Whitey Bulger Thought He Was Going To The Hospital: Lawyer

BOSTON, MA — Notorious gangster James "Whitey" Bulger thought he was headed to a hospital when he was transferred out of a federal prison in Florida, his lawyer told the Wall Street Journal.

The leader of Boston's former Winter Hill Gang, serving life in prison for 11 murders, called his attorney four weeks before his death to tell him he was getting out of solitary confinement to be transferred to a prison medical facility, according to the attorney, Hank Brennan.

When Brennan asked how he felt about the move, Bulger said he didn't like it, the WSJ reported.

“The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t,” Bulger told him, according to the Journal.

One month later, Bulger, 89, was sent to a notoriously violent federal prison in Hazelton, West Virginia. Less than 24 hours later the wheelchair-bound mobster with heart problems was beaten to death inside his unlocked cell.

Brennan now plans to sue the government on behalf of Bulger’s estate for wrongful death and negligence, hoping to find out why authorities sent a man in failing health to the West Virginia prison and housed him with the general population, the Journal reported.

“It’s important for the family and the public to know why the prisons decided to wheel an 89-year-old man with a history of heart attacks into one of the most dangerous prisons in the country,” said Brennan told the Wall Street Journal.

A Bureau of Prisons spokesperson told the WSJ that Bulger was transferred from the Florida prison because of a threat he made against a staff member. Brennan refutes that.

Federal prosecutors say they are investigating the death as a homicide. Patch previously reportedthat authorities are looking into a possible suspect or suspects believed to have ties to the mob.

Paul Weadick, 63, who was convicted alongside former mob boss "Cadillac" Frank Salemme for strangling to death Boston nightclub owner Steven DiSarro in 1993, is serving life at Hazelton. Salemme is serving life at a Brooklyn, NY prison. Fotios "Freddy" Geas, also a mobster from Massachusetts, is serving time there.

Bulger’s medical classification was changed to indicate that he needed less medical care before he was sent to the prison in West Virginia, according to several reports.

Read the full WSJ article: Whitey Bulger Thought He Was Headed to Hospital Before Death

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Photo courtesy US Marshalls Office