One of the prisoners sent after the murder of James “Whitey” Bulger, said he had nothing to do with the crime and wanted out of the restricted housing unit.
Sean McKinnon spoke out for the first time and told NBC News that he had not yet received a clear answer as to why he was still lonely more than two years after the infamous gangster was killed in the Hazelton federal prison in West Virginia not.
“I told the staff, ‘If I told you anything, I would,’ ‘McKinnon, 35, said in a telephone interview from the jail. “I know nothing. I’m an innocent man. ‘
Bulger was found dead in his cell on October 30, 2018 around 8:30 p.m. The 89-year-old man was beaten with a weapon consisting of a padlock tucked into a sock, law enforcement officials said.
Bulger, the leader of the Irish mob in Boston and a secret FBI informant, was killed less than 12 hours after arriving at West Virginia Prison in a transfer from an institution in Florida.
At least four prisoners were removed from the general population after the murder. Almost 2 1/2 years later, no charges were filed in the case.
McKinnon, who is serving an eight-year sentence for stealing guns from a firearms store in Vermont, shared a cell with a notorious crowd, Fotios ‘Freddy’ Geas. Law enforcers described Geas and a second inmate, a gangster named Paul DeCologero, in Boston as suspects in the Bulger murder. The fourth man to climb into solitude, Felix Wilson, spent the previous night in the same cell as Bulger.
In the interview with NBC News, McKinnon said he was shocked and confused when correctional officers burst into his cell and told him and Geas they were going alone.
“I sat and watched the news that morning,” McKinnon said. ‘I went to breakfast and came back. All of a sudden, they run into our room and say, ‘Cuff up.’ ‘
McKinnon said he asked the guards why he would go ‘the hole’, a slang term for alone, but got no answer.
“It’s been the same thing ever since,” he said.
The use of solitary confinement has come under increasing scrutiny over the past few years. A report by the 2017 Department of Justice Inspector General found that federal inmates, including those living with mental illness, have long been held in restrictive housing that violates federal policy.
David Fathi, director of the U.S. Prison Project of American Civil Liberties, said McKinnon’s experience highlights what he described as control beyond the use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons.
“Under international human rights laws, solitary confinement is prohibited for more than 15 days, so 2 1/2 years is out of the question,” Fathi said. ‘The Supreme Court has lonely compared the rack and the thumbscrew as a way of forcing confessions, and it seems likely that this is going on here. They plan to keep him alone until he breaks information or confesses or shares it. ”
McKinnon, who has no known gang, filed an official grievance with the warden in early January asking prison officials to stand trial and provide evidence “why I was being punished.”
“My basic consolation privileges have been denied and I have been forced to endure the cruel and inhuman living conditions in the SHU for no reason,” reads the letter with an acronym for a special housing unit.
The custodian, Rich Hudgins, denied the request, citing an ongoing investigation that could not be disclosed at this time. ‘
A year after Bulger’s murder, prison staff told NBC News that they were surprised no charges had been filed. The staff members, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the housing area contained cameras that the attackers would enter and leave from Bulger’s cell.
Bulger’s murder is in fact not the only one in Hazelton Prison that is unsolved. Two prisoners were killed earlier in 2018, and in those cases no charges were filed either.
Cameron Lindsay, who has served as a custodian in three federal prisons, said killings of inmates and inmates have a low priority for prosecutors because the offenders have already been locked up.
“I think the federal prosecutors are just like, ‘What is the rabbit?’ “These guys are not going anywhere,” Lindsay said. ‘That’s the only thing I can imagine. Other than that, it does not make sense. ”
Spokesmen for the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of West Virginia declined to comment.
The Bureau of Prisons also declined to comment on the Bulger investigation, as well as McKinnon’s case, citing “privacy, security and security issues”.
Former FBI agent Bryanna Fox said it looked like two years of this kind of murder investigation, but the Covid 19 pandemic may have brought the investigation to a halt. Fox also noted that one of the standard investigative techniques – to present a plea deal as a way to get one suspect to sue another – has its limitations in prison.
“The strategy is more effective for people who are not yet locked up, because of course they have a lot more to lose and will be more willing to take the bait,” Fox said. He is now a professor of criminology at the University of South Florida.
McKinnon said he was questioned by FBI agents in the days after the murder. They returned months later to take a DNA sample, he said, but since then no investigating officer has contacted him.
He spent most of the first year alone in a cell, but now shares one with DeCologero.
Although McKinnon has a cellmate, he is separated from the general population and denied various privileges in an environment that is still considered a solitary confinement. He said he allowed one call a month.
McGinnon says Geas is being held in another special housing unit alone. The fourth man moved separately after the murder of Bulger, Felix Wilson. He was released from the facility six months later when his sentence came to an end.
McKinnon said he and DeCologero were ‘best friends’ and DeCologero and Geas are also ‘innocent men’. McKinnon’s mother had earlier told NBC News that he was aware of prison calls being recorded and was reluctant to discuss sensitive matters.
Geas, 54, is serving a life sentence for murder. The 46-year-old DeCologero, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence for racketeering and witness tampering, will be released in June 2026.
McKinnon, meanwhile, is expected to jump out of federal custody next year. But with the Bulger investigation hanging over him, he is not convinced he may leave soon.
“They treat me like a guilty man,” he said.