Catherine Greig, longtime companion of convicted killer James “Whitey” Bulger, was indicted in U.S. District Court in Boston in connection with her refusal to testify before a grand jury.
“Ms. Greig was ordered by the Court to testify before a grand jury about whether others assisted Mr. Bulger while he lived on the lam for 16 years,” said United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz. “By refusing to comply with that order, Ms. Greig has committed a new crime and this indictment seeks to hold her accountable. The grand jury is entitled to her testimony and flouting a federal court’s order has substantial consequences.”
“Catherine Greig has yet again failed to do the right thing,” said Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division. “Her refusal to testify has hindered the FBI’s efforts to seek justice for the victims of his crimes. Our efforts to find those who assisted them during their lives as fugitives will not stop despite the fact that Ms. Greig has refused to testify.”
Catherine E. Greig, 64, was indicted on one count of criminal contempt. The indictment alleges that on Dec. 9, 2014, and continuing through Sept. 22, 2015, Greig refused to testify before a federal grand jury regarding an investigation into whether other individuals assisted Bulger while he was a fugitive from 1995 through 2011. In 2012, Greig was convicted of identity fraud and harboring James J. Bulger, and was sentenced to eight years in federal prison.
The charge of criminal contempt provides for a prison sentence to be served subsequent to her current eight-year prison sentence and a fine. There is no fixed maximum penalty for criminal contempt, so courts may impose any sentence. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Brutal: The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob
Brutal: The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob
I grew up in the Old Colony housing project in South Boston and became partners with James "Whitey" Bulger, who I always called Jimmy.
Jimmy and I, we were unstoppable. We took what we wanted. And we made people disappear—permanently. We made millions. And if someone ratted us out, we killed him. We were not nice guys.
I found out that Jimmy had been an FBI informant in 1999, and my life was never the same. When the feds finally got me, I was faced with something Jimmy would have killed me for—cooperating with the authorities. I pled guilty to twenty-nine counts, including five murders. I went away for five and a half years.
I was brutally honest on the witness stand, and this book is brutally honest, too; the brutal truth that was never before told. How could it? Only three people could tell the true story. With one on the run and one in jail for life, it falls on me. -- Kevin Weeks
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Hunted Down: The FBI's Pursuit and Capture of Whitey Bulger
Writer Kevin Weeks was top Lieutenant to James "Whitey" Bulger
, head of the South Boston Irish Mob, who was on the run for more than 16 years before his capture on June 22, 2011. While on the FBI Most Wanted list with a two million dollar reward, Whitey had been second only to Osama bin Laden. Hunted Down: The FBI's Pursuit and Capture of Whitey Bulger, is a story of murder, friendship and loyalty within the mob, using many situations that Weeks could have omitted from his NYT bestselling memoir, Brutal: The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob. While Hunted Down: The FBI's Pursuit and Capture of Whitey Bulger, is fiction, its insider knowledge makes it all the more intriguing, with hints toward where Whitey and his companion Catherine Greig may actually have spent those 16 years on the run.
In this story, Joey Donahue is released from prison after serving six years for racketeering and crimes committed as deputy to the infamous South Boston Irish Mob boss and psychopathic murderer Whitey Bulger. This time, he is determined to stay clear of the life of crime that has supported him for the past twenty-five years. After a year of trying unsuccessfully to find a job due to his notorious association with Bulger, Joey finally surrenders to the temptation of a friend's offer to join him in a fast score, a simple robbery of a drug dealer that should pay the bills until he finds a viable job. The robbery turns out to be a sting operation set up by the FBI for the express purpose of forcing Joey to cooperate in the frustratingly unsuccessful search for his onetime mentor. With Joey reluctantly partnered with an FBI agent, the hunt for Whitey takes place against an international backdrop until the old friends finally meet up in a high-stakes climax, ending the game of cat and mouse once and for all.
It is speculated that Bulger is also the inspiration for the ruthless crime kingpin Francis "Frank" Costello, played by Jack Nicholson in Martin Scorsese's Academy Award-winning film The Departed.
