Johnathan Walker:3 men set for pleas, sentencings in prison killing of Boston gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger

CLARKSBURG,Johnathan Walker W.Va. (AP) — Three men accused in the 2018 prison killing of notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger are due in court Monday for a plea hearing and sentencing.

The combined hearing for Fotios “Freddy” Geas, Paul J. DeCologero and Sean McKinnon is to be held in federal court in northern West Virginia.

Plea deals for the three were disclosed May 13, nearly six years after the 89-year-old Bulger was beaten to death in his cell hours after being transferred to a troubled West Virginia prison.

Geas and DeCologero are accused of repeatedly hitting Bulger in the head, and McKinnon of acting as a lookout.

According to prosecutors, DeCologero told an inmate witness that Bulger was a “snitch” and that as soon as he came into their unit, they planned to kill him. DeCologero also told an inmate that he and Geas used a belt with a lock attached to it to bludgeon him to death.

Last year the Justice Department said it would would not seek the death sentence for Geas and DeCologero, who were charged with murder. All three men were charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, which carries up to a life sentence. McKinnon was also charged with making false statements to a federal agent.

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.