A Department of Justice inspector general investigation determined that a series of staff failures, bureaucratic mishaps and confusing policies contributed to the 2018 killing of Boston-area gangster James “Whitey” Bulger at a prison in West Virginia.
No criminal acts were committed by the Bureau of Prisons employees responsible for watching over Bulger, according to the Wednesday report by the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General. But the report made clear the criminal’s transfer process from U.S. Penitentiary, Coleman in Florida to Hazelton in West Virginia was poor.
“In our view, no [Bureau of Prisons] inmate’s transfer, whether they are a notorious gangster or a nonviolent offender, should be handled like Bulger’s transfer was handled in this instance,” the OIG report read.
Bulger, 89, was found beaten and stabbed to death on Oct. 30, 2018, roughly 12 hours after he arrived at the Hazelton prison. Fotios “Freddy” Geas, a mafia hitman from Massachusetts serving a life sentence at the facility, is among the people charged with murdering Bulger, according to the MassLive news site.
The OIG report listed several errors in the Bureau of Prisons’ process.
Most alarming was BOP’s decision to place Bulger in the general population at Hazelton, making the former head of the Winter Hill gang vulnerable to other inmates. At the Florida prison, he had been moved out of the general population after threatening a nurse who was helping care for his atrial fibrillation, a condition he developed shortly after his 2011 arrest and required him to use a wheelchair.
Prison staff filed paperwork to move Bulger from the facility after the incident with the nurse, but his heart condition meant only a limited number of prisons could properly care for him. The head of BOP’s health programs made that clear when reviewing the transfer paperwork submitted by the Coleman prison. But staff at the Florida prison omitted the recommendations of BOP’s health chief when refiling the transfer paperwork and landed on the less-equipped Hazelton prison in West Virginia.
The lengthy stay in a single cell at USP Coleman took a toll on Bulger, who OIG said “lost the will to live” during his September 2018 suicide risk assessment. The report believes this may have contributed to his insistence on staying in the general population, despite the risks associated with USP Hazelton.
“The transfer specifically to Hazelton raised additional questions because of the record of violence among inmates at Hazelton, which housed gang members and inmates with connections to organized crime,” the OIG report reads.
Before his arrival, word spread that Bulger was joining the prison. The report said multiple inmates sent or received emails or made phone calls discussing his arrival.
The unit that Bulger was housed in was also housing an inmate with ties to organized crime in Massachusetts.
Geas was charged with Bulger’s murder along with two other inmates.
Geas had been held in solitary confinement for years prior to his August court hearing where charges were brought. He could face the death penalty if convicted of his role in Bulger’s death.
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