FBI ups ante for capture of Whitey Bulger
Acknowledges he is suspected of molesting young girls
As fugitive gangster James "Whitey" Bulger marked his 79th birthday yesterday, the FBI announced that it is offering a multimillion-dollar gift to anyone who turns him in.
The FBI increased the reward for information leading directly to Bulger's capture from $1 million to $2 million - the largest amount the bureau is currently offering for a domestic fugitive.
"Let this be a reminder to Mr. Bulger, his family, his friends and supporters, the community, and to anyone who is harboring Mr. Bulger during his fugitive status that the Bulger Fugitive Task Force will doggedly hunt for Mr. Bulger until he is apprehended and returned to Massachusetts," Noreen Gleason, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office, said at a news conference yesterday.
The FBI also acknowledged for the first time that Bulger, who is wanted for 19 murders, was suspected of molesting a number of girls, some as young as 12, in the years before he fled Boston in 1995. He has not been charged with any sexual offenses.
Gleason said that some of Bulger's sexual assault victims have been interviewed in recent years by the Bulger task force, which is composed of FBI agents and officers from the State Police and the Department of Correction.
"These victims expressed their fear and concern of retaliation from Mr. Bulger and his associates for cooperation with law enforcement," said Gleason, calling Bulger "a true predator in every sense of the word."
The only other fugitive on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list who has a higher bounty on his head is Osama bin Laden. The US State Department is offering $25 million for information that results in his arrest.
Yesterday, the FBI also posted two new age-enhanced photos of Bulger, who has been on the 10 Most Wanted list since 1999, on its website and circulated them worldwide, officials said. Bulger fled just before his January 1995 federal racketeering indictment and was later charged with the murders and publicly identified as a longtime FBI informant.
US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said anyone who leads investigators to Bulger could be eligible for the reward, even the fugitive's girlfriend, 57-year-old Catherine Greig, who is charged with harboring Bulger and is believed to be traveling with him.
"If she decides at this point in her life she wants to come home and be with family and friends and wants to turn James "Whitey" Bulger in, I think we would welcome the opportunity to sit down and negotiate the reward with Catherine Greig," Sullivan said. "I can't think of anybody we would not welcome the opportunity to pay this reward to, except to James 'Whitey' Bulger. . . . It's our intent to put the cuffs on Bulger and have him stand trial for the charges he faces."
One former Bulger associate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, speculated that if Bulger were seriously ill or dying, then it would be just like him to arrange for a family member to turn him in and collect the reward. "I think that would be his last laugh on the government," he said.
FBI special agent Richard Teahan, coordinator of the Bulger task force, said, "It really doesn't matter who calls us as long as we get the call, family or otherwise."
Bulger's brother, William M. Bulger, former president of the state Senate and the University of Massachusetts, admitted he had a telephone conversation with the fugitive shortly after he fled, but testified before a congressional committee in 2003 that he did not know where he was hiding.
Another brother, John "Jackie" Bulger, a retired clerk magistrate at Boston Juvenile Court, spent six months in prison for lying to federal grand juries about contacts with the fugitive.
Attorney Thomas R. Kiley, who represents William Bulger, declined to comment yesterday on the reward.
Law enforcement officials said they hope the reward and international media attention about Bulger's case will lead to his capture.
"He's got to be sleeping somewhere and going down to get his coffee someplace," said State Police Colonel Mark F. Delaney. "He can't be invisible. He can't be living in the shadows forever."
The last confirmed sighting of Bulger was in London in 2002, according to the FBI.
The increase in the reward comes as Bulger's former handler, retired FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr., is about to stand trial next week in Miami on murder charges. Connolly is accused of plotting with Bulger and another informant, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, to murder Boston businessman John B. Callahan in 1982. Connolly is serving a 10-year prison term for his 2002 racketeering conviction for protecting Bulger and Flemmi from prosecution and warning them to flee before their 1995 indictment.
Shelley Murphy can be reached at shmurphy@globe.com. 