Accused mobster Bulger pleads not guilty

BOSTON, Massachusetts — James "Whitey" Bulger, the reputed former Boston mobster who eluded prosecution for 16 years until his capture last month, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges he participated in 19 murders.Bulger, 81, appeared with his public defender at an arraignment in US District Court, where relatives of victims came face to face with the man accused of a string of horrific killings before he escaped to California to live under an assumed name with a girlfriend until his shock capture.Security was tight outside the court overlooking Boston Harbor, where US Coast Guard boats with machine guns and police boats were positioned.In addition to accusations that Bulger rubbed out mob rivals, potential witnesses and others who either threatened him or got in his way, prosecutors accuse him of a crime spree spanning into the 1990s that included extortion, money laundering and, at one point, running guns to the Irish Republican Army.Bulger, clad in a bright orange prison jumpsuit, pleaded "not guilty" multiple times in a low, measured voice before Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler, who presided over the hearing that took less than 30 minutes.The accused mob boss's younger brother William Bulger, a beloved Massachusetts politician, was also in the courtroom, and the two brothers nodded to one another when their eyes met.It was Bulger's fourth appearance since he was captured June 22 in Santa Monica, along with his longtime girlfriend Catherine Greig, 60.Bulger was the inspiration for Jack Nicholson's character in "The Departed," the gritty 2006 crime film directed by Martin Scorsese, but while that was epic Hollywood, prosecutors insist Bulger's mob career, including heading up Boston's notorious "Winter Hill Gang," was all too real.Some of the murders Bulger is accused of participating in were seen as extremely brutal, occasionally involving pulling out teeth and cutting off fingers to complicate forensic investigations in the era before DNA identification.After he fled Boston, it emerged that he had

Add comment

Nick
Content

Submit