"Prosecutors demand Bulger forfeit $25m in assets" by Shelley Murphy | Globe Staff, September 20, 2013
Federal prosecutors urged a judge Friday to order James “Whitey” Bulger to forfeit nearly $25.2 million to the government, contending that is a conservative estimate of how much the gangster raked in from drug trafficking and extorting people at gunpoint over several decades.
The order would force Bulger, 84, to turn over all his assets to satisfy the judgment, including the $822,000 in cash seized from his California apartment when he was captured and any profits he might attempt to make by selling his life story. It will also probably pave the way for a battle over the money between the government and Bulger’s victims, including some who won civil judgments against him and have yet to collect.
One of Bulger’s lawyers, J.W. Carney Jr., said in an e-mail, “He might need a payment plan.”
Prosecutors have said they plan to distribute the money among the families of Bulger’s victims, but Tom Donahue, whose father Michael was gunned down by Bulger in 1982, said, “I don’t think the government is ever going to let that happen.”
The Donahue family won a $6.4 million wrongful death suit against the government for the FBI’s mishandling of Bulger as an informant, only to see it overturned on appeal. Donahue said the government promised to pay daily parking fees incurred by the victims’ families while attending Bulger’s trial, but they have only received a fraction of the cost.
That's a government I recognize!
“The government wants to keep it for themselves,” Donahue said of the forfeited monies. “They don’t even want to pay us for parking. Do you think they want to give us millions of dollars?”
It's because they have bankrupted us and are now casting their greedy, money-grubbing mitts around for any loot they can find.
Christina DiIorio-Sterling, a spokeswoman for the US Attorney’s office, said Friday, “The government’s intention is to distribute the forfeited funds to the victims’ families.”
In two motions filed Friday in US District Court in Boston, prosecutors said evidence at Bulger’s eight-week racketeering trial showed that he raked in $25,162,800 from shaking down drug dealers, businessmen, and one of his murder victims, Arthur “Bucky” Barrett.
The filing marked the first time prosecutors have publicly put a dollar amount on Bulger’s racketeering enterprise.
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While Bulger was a fugitive, the FBI seized the contents of safe deposit boxes belonging to the gangster in London, Dublin, Florida, and Canada. The FBI said the London box contained $50,000. Yet, the government has never disclosed all of the assets seized.
After his arrest, Bulger said he could not afford a lawyer because his money had been seized, and he was appointed lawyers at taxpayer expense.
Bulger’s defense team billed the government more than $2.6 million between June 2011 and June of this year, and that amount will climb to cover costs from July and August while his trial was underway, according to court records.
I consider it tax money well spent.
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The FBI enabled him all the way along, so how much will they have to fork over?
Related: Slow Sat. Work Back: Bulger Jury Speaks
I'm done talking about it because it's a rerun.
