Court upholds million-dollar judgment for families of alleged Bulger victims

By Milton J. Valencia and Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff

A federal appeals court today upheld million-dollar judgments in favor of families of James “Whitey” Bulger’s alleged murder victims, finding that the government was liable for the deaths because of the FBI’s corrupt relationship with the gangster.

The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld awards totaling more than $1.3 million for the family of Debra Davis, $350,000 for the family of Deborah Hussey, and $1.1 million for the family of Louis Litif.

Davis was the girlfriend of Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, Bulger’s longtime associate and fellow FBI informant. Flemmi also had a long-term relationship with Hussey’s mother, and he raised Deborah as a daughter.

He previously testified that he watched as Bulger strangled the women, who were both 26 when they were killed at different times in the 1980s.

Litif, a bookmaker, was slain in 1980 after he offered to cooperate against Bulger.

The appeals court affirmed the trial judge’s decision that the FBI showed “negligence of wildly reckless behavior” in using Bulger and Flemmi as informants and shielding them from prosecution.

Steve Davis, the brother of Debra Davis, said today that the ruling shows the court was paying attention to the families.

“In my case, it’s not about the money, it’s more about justice,” Davis said, adding that the case will not be over until Bulger stands trial for the murder of his sister and 18 other victims. “We’ve been fighting all these years for justice and I’m still going to be fighting.”

Hussey’s brother, Billy St. Croix, called the ruling a moral victory, which to him meant: “Debbie, you mattered.”

A spokeswoman for the US Department of Justice declined to comment.

In today’s decision, the appeals court also vacated sanctions against the government. The trial judge had ordered the government to pay $5,000 each to the Hussey and Davis families for acting in bad faith during the trial by arguing that Davis and Hussey were partly to blame for their own deaths because they associated with Bulger and Flemmi.

But the appeals court said sanctions could only be ordered if the government’s intent was to harass the families and directed the trial judge to reconsider that question.

Bulger, 82, was arrested in June in California after more than 16 years on the lam. Flemmi is serving a life sentence for 10 murders.