Bulger Verdict Reaction: Gerry Leone
BOSTON (CBS) -- The best fate for infamous South Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger will be to end his life in "anonymity," said Gerry Leone, a WBZ-TV legal analyst and former Middlesex County District Attorney.
"Stick him somewhere where nobody has to hear from him, nobody has to see him, and nobody has to deal with him again," Leone said Monday soon after Bulger was found guilty of racketeering charges including several murders. "I think that would be the best possible result."
Despite the heinous nature of Bulger's crimes, Leone said defense lawyers had done a good job shining light on government corruption that played a role in their client's reign of terror in South Boston as the leader of the Winter Hill Gang.
"Law enforcement is still trying to get away from the taint that was created during the Bulger years," Leone said.
But the former DA, who joined the law practice of Boston-based Nixon Peabody LLC earlier this year, said the defense had failed utterly in attempting to prove Bulger was not the worst possible kind of Southie criminal: a rat.
"It's been plainly shown Bulger was a government informant," Leone said.
As the Bulger trial turns to the sentencing phase, the WBZ-TV legal analyst said prosecutors should work hard to honor the views and desires of victims' families. "At its very core, this is about people who were wronged in the most horrendous and horrific ways," he said. "Those people who are survivors; they need a voice."
