Former FBI agent pleads guilty to lying in Whitey Bulger testimony
Robert Fitzpatrick, the former FBI agent who spoke in defense of James “Whitey” Bulger during the gangster’s 2013 federal trial, will spend the next two years on probation. Fitzpatrick was sentenced on Monday after pleading guilty to lying under oath when he testified during the Bulger trial.
“I am guilty, your honor,” Fitzpatrick said.
In a sprawling indictment revealed last April, prosecutors said that Fitzpatrick, 76, had lied as a sworn witness about his interactions with FBI higher-ups, his meeting with Bulger, and his own credentials. Fitzpatrick had worked as the second in command of the FBI’s Boston office during the 1980s.
In particular, Fitzpatrick admitted on Monday that he had lied when he said that he was sent to Boston on a special mission, that he had tried to get the FBI to drop Bulger as an informant, and that Bulger had told Fitzpatrick he was not an informant.
Fitzpatrick also pleaded guilty to lying when he claimed that he had personally arrested mob boss Jerry Angiulo and that he had found the rifle used to kill Martin Luther King, Jr. Prosecutors said he falsely stated these as true to boost his own credentials.
Fitzpatrick was charged with six counts each of perjury and obstruction of justice, and he originally pleaded not guilty. On Monday, he changed his plea to guilty on all 12 counts.
In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed to sentence Fitzpatrick to 24 months probation and a fine of $12,500. Defense attorney Robert Goldstein said that Fitzpatrick was scheduled to go on dialysis in the near future. He is set to be sentenced on August 5.
Fitzpatrick is the author of a book about Whitey Bulger, titled, Betrayal: Whitey Bulger and the FBI Agent Who Fought to Bring Him Down.
He was the first witness called in Bulger’s defense during the gangster’s 2013 trial. At the time, prosecutors harshly questioned Fitzpatrick’s testimony on cross-examination.
“It’s fair to say that you’re a man who likes to make up stories?” U.S. Attorney Brian Kelly asked him on the stand.
Bulger was convicted in 2013 of participating in 11 murders, and was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in federal prison.
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