The five siblings of FBI informant and notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger have laid claim to his estate, which currently is worth nothing but potentially could grow if the Bulgers succeed in a federal civil rights lawsuit over his death in prison.
In documents filed in Suffolk Probate and Family Court, the five Bulger brothers and sisters have agreed to have William Bulger, the gangster’s nephew, serve as his personal representative.
William Bulger is a lawyer and shares a name with his father, William M. Bulger Sr., who is a former Massachusetts Senate president and president of the University of Massachusetts system.
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Whitey Bulger was an FBI informant at the same time he was a remorseless killer and a leader of organized crime in South Boston, earning millions of dollars selling drugs to his neighbors, according to court records and Globe coverage of his decadeslong criminal reign. He spent more than 16 years on the run following a federal indictment but was ultimately convicted of participating in 11 murders and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2013.
In the fall, an ailing Bulger was abruptly transferred from a federal prison in Florida to the maximum security US penitentiary in Hazelton, W.Va., where he was beaten to death in his cell on Oct. 30. Fotios “Freddy” Geas, a Mafia hit man from West Springfield serving life for two gangland murders, and Paul J. DeCologero, who was part of a Mafia-aligned group that murdered and dismembered a 19-year-old Medford woman, are suspects in the slaying, the Globe reported last year.
Neither man has been charged.
Bulger was attacked in his cell with a padlock stuffed in a sock, within 12 hours of his arrival at the prison in West Virginia, according to two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the matter.
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Bulger’s death certificate was included in the Boston court filing. The West Virginia medical examiner’s office concluded his death was caused by “blunt force injuries of the head” and said it took “minutes” for Bulger to die from his wounds.
When Bulger was killed was not clear from the death certificate. The medical examiner wrote that he was found in his cell at 8:21 a.m. on Oct. 30, and that he was pronounced dead at 9:04 a.m. In the section for describing how an injury was sustained, the medical examiner wrote “assaulted by other(s).”
Hank Brennan, Bulger’s attorney, told the Wall Street Journal that the family intends to file a civil rights suit in connection with the murder of the 89-year-old Bulger. The Globe has reported Bulger was using a wheelchair and had suffered several heart attacks before arriving at the West Virginia prison.
If the Bulger siblings convince a jury to award them monetary damages, any of that would probably be first collected by the federal government to pay a $25.5 million judgment imposed in the criminal case, records show.
Federal authorities have already collected nearly $900,000 and provided shares of it to relatives of 20 murder victims and three men who were extorted by Bulger, the Globe reported.
John R. Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @JREbosglobe.
