and convicted in 2013 in a string of 11 killings and dozens of different gangland crimes.
Geas, whom authorities say was a Mafia hitman, is already serving a life sentence for earlier violent crimes. He was charged with homicide and conspiracy to commit first-degree homicide in Bulger’s loss of life, which every carry a sentence as much as life. Final 12 months the Justice Division stated it would not seek the death penalty.
It’s unclear from courtroom filings how Geas will plead, however the courtroom scheduled the sentencing for a similar plea listening to. Plea deals for Geas and two different Hazelton inmates have been disclosed Might 13, and an lawyer for Geas didn’t oppose the federal government’s movement.
One other prisoner, Massachusetts gangster Paul J. DeCologero, was sentenced to more than four years in prison in August on an assault cost. Prosecutors stated he acted as a lookout whereas Geas beat Bulger. A 3rd inmate, Sean McKinnon, pleaded guilty in June to mendacity to FBI particular brokers and was given no extra jail time.
An inmate witness told a grand jury that DeCologero instructed him Bulger was a “snitch” they usually deliberate to kill him as quickly as he got here into their unit.
