Whitey on Trial: Secrets, Corruption, and the Search for Truth

by Margaret McLean, Jon Leiberman

After sixteen years on the lam, infamous Boston gangster Whitey Bulger was finally captured and brought to trial—and what a trial it was: nineteen gruesome murders, government secrets, FBI corruption, a dead witness, and an unbelievable love triangle. Whitey's machine guns and gangland-style extortions gripped the city of Boston for decades.

Investigative journalist Jon Leiberman travelled the world with the FBI’s Whitey Bulger task force. Former Boston area prosecutor and legal analyst Margaret McLean witnessed every day of testimony, heard every word uttered in court. Both authors have developed close relationships with the investigators, the lawyers, and Whitey’s friends, his fellow mobsters, his victims and their families.　

In Whitey on Trial, the truth is revealed through trial testimony, interviews with cops, FBI agents, prosecutors and defense attorneys, and members of the jury that ultimately found Bulger guilty on thirty-one counts, including eleven murders. Authors McLean and Leiberman trace Whitey’s rise from a small-time criminal in South Boston to mob boss and murderer that spurred a worldwide manhunt. An exclusive letter from Whitey to McLean offers insight into his state of mind immediately following the verdict.

Whitey on Trial is the definitive firsthand account of the Whitey Bulger trial.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Book Club

368 pages, Hardcover

First published February 11, 2014

About the author

Margaret McLean was born and raised in Rome, New York. She graduated magna cum laude from Boston College and earned her law degree from Boston College Law School. McLean practiced law as a criminal prosecutor and currently teaches law at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management. In 2010, she was hailed as one of the next faces of Boston crime fiction by The Boston Globe. She has cowritten a dramatic courtroom play based on her second novel, Under Oath, which is in development with the Playwrights/Directors Unit at the Actors Studio in New York City. She lives in Norwell, Massachusetts, with her three children.

Reviews

[Liz V. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. Nothing but summary of trial without any real analysis of the events.

[Elly Bee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard of Whitey Bulger, especially after he was captured in Santa Monica which is not too far from where I live. He had been in all the papers but I never understood what a despicable criminal he was until I heard the transcripts and read this book about his trial. In this book, we learn about his dozens of murders, torture, swindling, bookmaking, extortion, drug trade and any other criminal act you can think of. Dozens of witness gave their accounts. But what makes matters worse is that two FBI agents facilitated Whitey’s criminal life. They recruited him as an informant, but they partied with Whitey, and Whitey gave them lots of money. All this and it’s very recent history.

[Marie Patlan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative and enjoyable for a roadtrip.

[Trekscribbler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I certainly don’t consider myself any more learned on the subject of crime than the next person. What I can say is that in this lifetime I’ve read my fair share of ‘true crime’ non-fiction, none of it the sensational tabloid style variety. I tend to like stuff that digs a bit deeper beneath-the-surface and/or behind-the-scenes, possibly because I’ve always been so fascinated with how crime evolves from, say, Point A to Point B in our shared history. I’ve done a ton of reading on Prohibition and the gang violence of that era, and what I’ve learned is that quite a bit of it was practically a natural development of social ills stretching back two, three, and four decades before – that’s the kind of stuff I gravitate toward. Needless to say, something like WHITEY ON TRIAL: SECRETS, CORRUPTION, AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH didn’t exactly fall into that frame of reference at first blush; still, after finishing it, I realized how most of the tale was a true scorcher, the kind I just couldn’t put down.

Initially, I closed the book and experienced a flurry of emotions, most of which gravitated toward anger, frustration, and confusion. How could one man – Whitey Bulger – essentially put a stranglehold on an entire city? Co-authors Margaret McLean and Jon Leiberman don’t really make any attempt to analyze the systems in place at the time of the gangster’s rise to prominence, nor would they given the title promise to focus almost entirely on the man’s trial. Granted, there are pieces of reflection tied up inside the guts of several chapters; but instead of offering up any explanation for how things devolved to the point where Bulger was calling his own shots the writers focus on a fairly impartial blow-by-blow of what went down each day throughout the entire affair. Perhaps as frustrated as they were with what they experienced, I (as a reader) couldn’t quite believe all of the corruption I was seeing.

That said, WHITEY ON TRIAL probably isn’t going to earn any ‘thumbs up’ for those seeking answers (e.g. what was the city’s culture like in Bulger’s beginning; what changes occurred in the local police administration that led to criminals having greater access to serve as ‘confidential informants’; why (oh why) didn’t any thinking person ever do a massive evaluation of law enforcement during Whitey’s reign; etc.). It’s clear that to some degree that doesn’t interest McLean and Leiberman. What they’re most drawn into is the virtual spectacle the trial became, so much so that despite being served with a daunting sentencing one has to wonder just how much of that trial went exactly as the criminal wanted.

To an astute mind, it becomes clear at about the midpoint of the book that no one – not Whitey, not the prosecutors, not the defenders – were interested in unearthing all of the secrets upon which the foundation of Bulger’s empire was built. And why would they? Every one of these players has his or her own agenda – perhaps it’s that very agenda that drew them into their various roles in the first place – and there was very little room for something as harmful as “truth” in all of this mess.

