Whitey Bulger's Defense Team Objects to Trial Date

James “Whitey” Bulger, the reputed Boston mobster and former FBI informant who was captured last year after 16 years on the run, will face trial Nov. 5, a federal judge said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler in Boston set the trial date today over the objection of Bulger’s court-appointed attorney, J.W. Carney Jr. Prosecutors have inundated him with 580,000 pages of documents and 921 tapes of secret wiretaps related to the 48-count racketeering indictment, Carney said.

“We can’t possibly be ready,” he told the judge. His client didn’t attend today’s hearing.

Bulger, 82, and his girlfriend, Catherine Greig, were arrested in June after the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working on a tip, lured the fugitive out of an apartment building in Santa Monica, California. Bulger was wanted in connection with at least 19 murders committed from 1973 to 1985 and crimes including extortion, bookmaking and drug trafficking.

“I think it’s best I give you a strict timeline,” Bowler told Carney and federal prosecutors. “I urge you to work in a cooperative fashion. This is a monumental task.” She said Carney could request funding to hire more lawyers.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Kelly told the judge that Bulger is trying to delay trial by raising issues prosecutors have already litigated.

“Mr. Bulger is trying to run out the clock,” Kelly said. He said Bulger’s attorney has suggested in court papers that he may argue his client had immunity to commit crimes while working as an informant under corrupt FBI agents.

The federal courts threw out an attempt by Bulger’s partner, Stephen Flemmi, to claim immunity as an informant.

“FBI agents don’t have the authority to grant immunity,” Kelly said.

Bulger’s and Flemmi’s former FBI handler, John J. Connolly Jr., served a 10-year federal sentence for racketeering and is now serving 40 years in state prison in Florida for his role in the murder of a former Bulger associate in Miami.

The case is U.S. v. Bulger, 99-10371, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts (Boston).

Thanks to Janelle Lawrence

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Appellate Judge Raises Concerns Over Family Secrets Mob Trial Judge

A federal appellate judge has expressed misgivings about a lower court judge's contact with jurors during Chicago's highest profile mob trial in decades — one credited with helping to weaken organized crime.

The judge commented Monday as attorneys for convicted reputed mobsters argued for a do-over of the 2007 Family Secrets trial before the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Jurors five years ago convicted reputed mob boss James Marcello and others of racketeering conspiracy that included 18 murders.

Appellate Judge Diane Wood told Monday's hearing she's concerned by accounts that trial Judge James Zagel seemed to have "private chats" with jurors that didn't become part of the official trial record.

Defense attorney Francis Lipuma singled out how Zagel dismissed one juror without consulting the trial lawyers.

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Little Jimmy Marcello Returns to Chicago After Unauthorized Trip To West Coast

After a whirlwind swing to the West Coast and back, courtesy of the American taxpayers and a monumental goof up by federal authorities, Outfit boss Jimmy Marcello is back home.

On Sunday, Marcello was once again listed on the register of the friendly confines of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, after a federal judge angrily ordered his return last Friday.

The 68-year-old Outfit boss, serving a life term for murders and mayhem following conviction in the Operation Family Secrets trial, had been abruptly moved from the MCC two weeks ago to a prison in California. The transfer had apparently not been ordered or authorized.

When Marcello's attorney filed a motion suggesting the transfer was a result of government foul play, government attorneys last Friday said there had been a "miscommunication."

An irked U.S. District Judge James Zagel told prosecutors that, "this is something that should not have been done. I don't know how you are going to get him back here, but you're going to get him back here."

The message must have resonated with prosecutors and officials at the Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Marshals Service that operates the nation's prisoner transport network.

Although authorities on Friday declined to report exactly how Marcello would be transferred back to Chicago, it was accomplished with extraordinary speed and efficiency. The presumption is that Marcello was put on an aircraft operated by the Marshals Service, in it's division known as "JPATS," the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transport System.

Marcello made it from the Atwater penitentiary more than 150 miles east of San Francisco where he was still housed on Friday to the Chicago MCC on Sunday. The JPATS system shuttles 1,400 prisoners a day throughout the U.S. on a fleet of government and charter aircraft, buses, vans and cars.

Authorities told the I-Team on Friday that there was only one JPATS flight in and out of Chicago each week but it is not clear whether Marcello was on that flight or if authorities made separate arrangements.

The prisoner transport program, made famous by Hollywood in the movie Con Air, costs more than $150 million a year for the U.S. government to operate.

Marcello's mistaken, unnecessary trip to California and back cost taxpayers about $4,000. He will remain in Chicago as his appeal is heard, so that he can assist in case preparation according to Judge Zagel.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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