Alex Constantine - August 15, 2013
Associated Press: EASTHAM, Mass. — A juror in Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger's trial said testimony showed that the man once listed as the FBI's most wanted fugitive was a "bad, bad man," but she was still stunned by revelations of government corruption that enabled him to operate for years.
Janet Uhlar-Tinney also said failure by prosecutors to provide sufficient evidence to back allegations by former mobsters who testified against Bulger made it impossible to determine without reasonable doubt that he killed eight of 19 victims. ...
CBS News: ... Failure by prosecutors to provide sufficient evidence to back allegations by former mobsters who testified against Bulger made it impossible for jurors to determine without reasonable doubt that he killed eight of 19 victims, Uhlar-Tinney said.
"Two of the murder cases, as I recall, we just, we maybe had a name in testimony, kind of just a sentence and that was all we had to go with. Then the only evidence we had were pictures of a dead body or, you know, a car that was all shot up, so we just couldn't really say one way or the other," she said. ...
KpopStarz: "Bulger Juror Says Government Also On Trial" -- ... Bulger Juror Janet Uhlar said the testimony showed deep-seated corruption in the FBI and government during Bulger's heyday. She called the justice system “tainted” and said she was disgusted. She said “Almost every witness that came through for the prosecution, I just had this feeling like it's tainted. It's tainted.” She concluded "You weren't sure what you could believe or what you couldn't believe." ...
Moneynews: ... There could not be a better time for the book "Whitey Bulger: America's Most Wanted Criminal and the Manhunt that Brought Him to Justice," by Kevin Cullen and Shelly Murphy to appear. Cullen, a columnist for The Boston Globe, appeared on C-SPAN's Washington Journal to discuss the book with host Pedro Echevarria.
Cullen began by explaining who Bulger is, that he successfully corrupted the FBI going back as far as 1975 and was allegedly involved in as many as 69 murders, making him one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. ...
Another part of Whitey's legend was that he had shot up the front entrance of The Boston Globe. Then after the management put additional security in front, he gleefully shot up the back of the building. ... Cullen stated that in 1988, an FBI agent called him at The Globe and warned him that he would be murdered if he wrote that Whitey had been an informant. Cullen charged that the FBI got the worst of its dealings with Whitey and protected nearly all of the handlers who had conferred on Whitey a license to kill, and they usually retired with full benefits. He added that a 600-page judicial report on FBI corruption has languished.
In conclusion, Cullen allowed that, "At the end of the day, the FBI doesn't shoot people in the back of the head." ...
News Telegram: ... The ugliness of government corruption has been exposed. Bribes helped Mr. Bulger do as much as he did for as long as he did. The reputation of the Boston branch of the FBI was severely harmed in the late 1980s when this man was revealed as a longtime informant, and then went on the lam. ...