Whitey Bulger Appeals Racketeering Convictions

Lawyers for James “Whitey” Bulger return to court this week seeking to overturn the the notorious gangster’s racketeering convictions, WHDH Channel 7 reports.

Arguments are scheduled to begin Monday in the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but Bulger, himslef, is not expected to attend as his attorneys try to convince the court that the former head of the notorious “Winter Hill Gang,” based in Somerville, did not receive a fair trial. Bulger claims a federal prosecutor has offered him immunity, but the judge overseeing his trial did not allow the testimony , citing a lack of hard evidence of the deal.

Bulger was convicted in 2014 in connection with 11 murders in the 1970s and 1980s. He was charged with 19 murders, two of which are alleged to have occurred in Somerville — those of Richard Castucci and James Sousa. Castucci was lured to an apartment in Somerville and killed on Dec. 30, 1976. Sousa was allegedly lured to a garage in Somerville and killed in 1974.

Bulger was a key player in the Winter Hill Gang, which operated out of Somerville’s Winter Hill during the 1960s and 1970s. When Bulger took over the gang following the imprisonment of its leaders, he moved its operations to Boston.

He is serving a life sentence in Florida.

Photo courtesy of WHDH Channel 7.