'Whitey' Bulger's belongings set for auction to benefit victims' families

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/01/whitey-bulger-auction-boston-victims-families

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At his murder trial this summer, mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger was portrayed as a ruthless gangster whose love for the trappings of his crime empire was matched only by his disdain for the lives of those he had killed. Now a softer side of the convicted mobster's persona has been revealed, as many of his prized possessions are to be auctioned off to raise money for the families of his victims.

Valuable jewellery, including a gold and diamond ring worth tens of thousands of dollars, is among the lots due to go under the hammer in a sale arranged by the US Marshals Service. But it is the everyday items seized from Bulger's apartment in Santa Monica, California, after his arrest two years ago, that paint a deeper picture of the mobster.

For example, investigators retrieved a McCain-Palin pin badge from the 2008 US presidential election, in which the Republican candidates were handed a resounding defeat by Barack Obama. Alongside it, marshals found a God Bless America poster. There are scores of books, many of them crime-related, such as Dominic Spinale's G-Men and Gangsters, Patrick Nee's A Criminal and an Irishman – about Bulger – and a tome called Brutal, which offers an account by author Kevin Weeks of life in Bulger's notorious Winter Hill gang.

There are also Bulger's clothes and accessories, including 14 pairs of jeans, nine fedora hats, 27 pairs of sunglasses and a pair of Asics trainers, size nine and a half. There is his blue and white dinner set, ceramic salt and pepper shakers shaped like poodles and a large collection of porcelain cats. There is also a sizeable and sinister collection of camouflage clothing, a folding latrine shovel, binoculars and a telescope.

Perhaps the most intriguing item which may be in the sale is a life-sized boxing mannequin that Bulger kept in the window of his third-floor apartment, to give the impression he had a personal bodyguard.

Federal prosecutors will decide soon exactly which items from the hundreds seized will be auctioned for the financial benefit of the families of the 11 people Bulger was convicted of murdering in crimes stretching back to the 1970s. First assistant US attorney Jack Pirozzolo said authorities had yet to determine when the auction would take place, or whether it would be a physical sale or online only.

He also said the sale would probably not include many of the smaller, less valuable items, for fear of "glorifying" Bulger, and would instead concentrate on his higher-value possessions. Such items include a gold and diamond claddagh ring worth an estimated $48,000, a replica 1986 Stanley Cup ice hockey championship ring valued at $3,000 and various high-end electronics, such as a Sony flatscreen TV and Bose radio.

"The reality is there are lots of people who would be willing to pay money for some or all of the contents of that apartment, and that money is going to victims and victims' families. So we want to do what we can to get as much money as we can for them," Pirozzolo told the Boston Globe.

Bulger, now 84, was a dominant figure in South Boston's criminal underworld for decades, fleeing in 1994 as the net closed in and living as a fugitive until his capture in California in 2011. In August, after a two-month trial, a jury convicted him of various racketeering charges as well as finding him guilty of participating in 11 murders. Bulger, who interrupted testimony with several expletive-laden outbursts, was sentenced last month to two life sentences plus five years.

Patricia Donahue, whose husband Michael was shot to death by Bulger in 1982, as he innocently drove home one of the mobster's targets, said she supported the sale. "If they can sell anything he owned down to a ballpoint pen, then good luck to them," she told the Globe. "I'm sure the victims could use the money."

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