No criminal charges for gangster's brother
Prosecutors had probed whether the former Mass. Senate leader helped his brother evade capture.
Federal prosecutors have decided not to seek criminal charges against William M. Bulger, marking the end of a six-year investigation into whether the former president of the Massachusetts Senate and the University of Massachusetts obstructed efforts to capture his gangster brother, James "Whitey" Bulger, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.
The U.S. Attorney's Office let the clock run out this week on a federal grand jury in Boston investigating whether William Bulger had committed perjury or obstruction of justice, concluding that there was too little evidence to seek indictments and take a case to trial, the sources said.
U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan could not be reached Tuesday, and his chief of staff, Robert Krekorian, declined to comment on the end of the investigation.
Whitey Bulger, 77, a longtime FBI informant, was warned by his retired FBI handler, John J. Connolly Jr., to flee shortly before his January 1995 federal racketeering indictment and has eluded authorities since. The international manhunt for the gangster, who is accused of 19 murders and is one of the FBI's 10 Most Wanted fugitives, alongside Osama bin Laden, has brought scrutiny to his family.
William Bulger, 73, of South Boston, who became president of the University of Massachusetts in January 1996, was pressured by Gov. Mitt Romney to resign in 2003 after he was publicly grilled about his relationship with his brother by a congressional committee investigating the FBI's mishandling of informants.
Bulger told the committee that he did not know where his fugitive brother was hiding and had not aided him in any way since he fled.
The investigation had centered on William Bulger's testimony before the federal grand jury in Boston in April 2001. According to a transcript obtained by the Globe four years ago, Bulger testified that he had spoken with his brother only once since he became a fugitive, during an arranged telephone call he received in late January 1995, and that he felt no obligation to help authorities catch him.
He also testified that he was unaware of any contacts between his fugitive brother and other members of his family, including his younger brother, John "Jackie" Bulger, who was later convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for impeding the fugitive investigation.
The grand jury, which expired this week, was focusing on whether William Bulger knew about a 1996 call that Whitey Bulger made to the home of Senate court officer Paul I. Dooley while John Bulger and William Bulger's son-in-law, Michael J. Hurley, were present, along with former Whitey Bulger deputy Kevin J. Weeks.
In a legal battle that went to the U.S. Supreme Court last year, William Bulger's former law partner, Thomas E. Finnerty, was ordered to testify before the recent grand jury about whether William Bulger knew about the 1996 call, according to sources and court documents.
The FBI knew from calling cards it had seized from a car abandoned by Whitey Bulger that he and his girlfriend, Catherine Greig, had made dozens of calls to homes and businesses in the Boston area in the summer and fall of 1996, including one to Dooley's home, according to court records.
Prosecutors began calling witnesses to a 1998 grand jury to question them about the calls.