WHITEY BULGER KILLED BY HITMAN WHO HATED ‘RATS’: INVESTIGATOR.
BOSTON • A Mafia hitman who is said to hate “rats” is under suspicion in the slaying of former Boston crime boss and longtime FBI informant James “Whitey” Bulger, who was found dead hours after he was transferred to a West Virginia prison, an ex-investigator briefed on the case said Wednesday.
The former official said that Fotios “Freddy” Geas and at least one other inmate are believed to have been involved in Bulger’s killing.
Authorities have not disclosed the cause of death.
Among the many unanswered questions after Bulger was found dead on Tuesday: Why was he moved to the prison? And why was a frail 89-year-old like Bulger — a known “snitch” — placed in the general population instead of more protective housing?
Geas, 51, and his brother were sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for their roles in several violent crimes, including the 2003 killing of Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno, a Genovese crime family boss who was gunned down in a Springfield, Mass., parking lot. Private investigator Ted McDonough, who knew Geas, told The Boston Globe: “Freddy hated rats.”
“Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. It’s probably that simple,” McDonough told the newspaper, which first reported that Geas was under suspicion.
It was not clear whether Geas has an attorney. Several other lawyers who represented him over the years didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Federal officials said only that they are investigating the death as a homicide.
“What I don’t understand is why the Federal Bureau of Prisons would transfer a super high-publicity inmate, who is a known snitch, to general population of a high-security prison,” said Cameron Lindsay, a former federal prison warden who now works as a jail security consultant. “You’ve got to be smarter than that.”
He added: “If I was the warden of Hazelton, I would have never, ever allowed him to be put within my general population. It is just too risky.”
Bulger led South Boston’s Irish mob for decades and became an FBI informant who supplied information on the New England Mafia, his gang’s main rival, in an era when bringing down the Italian mob was a national priority for the bureau.
Tipped off that he was about to be indicted, Bulger became a fugitive and eluded authorities for 16 years before being captured in 2011.