BOSTON — Former Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger was led off to prison Thursday to begin serving a life sentence at 84 for his murderous reign in the 1970s and ’80s, accepting his punishment in stone-faced silence.
“The scope, the callousness, the depravity of your crimes is almost unfathomable,” U.S. District Judge Denise Casper said to Bulger in a 20-minute speech before she sentenced him.
Casper sentenced Bulger to two consecutive life sentences plus five years, as prosecutors had requested. She also ordered restitution of $19.5 million to victims and their families.
On Aug. 12, jurors found Bulger guilty on 31 counts of racketeering and involvement in 11 killings, though he was cleared in the deaths of seven other people.
Bulger, an FBI informant and former boss of the Winter Hill Gang, Boston’s Irish mob, fled the city in 1994 after being tipped off by a former FBI agent that he was about to be indicted. He was a fugitive for more than 16 years until he was captured in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2011.
