Where's Whitey?

Whitey Bulger wears lots of hats: mass murderer, hit man, mob boss, Red Sox fan, psychopath, art thief, IRA supporter, FBI informant, top-10 FBI fugitive, animal lover, world traveler and brother of former Massachusetts State Senate president and UMass head Billy Bulger. And, for not the first time, this Whitey/Billy relationship is causing trouble for the former pol (a Bostonian abbreviation for politician/politico).

Former state Senate President William M. Bulger was financing his serial-killer big brother's flight from the law, a major-league mob snitch claimed, according to his jailhouse protege [Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme...]

[According to another source,] Salemme believed William Bulger, 71, then president of the University of Massachusetts, "was still in contact" with Irish mob boss Whitey Bulger, 75, who – despite a $1 million bounty on his graying head – has evaded capture since 1994 for the murders of at least 18 people.

Besides the fact that the former head of an elected body may have helped a mass murderer -- who happens to be his brother -- evade capture for his crimes, this revelation is explosive for two reasons. First, it could result in a new trial for Whitey's main FBI contact John Connolly, currently serving 10 years for collaborating with the Boston mobstar (not mobster). Second, it could also could mean that Congress might take a second look at Billy, who testified a few years back under oath there that he had only had brief contact -- and on only one occasion -- with his fugitive brother.

I've been following the Bulger family saga since I was a kid growing up north of Boston. It's fascinating stuff, what with Whitey's hits, IRA ties, FBI links, and his possible connection to the Isabella Stuart Gardner art heist fifteen years ago. (This theft, the biggest in U.S. history -- involving works by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Degas, Manet and others -- is still unsolved.) When the Whitey movie is made, all I ask is that the producers keep Ben Affleck the hell away from the casting call.

More on Billy's current troubles from the Boston Herald here.