Prison spokesman: ‘Can’t prove’ Whitey card authentic

Mobster James “Whitey” Bulger’s Federal Bureau of Prisons identification card purchased at auction for $11,197 is “government property,” provided it’s the real McCoy, one BOP official said.

“The fact that it catches that amount of money on the outside is ridiculous. I can’t prove that it’s a valid card. I don’t think the Bureau of Prisons could prove that it’s a valid card,” said Dale Grafton, spokesman for USP Coleman 2, the maximumsecurity prison in Sumterville, Fla., where the former Winter Hill Gang ring leader began serving a life sentence four years ago.

Grafton said he was aware of the ID card’s sale on Lelands.com, but declined to say whether prison officials are investigating its origin. He said it’s not even clear where the card was issued to Bulger, who was briefly incarcerated in Oklahoma and Arizona following his 2013 conviction for 11 murders and extortion.

Lelands’ lot description said it obtained the card from a “spurious source ... An oddity of Americana, this credit card-style vending card was issued by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to famed convict, Whitey Bulger.”

“Who knows how anybody would have gotten that?” Grafton said. “Inmates should have those cards with them at all times. Do they occasionally lose them? Sure.”

According to the Coleman 2 inmate handbook, personal ID cards are issued upon commitment to the institution and must be produced both upon the request of staff and to make purchases from the commissary.

It is unclear whether Bulger, 88, had any hand in or even knowledge of the auction. Coleman 2 inmates are not permitted to seal outgoing mail, according to the handbook.

When U.S. District Court Judge Denise J. Casper sentenced Bulger in November 2013, she told him, “I imagine in the wake of this judgment and the close of this criminal case that there will be much more ink written about you, some of which you may solicit and some of which you won’t.”