GANGLAND MOVIE 1994 CODE

The defense also spent a surprising amount of time disputing he was a “rat” - a label that seemed to set off the hotheaded Bulger more than anything else, causing him to erupt in obscenities in the courtroom.īulger’s lawyers argued that Connolly, Bulger’s supposed handler inside the FBI, fabricated Bulger’s thick informant file to cover up his corrupt relationship with the gangster and advance his own career. Prosecutors said the women were killed because they knew too much about the gang’s business. The jury ultimately found he had a role in the strangling of one woman - Flemmi’s stepdaughter - but it could not reach a decision on the other woman, Flemmi’s girlfriend.

GANGLAND MOVIE 1994 CODE

His lawyers did strongly deny he killed women, something Bulger evidently regarded as a violation of his underworld code of honor. In fact, Bulger’s lawyers conceded he ran a criminal enterprise that raked in millions through drugs, gambling and loansharking. The defense portrayed the three key witnesses - gangster Stephen The Rifleman” Flemmi, hit man John Martorano and Bulger protege Kevin Weeks - as pathological liars who pinned their own crimes on Bulger so they could get reduced sentences.īut overall, the defense barely contested many of the charges against Bulger. Those proceedings also revealed that Bulger and his gang paid off several FBI agents and state and Boston police officers, dispensing Christmas envelopes of cash and cases of fine wine to get information on search warrants, wiretaps and investigations and stay one step ahead of the law.Īt his trial, Bulger’s lawyers tried to turn the tables on the government, detailing the corruption inside the FBI and accusing prosecutors of offering absurdly generous deals to three former Bulger loyalists to testify against him. His disappearance proved a major embarrassment to the FBI when it came out at court hearings and trials that Bulger had been an informant from 1975 to 1990, feeding the bureau information on the rival New England Mafia as well as members of his own gang while he continued to kill and intimidate. She was sentenced to eight years in prison for helping Bulger evade the law. He was finally captured in 2011 in Santa Monica, Calif., where he had been living in a rent-controlled apartment near the beach with his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig. “This is not some Robin Hood story about a guy who kept angel dust and heroin out of Southie,” prosecutor Fred Wyshak told the jury in closing arguments.īulger skipped town in 1994 after being tipped off - by a retired FBI agent, John Connolly, it turned out - that he was about to be indicted.ĭuring 16 years on the run, Bulger was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list. But that image was shattered when authorities started digging up bodies. Then, according to testimony, he would go off and take a nap while his underlings handled the cleanup.Īmong other things, Bulger was accused of strangling two women with his bare hands, shooting two men in the head after chaining them to chairs and interrogating them for hours, and opening fire on two men as they left a South Boston restaurant.īulger, the model for Jack Nicholson’s sinister crime boss in the 2006 Martin Scorsese movie “The Departed,” was seen for years as a kind of benevolent tough guy who bought Thanksgiving turkeys for fellow residents of working-class South Boston and kept hard drugs out of the neighborhood. I was like, ‘Damn right.’”ĭuring the two-month trial, federal prosecutors portrayed him as a cold-blooded, hands-on boss who killed anyone he saw as a threat, along with innocent people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thirty-one years - that’s a long time.” He said that when he heard the verdict in his father’s slaying, “I wanted to jump up. Thomas Donahue, who was 8 when his father was killed, said: “Thirty-one years of deceit, of cover-up. “It brings out a lot of emotion, and when it finally happens, it’s kind of hard.” There’s nobody that said that,” his widow said. Patricia Donahue wept as the verdict was read, saying it was a relief to see Bulger convicted in the murder of her husband, Michael Donahue, who authorities say was an innocent victim who died in a hail of gunfire while giving a ride to an FBI informant marked for death by Bulger.

Gangland movie 1994