Federal judge out sick 7 months

Oversaw cases tying FBI, Bulger

US District Court Judge Reginald C. Lindsay, a sharp critic of the Justice Department's handling of lawsuits stemming from the FBI's involvement with mobster James "Whitey" Bulger, has been out sick for more than seven months, and it is uncertain when he will return to the bench.

Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf confirmed this week that Lindsay has been absent since about April 1 and said Lindsay is recuperating at a rehabilitation center. Wolf declined to disclose Lindsay's illness, citing privacy concerns, but said it is related to the 63-year-old jurist's disability. Lindsay uses a wheelchair because of a tumor on his spine that robbed him of the ability to walk in 1983.

"The disability is complicating or delaying his recovery, but he is recovering," said Wolf, who on Sunday spent about an hour with Lindsay at the rehabilitation center, discussing topics ranging from work to the New England Patriots.

"While it's not clear when he will be back, he's looking forward to coming back, and we're looking forward to having him," Wolf said.

Lindsay, a soft-spoken but firm judge who was appointed by President Clinton in 1993, has had health problems before as a district court judge in Boston. In 1997, he took a nine-week leave for treatment of bedsores, a perilous affliction for people in wheelchairs.

Lindsay - who grew up in segregated Birmingham, Ala., and was the second black man appointed to the federal bench in Massachusetts - said in a 1997 Globe interview that his disability shapes his perspectives on many matters, including race.

"I guess I start with the proposition that you have a whole different world view from a seated position than a standing position," he said.

In recent years, Linsdsay has emerged as a tough critic of the Justice Department's handling of wrongful death suits, stemming from the alliance between the fugitive mobster Bulger and the disgraced former FBI agent John J. Connolly.

A Florida jury convicted Connolly Nov. 6 of second-degree murder for setting up the 1982 slaying of a gambling executive by Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi. Connolly is already serving a 10-year prison sentence for his 2002 federal racketeering conviction for helping Bulger to evade capture.

A year ago yesterday, Lindsay ruled the FBI was responsible for the 1982 execution-style deaths of Edward Brian Halloran and Michael Donahue, allegedly killed by Winter Hill gang members. He urged prosecutors to settle for damages with the families.

He pointed out that the government itself had argued in criminal prosecutions that both men were slain because Connolly tipped off Bulger that Halloran was an informant.

Nonetheless, the government did not settle, and Lindsay held a trial in March to decide damages for the families of Halloran and Donahue. Robert A. George, a member of the legal team representing Donahue's family, said they eagerly await his ruling.

In Lindsay's absence, Judge William G. Young has overseen most of his civil cases, and Wolf has done the same with most of Lindsay's criminal cases.