Prosecutors say a judge should decide Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger’s claim that he was granted immunity for being an FBI informant.
This June 23, 2011 file booking photo provided by the U.S. Marshals Service shows James "Whitey" Bulger. J.W. Carney Jr., a lawyer for Bulger, on Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013 framed an attempt to get the presiding judge kicked off his client's murder case as an effort to protect the court's integrity. (AP Photo/U.S. Marshals Service, File)
BOSTON – Prosecutors say a judge should decide Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger’s claim that he was granted immunity for being an FBI informant.
Bulger’s lawyers say a jury should determine the merits of his argument he was granted immunity by a former U.S. attorney who later died.
Prosecutors said in a filing Wednesday 83-year-old Bulger weakened his argument by saying in a recorded 2012 jailhouse conversation with one of his brothers that he wasn’t an informant. The Boston Globe reports the court filing quotes Bulger as saying, “I bought (expletive) information, I didn’t sell it.”
FBI records in other court filings say Bulger was an FBI informant from 1975 to 1990, and fled when he was tipped by his FBI handler before a 1995 indictment.
Bulger, charged in connection with 19 slayings, was captured in California in 2011.