The three accused in the 2018 fatal beating of notorious mobster James “Whitey” Bulger have reportedly reached a plea deal with prosecutors.
Fotios “Freddy” Geas, Paul “Pauly” J. DeCologero and Sean McKinnon — who were charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in August 2022 — accepted plea deals, according to court papers filed May 13, per outlets including the Associated Press, CNN and NBC News.
The plea deals come nearly six years after Bulger was killed on October 30, 2018 at the age of 89 while serving two life sentences in federal prison.
According to CNN, former mob hitman Geas and Massachusetts mobster DeCologero are accused of beating Bulger to death while McKinnon acted as a lookout. The attack came just hours after the Boston mob boss was transferred to the Hazelton U.S. Penitentiary in Bruceton Mills, W.Va.
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Photios ‘Freddy’ Geas.
Don Treeger/The Republican via AP, File
The media reported that the three men had agreed to plead guilty and “agree to cooperate with the United States Probation Office.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of West Virginia had no further comment when contacted by PEOPLE.
A federal judge must now approve the plea deals, according to CNN, and prosecutors have asked the court to schedule hearings for the men to change their pleas and be sentenced. Terms of the plea agreement were not included in the documents, according to NBC News.
According to the AP, an inmate witness recalled DeCologero calling Bulger a “thug,” saying he said they planned to kill him when he returned to their unit. Prosecutors also said DeCologero told the inmate that he and Geas used a belt with a buckle attached to it in the attack.
As PEOPLE previously reported in August 2022, in addition to charges of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, Geas and DeCologero were also charged with aiding and abetting first-degree murder, along with assault resulting in serious bodily injury.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of West Virginia confirmed at the time that Geas faced a separate charge of murdering a federal inmate serving a life sentence, while McKinnon faced a separate charge of making false statements to a federal agent.
Geas and DeCologero allegedly killed Bulger by punching him “multiple times in the head.”
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James ‘Whitey’ Bulger.
Bureau of Prisons/Getty Images
Bulger, who was the subject of a 2015 film black mass starring Johnny Depp, was found “unresponsive” around 8:20 a.m. local time on Oct. 30, 2018, PEOPLE previously confirmed.
“Responding personnel immediately initiated life-saving measures,” the Federal Bureau of Prisons said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE at the time. “MR. Bulger was subsequently pronounced dead by the Preston County Medical Examiner.”
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Bulger was convicted in 2013 of 31 federal criminal counts, including involvement in drug trafficking, extortion and murder. He was also convicted of committing or ordering the murders of 11 people during the 1970s and 80s.
Bulger, who was an FBI informant, was the boss of Boston’s Winter Hill Gang for nearly three decades before fleeing Massachusetts in 1994 after being warned by an FBI agent that he would soon be indicted.
Bulger spent more than 15 years on the run, but authorities caught up with him in 2011 and arrested him in Santa Monica, California.
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