Two inmates who are charged with killing Whitey Bulger won't face the death penalty if convicted

Two former organized-crime enforcers from Massachusetts will not have to worry about being executed, at least not by the government, if a jury convicts them of smashing Whitey Bulger's head in not long after he arrived at a federal prison in West Virginia in 2018.

In a "notice of intent" filed last week, the US Attorney's office for Northern West Virginia told a judge that it will not seek the death sentence should Fotios Geas be convicted of first-degree murder and first degree murder by a federal inmate serving a life sentence and Paul DeCologero be convicted of first-degree murder.

Geas and DeCologero allegedly cornered and killed Bulger, 89, about 12 hours after he was transferred from a prison in Florida to the one in West Virginia where they were inmates. Both have since been transferred to different federal prisons elsewhere in the country.

Geas was serving a life sentence for several murders in Springfield for the Genovese family of New York.

A third inmate was charged with acting as a lookout and lying to investigators.

A 2022 Justice Department report on Bulger's murder found "serious job performance and management failures at multiple levels" of the federal Bureau of Prisons that contributed to his death.

Bulger himself killed or ordered the deaths of 19 people during his reign in South Boston.