If Whitey Bulger thought that he was safe in West Virginia prison, he was not

When James "Whitey" Bulger, the infamous octogenarian gangster from Boston, arrived on Monday at his new West Virginia jail, he was probably tired of his long journey from a transit stopover in Oklahoma, but he was n & # 39; He would not necessarily have been nervous.

It is unclear whether the US Bureau of Prisons officials made the decision to transfer Bulger to Hazelton US Penitentiary and place him in the general population, despite a recent wave of violence and complaints of chronic understaffing, were aware that Bulger should have been worried.

At least two Massachusetts organized crime figures were lurking in those cells, one of whom, Fotios "Freddy" Geas, had a particular reason for not liking Bulger.

As reported on Tuesday's Globe, Geas is one of the suspects who, according to authorities, reportedly beat Bulger to death at Bruceton Mills Prison, West Virginia, on Tuesday morning, less than 24 hours later. his arrival at the prison.

People who know Geas say he hated informants and that, as a long-time FBI informant, Bulger would have deserved his animus. But the animus was perhaps more personal: according to his former lawyer, Geas felt that Bulger had aided in the assassination of one of his friends.

Because the officers of the Bureau of Prisons have refused to answer questions about Bulger's assassination, it is unclear why Geas's presence in the general population of Hazelton and at least one other organized crime character from Massachusetts, Paul Weadick, did not sound the alarm. a safe place for the elderly hood. Two months ago, Weadick and former boss of the New England Mafia, Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme, were sentenced in the Boston Federal Court to life imprisonment for the 1993 murder of 39, a nightclub owner in South Boston. Weadick's lawyer said on Wednesday that he was not suspected of Bulger's death.

Salemme hates Bulger and testified against John Connolly, the corrupt FBI official, serving a 40-year prison sentence for helping Bulger commit murder.

According to sources of public order, the myriad of reasons why Bulger was transferred to Hazelton was the possibility that Salemme would be sent to Florida prison where Bulger had been held for about four years. These sources said the transfer had another factor: a series of incidents at Coleman II Penitentiary in Sumterville, Florida, which resulted in a verbal exchange with a prison staff member who considered him a threat .

The same police department could not explain why Bulger, who at 89 was in poor health and was using a wheelchair, was not placed in isolation when he arrived in Hazelton, so the authorities Prisoners could determine if any of the 1,277 other inmates there was a threat to him.

In a statement, Bulger's former lawyer, J.W. Carney Jr. accused the Bureau of Prisons of inflicting a "death sentence" on Bulger.

Geas had several layers of possible grounds to attack Bulger, if he did.

He was friendly with Frederick Weichel and had already served his sentence in a Massachusetts jail, where he spent 36 years in prison for a murder he said he did not commit. Weichel had long argued that Bulger helped calm him down and was reluctant to provide information that could help prove his innocence in the 1980 murder of Robert LaMonica at Braintree.

After years of refusing to help and after his capture in 2011 after 16 years of flight, Bulger finally sent a series of letters to Weichel's lawyers in 2013 suggesting that another man would have killed LaMonica. However, Bulger refused to sign an affidavit or testify on behalf of Weichel, as Weichel and his defense team had repeatedly asked.

Last year, after Weichel was released and a judge ordered a new trial, prosecutors said they would not do it again for the murder. In an interview Wednesday, Weichel confirmed that he and Geas were friends. Weichel said he did not think he had spoken to Bulger's Geas when they were together at Shirley State Prison, but he added, "I think everybody in the world knew that Whitey told me fucked. "

Weichel said he was surprised that Bulger was transferred to the same prison as Geas and Weadick.

"I would not be surprised if it's a configuration," he said. "This is a lot of coincidences. I do not believe in coincidences. "

Daniel D. Kelly, a Springfield lawyer who represented Geas and remains friendly with him, said that Geas had repeatedly referred to what he saw as a miscarriage of justice in Weichel's case.

"He mentioned that [Weichel] was framed, "Kelly said.

Kelly said he did not know if Geas was involved in Bulger's assassination, but said in the Globe newspaper citing law enforcement officials that Geas would not identify the person who helped the attack of Bulger.

"Freddie [Geas] was a guy standing, the last of the Mohicans, "Kelly said.

Geas is currently serving a life sentence for two murders, including the 2003 assassination of Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno, who ran the mafia in Springfield. Anthony Arillotta, the ambitious mafia soldier who wanted to replace Bruno, had ordered Geas to prepare for the assassination. Kelly stated that even after Arillotta and the shooter agreed to testify against Geas, Geas refused an offer of cooperation thereby reducing his sentence.

"He refused it in two seconds flat," Kelly said.

Lawyer Mark W. Shea, who represents Weadick, said Weadick was not a suspect in Bulger's murder. Shea thought it was "strange" that Weadick and Bulger were in Hazelton a few days apart.

Shea said that Weadick was appealing his conviction and that he had no motive to kill Bulger. Shea viewed the Bulger massacre as "an act shot down by someone who had nothing left to lose, and that's not how I see Paul Weadick."

During the first five years of a life sentence that Bulger had spent in federal prisons since his conviction in 2013 for a litany of crimes involving 11 murders, he apparently had nothing to to fear.

He had been treated more as a celebrity than as an outcast. In addition to an incident that occurred in 2014 at Tucson's US penitentiary, where he received a slight scratch to the head when another inmate attacked him in his cell, Bulger appears to have been left alone by D & # 39; other inmates, most preferring to pose for photos with him than to hurt him.

This did not stop Bulger from getting into trouble several times. He was transferred from Arizona to Florida after forming an inappropriate relationship with a prison psychologist. In 2015, he was placed in solitary confinement after prison officials accused him of masturbating in his cell, which is prohibited under the prison rules.

Nobody follows Hazelton's dark news more closely than Bulger's victims.

Victor Davis, whose 26-year-old sister Debra was allegedly murdered, allegedly by Bulger and his acolyte Stephen Flemmi, said he had no reason to murder him.

"I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I think that with the government and this case everything is possible," he said. "But in this case, I think it was just a guy who wanted to be known as the guy who killed Whitey Bulger."

Kevin Cullen can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ GlobeCullen. Shelley Murphy can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @shelleymurph.