U.S. District Judge Denise J. Casper slapped mobster James "Whitey" Bulger with two life sentences plus five years for his involvement in nearly a dozen murders and years on the run from authorities. He was also ordered to pay $19 million in restitution to the victims.
A Boston jury convicted Bulger, 84, earlier this year on claims that he took part in 11 murders, drug trafficking, racketeering, money laundering, extortion, and other crimes during a decades-long crime spree,
according to the Boston Globe.
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Bulger went on the run just before a federal grand jury issued racketeering indictments against him in 1995. Bulger was a fixture on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list until he was found by authorities in Santa Monica, Calif. in 2011.
"The testimony of human suffering that you and your associates inflicted on others was at times antagonizing to hear and painful to watch," Casper told Bulger before the sentencing. "The scope, the callousness (and) the depravity of your crimes are almost unfathomable."
Casper recited, one by one, the names of the people Bulger murdered before the sentencing. Bulger was defiant, calling the trial a sham and refusing to testify or provide information to probation officials.
"These families ... many are still picking up the pieces in the wake of your horrific acts," Casper told Bulger. "It will be for another court to rule on legal issues, but as for you calling your trial a sham — you can call it what you want, but you received a fair trial that everyone is entitled to."
Bulger's reputed mob reign in Boston was the inspiration for Jack Nicholson's character in the Oscar-winning 2006 movie "The Departed."
Authorities said that corrupt Boston FBI agents protected Bulger for years while he worked as an agency informant who ratted out his Mafia rivals and other crime groups.
Former Boston FBI agent John Connolly Jr., Bulger's agency contact, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted of tipping him off ahead of his 1995 indictment, leading him to flee for more than 15 years.
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