, head of the South Boston Irish Mob, who was on the run for more than 16 years before his capture on June 22, 2011. While on the FBI Most Wanted list with a two million dollar reward, Whitey had been second only to Osama bin Laden. Hunted Down: The FBI's Pursuit and Capture of Whitey Bulger, is a story of murder, friendship and loyalty within the mob, using many situations that Weeks could have omitted from his NYT bestselling memoir, Brutal: The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob. While Hunted Down: The FBI's Pursuit and Capture of Whitey Bulger, is fiction, its insider knowledge makes it all the more intriguing, with hints toward where Whitey and his companion Catherine Greig may actually have spent those 16 years on the run.
In this story, Joey Donahue is released from prison after serving six years for racketeering and crimes committed as deputy to the infamous South Boston Irish Mob boss and psychopathic murderer Whitey Bulger. This time, he is determined to stay clear of the life of crime that has supported him for the past twenty-five years. After a year of trying unsuccessfully to find a job due to his notorious association with Bulger, Joey finally surrenders to the temptation of a friend's offer to join him in a fast score, a simple robbery of a drug dealer that should pay the bills until he finds a viable job. The robbery turns out to be a sting operation set up by the FBI for the express purpose of forcing Joey to cooperate in the frustratingly unsuccessful search for his onetime mentor. With Joey reluctantly partnered with an FBI agent, the hunt for Whitey takes place against an international backdrop until the old friends finally meet up in a high-stakes climax, ending the game of cat and mouse once and for all.
It is speculated that Bulger is also the inspiration for the ruthless crime kingpin Francis "Frank" Costello, played by Jack Nicholson in Martin Scorsese's Academy Award-winning film The Departed.
Monday, September 21, 2015
The Butcher: Anatomy of a Mafia Psychopath
Philip Carlo was a tough guy -- really
.
The prolific Brooklyn-born writer, spent most of his career writing about really bad people, such as L.A. serial killer Richard Ramirez (The Night Stalker (Pinnacle True Crime)), Luchese family mobster Anthony ``Gaspipe'' Casso (Gaspipe: Confessions of a Mafia Boss) and merciless Gambino contract killer Richard Kuklinski (The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer).
For his book, The Butcher: Anatomy of a Mafia Psychopath, the intrepid author tracked down Tommy Pitera, a capo in New York's Bonanno crime family. Carlo got up close and personal with this infamous assassin, who presided over a huge drug-selling operation in the '80s and is currently serving seven life sentences.
Though the pictures are in black and white -- they get the, um, point across.
Thanks to MADELEINE MARR
.The prolific Brooklyn-born writer, spent most of his career writing about really bad people, such as L.A. serial killer Richard Ramirez (The Night Stalker (Pinnacle True Crime)), Luchese family mobster Anthony ``Gaspipe'' Casso (Gaspipe: Confessions of a Mafia Boss) and merciless Gambino contract killer Richard Kuklinski (The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer).
For his book, The Butcher: Anatomy of a Mafia Psychopath, the intrepid author tracked down Tommy Pitera, a capo in New York's Bonanno crime family. Carlo got up close and personal with this infamous assassin, who presided over a huge drug-selling operation in the '80s and is currently serving seven life sentences.
Though the pictures are in black and white -- they get the, um, point across.
Thanks to MADELEINE MARR
GOMORRAH: A Personal Journey Into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organized Crime System
In the United States organized crime has entered a Tony Soprano twilight, as small-time bosses carve up ever-smaller wedges of a shrinking pie. In Italy, by contrast, all systems are go. In shipping, fashion and construction, to name just three booming businesses, the mob holds sway, often acting through, rather than despite, local government. All told, according to a recent report by an Italian small-business association, mob-related activity accounts for the single largest sector of the Italian economy.
Roberto Saviano, a young Italian journalist, counts the cost in “Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System,” his savage indictment of the Neapolitan crime organization known as the Camorra. Although less well known than the Mafia, its Sicilian counterpart, the Camorra has held the economy of southern Italy in a tight grip for more than a century. With time it has adapted and modernized, spreading from Naples to outlying towns, while adding financial services and real estate to its expanding portfolio.
