Three men charged with beating gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger to death

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Three men have been charged with beating Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger to death in prison.

Bulger, who was the one-time leader of the city’s Irish mob, died in 2018 after being struck multiple times around the head at West Virginia’s United States Penitentiary Hazleton.

Fotios Geas, 55, Paul J DeCologero, 48, and Sean McKinnon, 36, have been charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, according to the Justice Department.

Geas and DeCologero have also been charged with aiding and abetting first-degree murder, along with assault resulting in serious bodily injury.

Officials say that Geas also faces a separate charge for murder by a federal inmate serving a life sentence. McKinnon faces a separate charge of making false statements to a federal agent.

Bulger was 89 and in a wheelchair when he was fatally attacked with a padlock stuffed inside a sock, officials said at the time of his death.

The attack was so violent that it displaced his eyeballs, according to The New York Times.

The killing of Bulger, who was a longtime federal informer, took place within hours of his arrival at the prison.

Bulger was murdered while serving two life terms in prison for his part in 11 murders committed when he was a leading figure in Boston organised crime.

He was captured in Santa Monica, California, in June 2011 after being at large since 1994.

His criminal exploits were portrayed in the 2015 movie Black Mass, where he was played by Johnny Depp, and – in a fictionalised version, 2006’s The Departed, with Jack Nicholson.