Charles Langston:Inmate set for sentencing in prison killing of Boston gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger

CLARKSBURG,Charles Langston W.Va. (AP) — An inmate is set to be sentenced in the fatal bludgeoning of notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger after making a deal with prosecutors to change his plea from not guilty.

Massachusetts gangster Paul J. DeCologero is scheduled to appear Thursday in U.S. District Court in northern West Virginia.

Prosecutors said DeCologero and inmate Fotios “Freddy” Geas used a lock attached to a belt to repeatedly hit Bulger in the head hours after he arrived at a troubled West Virginia prison from another lockup in Florida in October 2018. An inmate told a grand jury that DeCologero said to him that Bulger was a “snitch” and they planned to kill him as soon as he came into their unit at United States Penitentiary, Hazelton.

DeCologero and Geas were charged with murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, which carries up to a life sentence. Last year the Justice Department said it would not seek the death sentence for the pair.

It’s unclear from court filings how DeCologero will plead, but the court scheduled the sentencing for the same hearing. Geas faces a similar hearing on Sept. 6.

Another inmate who acted as a lookout, Sean McKinnon, pleaded guilty in June to lying to FBI special agents about his role. McKinnon was given no additional prison time and was returned to Florida to finish his supervised release.

Bulger, who ran the largely Irish mob in Boston in the 1970s and ’80s, became one of the nation’s most wanted fugitives after fleeing Boston in 1994. He was captured at age 81 after more than 16 years on the run and convicted in 2013 in a string of 11 killings and dozens of other gangland crimes.