“Never in the economy of a region has there been such a widespread, crushing presence of criminality as in Campania in the last 10 years
,” Mr. Saviano writes.
The garment sweatshops of Secondigliano, a small town on the outskirts of Naples, provide Mr. Saviano with a case study. Day and night, highly skilled workers turn out low-cost counterfeits that compare favorably in quality with the originals from the big fashion houses. The factories are bankrolled by the Camorra, which lends money at low rates. Factory workers get their mortgages through the Camorra. Once completed, the clothes often find their way to boutiques owned by the Camorra all over Europe, many in Camorra-owned shopping malls.
The Camorra has come a long way since the days of cigarette smuggling. But despite the corporate face, it relies on age-old techniques of intimidation and violence, which Mr. Saviano describes in gruesome detail. When Cammoristi want to send a message, they do a thorough job. Enforcers make their point with one victim by sawing his head off with a metal grinder and blowing it up. The notorious Pasquale Barra, better known as the Animal, set new standards some years back when he ripped a target’s heart out with his bare hands and then bit into it.
Mr. Saviano, whose hometown, Casal di Principe, lies in the heart of Camorra territory, comes up with a total of 3,600 bodies since 1979, the year he was born.
Objective, analytic journalism is foreign to Mr. Saviano. The subject at hand is too personal, and in any case he takes a fiery, romantic view of the reporter’s mission. “I believe that the way to truly understand, to get to the bottom of things, is to smell the hot breath of reality, to touch the nitty-gritty,” he writes.
This passion for close-up, eyewitness reporting leads him to take small-time jobs in Camorra businesses, to show up whenever the police turn up a dead body and to mingle in the open-air drug market in Secondigliano, where fresh batches of heroin are tested on addict volunteers. If they drop dead, the batch is too potent.
The up-close style and the floridly noir prose make for vivid scenes. When he’s concentrating properly, Mr. Saviano also exposes the nuts and bolts of Camorra operations, complete with names and precise figures. His account of the drug trade, which the Camorra has shrewdly expanded to serve the casual, middle-class customer, is a model of muckraking journalism.
So are the chapters on the construction industry and the Camorra’s sinister trade in illegal waste dumping, much of it toxic. All over Italy highly trained experts in law and the environment make the rounds of Italian businesses, offering to ship everything from dead bodies to printer toner to illegal dumping sites in the south. This is worth billions of dollars a year.
From time to time Mr. Saviano takes flight on his own prose and, drunk with indignation, loses touch with the nitty-gritty. His chapter on the port of Naples, where Chinese entrepreneurs now control the illegal offloading of containers, makes for colorful reading, but Mr. Saviano neglects to explain how the Camorra fits in. Often names and killings speed by in a blur, devoid of context. Mr. Saviano never does explain the Camorra’s structure adequately.
Granted, it is a bewildering mess. The sheer scope of the Camorra’s businesses numbs even Mr. Saviano, who confesses to despair. Everything, he writes, seems to belong to the mob: “land, buffalos, farms, quarries, garages, dairies, hotels and restaurants.”
A small flicker of hope burns in a chapter devoted to Don Peppino Diana, a crusading priest who denounces the Camorra from his pulpit in Casal di Principe, organizes protest marches and sets up community programs to siphon support for the Camorra.
“He decided to take an interest in the dynamics of power and not merely its corollary suffering,” Mr. Saviano writes. “He didn’t want merely to clean the wound but to understand the mechanisms of the metastasis, to prevent the cancer from spreading, to block the source of whatever was turning his home into a gold mine of capital with an abundance of cadavers.”
On March 19, 1994, the name day of his patron saint, Don Peppino was approached in his church by armed men who shot him in the head at close range. He died instantly. Mr. Saviano, for his part, has been forced to live in hiding under police protection since his book was published last year in Italy.
