NBC News has obtained 75 letters written by notorious Boston mobster Whitey Bulger to Janet Uhlar, a Cape Cod nurse who sat on the jury which convicted him.
Uhlar wrote to him shortly after his conviction. She felt the “deals mobsters who testified against Bulger received were too lenient” and said “I needed to hear his side of the story.”
In his first letter to Uhlar, Bulger wrote, “No disrespect, but I don’t trust prosecutors, judges, jurors, FBI agents, CIA…”
Their unlikely correspondence took place over the five years between his 2013 conviction for murder and racketeering and his own October 2018 murder. Twelve hours after his arrival at USP Hazelton in West Virginia, fellow prisoners beat him to death using a lock placed inside of a sock as their weapon.
Politics was one of the infamous gangster’s favorite topics.
In a letter from August 2018, Bulger noted that, “Trump is tough and fights back instead of bowing down to pressure — and caving in to press! U.S. agrees with him press attacking and his reaction increases his popularity — He has my vote so far.”
In a separate letter that month, he discussed Trump’s trade negotiations with China. He said, “History may show Trump was the man of the hour” and “feel China respects him and hesitant to try to bully him.”
In a separate letter, he told Uhlar:
I get some strange mail at times — a grandmother from Kansas — hates Trump wants him impeached, She assumes I hate him? Why Because I’m in prison?
My bet is he’s happy with present wife and settled down. No way would he wind up in Oval Office with a Monica Lewinsky — That was a scandal! Same media that attacks Trump would cover up for Bill Clinton.
Unsurprisingly, Bulger was not a fan of Robert Mueller. Here’s what he had to say about the despicable Special Counsel.
Sorry to hear Trump is being boxed in by so many. [The president] is experiencing what Mueller and company can orchestrate. [Mueller] should observe biblical saying – ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’
Wonder if Mueller thinks of me? Give my regards to the President!
Bulger saw the media as “a bigger problem than Trump.” He added, “Throughout U.S. history the media’s hunger for scoops and headlines has cost the lives of U.S. servicemen. Can cite examples. Trump is fortunate to have loyalty of [conservative commentator Bill Cunningham], Rush Limbaugh + Hannity AKA ‘Little Rush.'”
According to NBC:
He ranted against Boston prosecutors and the mob turncoats who testified against him.
He furiously denied ever killing women or working as an FBI informant.
He fondly recalled his life on the outside — even with the ever-present threat of arrest or an unnatural death.
Bulger showed his compassionate side in 2014 after Uhlar’s son had died from a drug overdose. Bulger wrote:
I’m glad your family are there for you, Janet. I’m sure Josiah would want you to understand he loved you and in desperation wanted to have a period free of pain.
Poor Josiah suffered terribly for a long time searched for Relief and it led to this.
Shortly before his murder, he wrote, “All I want is peace and quiet for these last days and sit out on prison yard in my wheelchair … Good friends ‘lifers’ went out that way under blue sky.”
Uhlar told NBC, “He is a criminal and he would frequently remind me of that. He didn’t want me to lose sight of that. But there was also a very compassionate side to him, a very gentle side that I saw both in the letters and in person when I spoke to him.”
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