WHITEY ON TRIAL remains an engrossing tale. Sure, it flirts with the sensational – because this tale focuses almost solely on the final miscarriage of justice, there’s no way to avoid the publicity and politicization of the event – but thanks to the writers it retains an almost clinical detachment from the state of Boston’s culture in favor of putting the reader there – at the trial – sitting in the galley, watching it all unfold … and being aghast at what you learned all on your own.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. I won’t say that I learned an awful lot about the true evil of Whitey Bulger from WHITEY ON TRIAL: SECRETS, CORRUPTION, AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH – I think it’s safe to say that since this work focuses chiefly on those crimes he was specifically charged with it’s probably a given that the book doesn’t serve necessarily as a biographical account on the crimelord’s life. However, what I did learn was nonetheless fascinating, as the book in part serves as an indictment of a legal, judicial, and prosecutorial system in chaos. I did not know this about Bulger, nor the Boston criminal temperament. If anything, the book made me angry about the state of affairs, so much so I’d personally suggest the infrastructure be gutted so that someone with morals and a conscience could start over.

[Starr Gardinier · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Whitey on Trial” by Margaret McLean and Jon Leiberman

Corrupt men and crooked law enforcement battle in the courtroom. It is fact that James Bulger (Whitey) is a violent, power-hungry, cold and calculated man. And unfortunately, it is fact that representatives of our government aided this man and many other gangsters to get what they wanted. Forget that innocent people were killed in the crossfire, these gangsters and law enforcement personnel—such as John Connolly, FBI agent, who now sits in federal prison, John Morris, FBI agent, and many others—looked out for themselves. Their personal agenda meant more to them than human beings.

And it wasn’t just murder—as if that wasn’t bad enough—it was also bribery, blackmail, and a multitude of other crimes that some of us cannot even imagine, that spurred these despicable people to continue on a path of others’ destruction. Anything to gain wealth and power for themselves.

“Whitey on Trial” is a non-fiction accounting of what went on at Whitey’s trial. But it also examines our own government’s actions as well. Some say the representatives of our government were just as evil as Whitey’s reign of terror. Witness after witness and bereaving family members, one after the other, spoke of the brutal conduct of Whitey, Stephen Flemmi, and the Winter Hill gang’s accomplices.

Judge Casper said during Whitey’s sentencing, “…I wished that we were watching a movie, that what we were hearing was not real…,” but unfortunately, “…we were hearing about the real inhumane things that human beings did to other human beings, seemingly without remorse and without regret.” Yes, it’s sad that what went on was not that of fiction, but real life horror. It turned my stomach to see the abuse of power and the corruption that can occur to those who swore to protect citizens.

I commend authors McLean and Leiberman for an unbiased accounting and one that is well-written.

Reviewed by Starr Gardinier Reina, author of “The Other Side: Melinda’s Story”

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was very interesting but find it really reads like a summary of what the news media already told us during the trial. The only thing that saves it from being a complete waste of time are the letters from Whitey and John Connolly. During the trial each of the people who testified were covered exhaustively by the media and by the time the trial was over we knew everything there was to know about the various corrupt FBI officials and criminals who cut deals to bring down Bulger. What was missing most of all from this story was the detailed reports of the families and how the suffered throughout. I didn't see the book covered the resolution of Stephen Rakes death. The authors seem to want us to think it was suspicious when it was, much like Bulger's crimes, death at the hand of a greedy business partner.

Black Mass is still the best! Read for the Bulger letter and Connolly interview only.

[Caitlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm glad that books done. The witness stories were fascinating. The trial facts were fascinating. But the authors thought themselves, and their characters in the book to be far too important- they inserted themselves too often, in noninteresting and nonimportant ways that served more as faux-gossip rather than something that helped the story. Also, if more was needed than just what happened in the court room, the authors claim throughout the book to have built strong friendships with victims families- those stories would have been far more interesting that "we observed, we wondered, we thought..." followed by pointless musings. And the "behind the scenes boxes"- yeah, they mostly just got in the way of the story. Some of those tidbits were actually pretty interesting, but could have been used more productively. For such an important and interesting trial, this could have been so much better!

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

UNREADABLE. The authors focus only on the trial. There's nothing in the book to put any of Whitey's activities in context. The authors don't explain the history of organized crime in Boston, to help you understand Whitey's rise to power. They don't even set the stage by describing the indictment itself, so you could understand the parade of witnesses and testimony that unfolds. It's just a bald chronology of the testimony provided by the witnesses, in chronological order as they testified during the trial. The book reads like a television script for America's Most Wanted, and the authors make weak efforts to build suspense by peppering the chapters with questions like, "We wondered what the defense's next strategy would be. Would they be able to shake the witness?" or "What could the defense possibly say next" or "What was Whitey thinking at this moment?"

[Bobby Daugherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting expose on the Irish American gangster. I found this at the Dollar Tree and suspect that it did not sell as well as expected. It was detailed and the nerve of the subject is amazing as he managed to elude capture for so long.

[John Machata · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don't bother.