Ex-Mafia Hitman Sentenced To 25 Years For Killing ‘Whitey’ Bulger In Prison

CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (AP) — A former Mafia hitman was sentenced to 25 years in prison Friday in the 2018 fatal prison bludgeoning of notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger.

Federal prisoner Fotios “Freddy” Geas was sentenced in federal court in northern West Virginia after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter and assault resulting in serious bodily injury

Prosecutors said Geas used a lock attached to a belt to repeatedly hit the 89-year-old Bulger in the head hours after he arrived at the troubled U.S. Penitentiary, Hazelton, from another lockup in Florida in October 2018. Defense attorneys disputed that characterization, saying Geas hit Bulger with his fist.

Geas, 57, already was serving a life sentence for previous violent crimes. The Justice Department said last year that it would not seek the death penalty against him in Bulger’s killing.

Bulger, who ran the largely Irish gang in Boston in the 1970s and ’80s, also served as an FBI informant who ratted on his gang’s main rival, according to the bureau. Bulger strongly denied ever being a government informant.

Bulger became one of the nation’s most wanted fugitives after fleeing Boston in 1994 thanks to a tip from his FBI handler that he was about to be indicted. He was captured at age 81 after more than 16 years on the run and convicted in 2013 in 11 killings and dozens of other gangland crimes.

Another Hazelton prisoner, Massachusetts gangster Paul J. DeCologero, was sentenced to more than four years in prison in August on an assault charge in Bulger’s killing. Prosecutors said he acted as a lookout for Geas. A third inmate, Sean McKinnon, pleaded guilty in June to lying to FBI special agents. McKinnon was given no additional prison time and was returned