Thanks to William Grimes
Roberto Saviano, a young Italian journalist, counts the cost in “Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System,” his savage indictment of the Neapolitan crime organization known as the Camorra. Although less well known than the Mafia, its Sicilian counterpart, the Camorra has held the economy of southern Italy in a tight grip for more than a century. With time it has adapted and modernized, spreading from Naples to outlying towns, while adding financial services and real estate to its expanding portfolio.
“Never in the economy of a region has there been such a widespread, crushing presence of criminality as in Campania in the last 10 years
,” Mr. Saviano writes.The garment sweatshops of Secondigliano, a small town on the outskirts of Naples, provide Mr. Saviano with a case study. Day and night, highly skilled workers turn out low-cost counterfeits that compare favorably in quality with the originals from the big fashion houses. The factories are bankrolled by the Camorra, which lends money at low rates. Factory workers get their mortgages through the Camorra. Once completed, the clothes often find their way to boutiques owned by the Camorra all over Europe, many in Camorra-owned shopping malls.
The Camorra has come a long way since the days of cigarette smuggling. But despite the corporate face, it relies on age-old techniques of intimidation and violence, which Mr. Saviano describes in gruesome detail. When Cammoristi want to send a message, they do a thorough job. Enforcers make their point with one victim by sawing his head off with a metal grinder and blowing it up. The notorious Pasquale Barra, better known as the Animal, set new standards some years back when he ripped a target’s heart out with his bare hands and then bit into it.
Mr. Saviano, whose hometown, Casal di Principe, lies in the heart of Camorra territory, comes up with a total of 3,600 bodies since 1979, the year he was born.
Objective, analytic journalism is foreign to Mr. Saviano. The subject at hand is too personal, and in any case he takes a fiery, romantic view of the reporter’s mission. “I believe that the way to truly understand, to get to the bottom of things, is to smell the hot breath of reality, to touch the nitty-gritty,” he writes.
This passion for close-up, eyewitness reporting leads him to take small-time jobs in Camorra businesses, to show up whenever the police turn up a dead body and to mingle in the open-air drug market in Secondigliano, where fresh batches of heroin are tested on addict volunteers. If they drop dead, the batch is too potent.
The up-close style and the floridly noir prose make for vivid scenes. When he’s concentrating properly, Mr. Saviano also exposes the nuts and bolts of Camorra operations, complete with names and precise figures. His account of the drug trade, which the Camorra has shrewdly expanded to serve the casual, middle-class customer, is a model of muckraking journalism.
So are the chapters on the construction industry and the Camorra’s sinister trade in illegal waste dumping, much of it toxic. All over Italy highly trained experts in law and the environment make the rounds of Italian businesses, offering to ship everything from dead bodies to printer toner to illegal dumping sites in the south. This is worth billions of dollars a year.
From time to time Mr. Saviano takes flight on his own prose and, drunk with indignation, loses touch with the nitty-gritty. His chapter on the port of Naples, where Chinese entrepreneurs now control the illegal offloading of containers, makes for colorful reading, but Mr. Saviano neglects to explain how the Camorra fits in. Often names and killings speed by in a blur, devoid of context. Mr. Saviano never does explain the Camorra’s structure adequately.
Granted, it is a bewildering mess. The sheer scope of the Camorra’s businesses numbs even Mr. Saviano, who confesses to despair. Everything, he writes, seems to belong to the mob: “land, buffalos, farms, quarries, garages, dairies, hotels and restaurants.”
A small flicker of hope burns in a chapter devoted to Don Peppino Diana, a crusading priest who denounces the Camorra from his pulpit in Casal di Principe, organizes protest marches and sets up community programs to siphon support for the Camorra.
“He decided to take an interest in the dynamics of power and not merely its corollary suffering,” Mr. Saviano writes. “He didn’t want merely to clean the wound but to understand the mechanisms of the metastasis, to prevent the cancer from spreading, to block the source of whatever was turning his home into a gold mine of capital with an abundance of cadavers.”
On March 19, 1994, the name day of his patron saint, Don Peppino was approached in his church by armed men who shot him in the head at close range. He died instantly. Mr. Saviano, for his part, has been forced to live in hiding under police protection since his book was published last year in Italy.
Thanks to William Grimes
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