A report released Wednesday calls for prison officials to be punished for the high-profile murder.
A US Department of Justice review has found that a series of government errors contributed to the 2018 killing of Boston inmate and former FBI informant James “Whitey” Bulger after he was transferred to a maximum-security prison.
In an internal report released Wednesday, the department’s director general, Michael Horowitz, said “government incompetence” led Bulger to a US prison in West Virginia, where he was beaten to death within 24 hours of his arrival.
The report said that 6 people who work at the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in the United States should be punished but found no evidence that they did anything wrong.
“The serious misconduct we identified in a high-profile inmate like Bulger was particularly troubling because the BOP must exercise greater caution in handling the case of a high-profile inmate,” the report said.
Bulger’s case is one of a series of high-profile deaths that have led to an investigation by the Bureau of Prisons. It includes the suicide of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in federal prison in 2019. The agency has been accused of negligence, incompetence, understaffing and widespread allegations of rape.
Before Bulger arrived in West Virginia, workers had already begun to highlight the building’s issues of violence and understaffing.
Bulger lived a secret life as a Boston mobster and FBI informant before fleeing Boston in 1994. He spent 16 years on the run before being arrested in southern California at the age of 81, for 11 murders and many other crimes.
In 2018, Bulger was transferred from a prison in Florida, where he had been in solitary confinement, to a US prison in Hazelton, West Virginia. Eighty-nine years old and wheelchair-bound at the time of his transfer, he was placed among the general population of the prison and beaten to death in his cell about 12 hours after his arrival.
The report strongly criticized the BOP for its handling of the transfer, saying the agency failed to take adequate steps to prepare for an inmate of Bulger’s stature, and that the agency’s mistakes made Bulger vulnerable to gangs opposed to the new facility.
According to the report, BOP staff openly talked about Bulger’s transfer as if they were “talking about a football game” in front of inmates, who bet how long it would take.
The agency also tried to lower Bulger’s medical treatment to facilitate the transfer, even though he had a serious heart condition.
Three people in prison were indicted in Bulger’s murder earlier this year.
His killer, Fotios “Freddy” Geas, 55, is an ex-military man who was already serving a life sentence for the 2003 murder of Genovese crime family boss Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno and his associate Gary Westerman.
In a statement released by the BOP, the agency said that prison officials have changed communications between health care workers and are increasing training and technology in response to the incident.
Bulger’s family has sued the BOP, saying prison officials knew Bulger’s role as a “shooter” put him at greater risk in prison. The court also said Bulger’s transfer to Hazelton was so improper that it appeared he had been “deliberately sent to be killed”.
A judge dismissed the case in January.
