A judge could decide this week whether Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger will have to pay for his own attorney while his legal case unfolds. Prosecutors plan to fight any effort to assign a public defender to Bulger, who had been on the lam for 16 years.
Then and now: James "Whitey" Bulger, reputed leader of Boston's Irish mob, is seen in booking photos from a 1953 arrest in Boston and after his capture Wednesday in Los Angeles.BOSTON — It will be up to a judge to determine if James "Whitey" Bulger must pay for his own attorney as his criminal case gets underway, or if the state -- also known as the public -- will pick up the check for the reputed leader of Boston's Irish mob.
Bulger's temporary court-appointed lawyer has until the end of the day on Monday to submit arguments on whether Bulger should be declared indigent and assigned a public defender -- a move that government prosecutors say they will fight. A judge could rule on the matter before week's end.
Prosecutor Brian Kelly on Friday said Bulger has assets other than the $800,000 authorities recovered from the Santa Monica, Calif., apartment where Bulger, 81, and girlfriend Catherine Greig, 60, were arrested last week.
Bulger’s ability to elude authorities had been an endless source of embarrassment for the federal agents tracking him since 1995, when a retired FBI agent warned the gangster that authorities were circling their wagons.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Dugdale, center, talks to reporters after the West Coast arraignment of fugitive crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger at the Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles on Thursday. The Boston mob boss has since been remanded to Massachusetts to face murder and other charges.Bulger, who once led Boston's feared and powerful Irish mob, is currently being held at a correctional facility in Plymouth. Bulger has suggested that he could afford a lawyer if the government were to return the money it seized during a search of his former West Coast home.
Authorities have linked Bulger to at least 19 murders, many of them brutal, mob-related hits. But federal agents had been unable to pinpoint the whereabouts of the aging crime boss, who apparently opted for a fairly normal life in California rather than flee the country to live in isolation.
The FBI's shame over the Bulger affair diminished after a new generation of law officers, led by Richard DesLauriers, helped change the perception of the agency. During a press conference announcing Bulger’s capture, DesLauriers, a graduate of Springfield’s Cathedral High School, said the FBI “never wavered” in its pursuit of the fugitive.
Bulger’s undoing came just one day after the FBI launched an advertising blitz aimed mainly at older women. The ads focused on Bulger’s vain companion Greig, who reportedly liberally used the services of hairdressers, plastic surgeons and others to keep up her appearance.
DesLauriers said the ad yielded a tip that ultimately led to Bulger's arrest.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.