James "Whitey" Bulger after being arrested in 1953: template for films and books
Photo:
Uncredited/picture alliance/dpa
It has been almost four years since the notorious and legendary Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger was found lifeless in his cell at the US prison in Hazelton.
Three men have now been charged with plotting the murder of the 'Godfather of Boston'.
Fotios "Freddy" Geas, 55, has been charged with murder, the northern West Virginia attorney's office said in a statement.
He and two co-defendants Paul J. "Pauly" DeCologero, 48, and Sean McKinnon, 36, are also charged by investigators with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
Geas and DeCologero were being held at Hazelton Maximum Security Prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, at the same time as Bulger, when the then 89-year-old crime boss was beaten to death there in October 2018.
Geas, 55, and DeCologero, 48, are accused of repeatedly punching Bulger in the head, causing his death.
While Geas and DeCologero were in prison at the time of the arraignment based on previous convictions, McKinnon was conditionally released.
He was arrested in Florida on Thursday.
Head of the »Winter Hill Gang«
Gangster boss Bulger was the head of the notorious Boston Winter Hill Gang in the 1970s and 1980s – and at the same time worked as an informant for the US Federal Police, the FBI.
In 2011, after a tip from a former Icelandic beauty queen, the Irish-born criminal was arrested in Santa Monica, California, after 16 years on the run.
Bulger was sentenced to two life sentences in August 2013 on charges including 11 counts of murder, racketeering, money laundering and organized crime.
During the trial, dozens of witnesses reported gruesome details of Bulger's criminal life.
He was found dead in 2018 just a day after being transferred to Hazelton Federal Penitentiary.
The life of the brutal crime boss has served as the basis for a number of films and books, including the Oscar-winning film »The Departed« directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Hollywood star Jack Nicholson in 2006. Johnny Depp played the brutal crime boss in the 2015 film »Black Mass«.
ptz/AFP/AP