Three inmates have been charged in connection with the prison murder of notorious Irish crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger.
The US Department of Justice has indicted Fotios Geas, 55, Paul J. DeCologero, 48, and Sean McKinnon, 36, with conspiracy to commit the first-degree murder of Bulgar, 89, at a West Virginia prison in 2018.
Geas, known as “Freddy”, and DeCologero, known as “Pauly”, are accused of multiple punches in the head of Bulger, which ultimately led to his death in October 2018 while he was held at Hazelton US Prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, was imprisoned.
The two men were also charged with aiding and abetting first-degree murder and assault, with Geas facing an additional charge of murder by a federal inmate who is serving a life sentence.
McKinnon was also accused of making false statements to a federal agent.
Fotios Geas (right) and Paul DeCologero (left) are accused of punching James Bulger multiple times in the head, which ultimately led to his death in October 2018 while he was incarcerated at Hazelton US Prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia
Like Geas and DeCologero, Sean McKinnon, 36 (above), faces a conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. He was also accused of making false statements to a federal agent
Pictured: James ‘Whitey’ Bulger’s mug shot from 2011. The notorious Boston Irish gangster was serving a life sentence when he died in prison in 2018
According to investigators, Geas and DeCologero brutally attacked Bulger, who was confined to a wheelchair, hit him with a lock in a sock, tried to gouge the gangster’s eyes out with a knife, and attempted to cut out his tongue.
His body was found 12 hours later, wrapped in a sheet, by prison officials who said the gangster was unrecognizable.
Geas is still incarcerated at the USP facility Hazelton, according to the DOJ, and DeCologero remains housed in the federal prison system.
McKinnon, who has no known mob ties but is serving an eight-year sentence for stealing a gun, was sharing a cell with Geas at the time of Bulger’s death.
McKinnon was released from prison last year after spending two years in solitary confinement, although he had never been charged before.
He was arrested Thursday in Florida at the time of the charges.
Bugler, 89, was brutally beaten to death in his cell at Hazelton, West Virginia federal penitentiary with a padlock hidden in a sock.
Officials said the gangster was barely recognizable after the brutal attack
Bulger was a leading figure in Boston’s underworld before he was finally arrested with his girlfriend Catherine Greig in Santa Monica in June 2011 after 16 years on the run.
Before going on the run, Bulger had terrorized Boston with a campaign of murder, racketeering and drug trafficking from the 1970s through the 1990s.
Details of his capture and subsequent death in prison are revealed in a recent book, Hunting Whitey: The Inside Story of the Capture & Killing of America’s Most Wanted Crime Boss, by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge.
It revealed how Bulger remained defiant even as FBI agents armed with multiple automatic weapons approached the then 81-year-old in the garage of his apartment complex.
FBI agents were eventually able to corner Bulger with the help of Josh Bond, the manager of the Princess Eugenia Apartments where the fugitive was hiding.
Bulger, who was one of the FBI’s most wanted criminals at the time, was sentenced to life in prison for his role in eleven gangland murders.
His girlfriend, Catherine Greig, 70, was released in 2020 after serving a nine-year federal sentence for helping him evade capture for 16 years.
More than $822,000 and 30 guns were found hidden in the walls of the couple’s rented apartment.
Whitey Bulger: The Life and Crimes of a Crime Boss
September 3, 1929: James Bulger is born to Irish immigrants living in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. He is the second of six children. His platinum blonde hair earns him the nickname “Whitey”.
1956: Whitey Bulger was sentenced to federal prison for a bank robbery. After being suspected of planning a prison escape, he is assigned to Alcatraz.
1960: Bulger’s younger brother, William, is elected to the state House of Representatives. John Connolly, a childhood friend from South Boston, is working on the campaign.
1965: Bulger is released from prison and returns to Boston. He becomes a top subordinate to local gangster Howie Winter, boss of the Winter Hill Gang.
1970: William Bulger is elected to the State Senate.
1975: Bulger contracts with Connolly – now a Boston-based FBI agent – to provide information on the Italian Mafia in exchange for protection.
1978: William Bulger becomes President of the State Senate.
1981: Roger Wheeler, owner of World Jai Alai, a gambling company from which Bulger siphoned money, was shot between the eyes in the parking lot of his country club in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Bulger, pictured in 1994, disappeared on the eve of his 1995 racketeering charges
1982: Bulger and Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi shoot and shoot a former henchman on a South Boston street in broad daylight to silence him about the Wheeler murder. Connolly files a report with the FBI stating that rival mobsters committed the murder.
July 1982: Flemmi and Bulger order an assassination of John Callahan, former President of World Jai Alai.
January 1995: Bulger disappears on the eve of his racketeering charges.
1997: The FBI, by court order, admits that Bulger was a high-profile informant, launching a federal investigation into the agency’s corrupt ties to its mob whistleblowers.
June 22, 2011: Bulger was arrested with his girlfriend Catherine Grieg in Santa Monica, CA.
August 12, 2013: Bulger is found guilty on a number of racketeering charges, including his role in 11 murders.
November 13, 2013: Bulger, 84, was sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus five years. Before delivering her sentence, the judge tells Bulger that “the scale, callousness and depravity of your crimes is almost unfathomable.” She says they’re “all the more despicable because all they cared about was money.”
Oct. 30, 2018: Bulger was found dead at USP Hazelton at 8:20 a.m. the day after his transfer to federal prison in West Virginia.