Fotios Geas, known as Freddy, was a West Springfield man who spent the early 2000s as an enforcer for the Springfield arm of the Genovese crime family. He was never a sworn member of the Mafia, because he is Greek, not Italian. In 2003, a year of upheaval inside the Springfield crew, he took part in the murders of two men, Gary Westerman in Agawam and Adolfo Bruno, the crew's own boss, in Springfield. A federal jury in Manhattan convicted him of both murders in April 2011, along with an attempted murder in the Bronx, two murder conspiracies and a string of racketeering and extortion counts, and a federal judge sentenced him to life in prison.
That would have closed his story had it not been for October 30, 2018. On that day James Bulger, the 89-year-old former leader of a largely Irish gang in Boston, died in a federal penitentiary in West Virginia only hours after being transferred there from Florida. Geas, then serving his life sentence in the same institution, was identified as a suspect almost at once. He was not charged until 2022. In September 2024, in federal court in Clarksburg, West Virginia, he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and assault resulting in serious bodily injury and was sentenced to 25 more years, to be served after the life term he already carried.
Geas grew up in West Springfield, beside the city of Springfield in western Massachusetts. He was 51 in October 2018 and 57 in September 2024, which places his birth in about 1967. He is Greek-American. His younger brother, Ty Geas, about five years his junior, followed him into the same world and stood trial beside him in 2011.
By the early 2000s the brothers were working with the Springfield crew, a group tied to the New York-based Genovese family. The crew made its money from loansharking, illegal gambling and extorting businesses, federal authorities said. Fotios Geas served it as a close associate and enforcer, but membership was closed to him. Among the men he worked beside was Anthony Arillotta, who later became a cooperating witness for the government.
The men who dealt with him professionally left sharply different portraits. Steve Johnson, a retired Massachusetts State Police detective lieutenant, called him "vicious, absolutely vicious." Daniel D. Kelly, the lawyer who defended him, described him as very personable.
Adolfo Bruno was the local boss of the Genovese family in Springfield. By the summer of 2003 his position was weakening. Federal authorities later described that summer as a time of turmoil in the Springfield crew. Leaders in New York had become unhappy with Bruno, believing he had grown lax about collecting money and paying tribute to them. Others in Springfield seized on the dispute and, an assistant U.S. attorney said in 2008, obtained New York's permission to kill Bruno and take over.
The man the government identified as the decision maker in New York was Arthur Nigro, later described by prosecutors as the former acting boss of the Genovese family. In 2011 a Manhattan jury found that Nigro, Fotios Geas and Ty Geas had worked together on a series of crimes that year, and the government's account of them runs in a clear order.
The first was in the Bronx. On May 19, 2003, an attempt was made to kill Frank Dadabo. Prosecutors said Nigro ordered it, that Fotios Geas helped plan it, and that Ty Geas carried it out. Dadabo survived. Both brothers were later convicted of his attempted murder.
Gary Westerman died on November 4, 2003, in Agawam, Massachusetts. The brothers believed that he was cooperating with the Massachusetts State Police, the government said when they were sentenced. In 2011 Fotios Geas and Ty Geas were both convicted of his murder.
Adolfo Bruno was 57. He died in Springfield on November 23, 2003. Two motives have been given for his death. Prosecutors at the 2011 trial, and federal officials since, said Nigro ordered the killing because Bruno had talked to the FBI and because removing him would strengthen Nigro's own hold on the family. The 2008 federal account in Springfield placed more weight on New York's anger over money.
Frankie Roche, a low-level Mafia member from Westfield, admitted carrying out the killing for $10,000 paid by Bruno's rivals. He pleaded guilty on April 17, 2008, in the U.S. District Court in Springfield to murder in aid of racketeering, agreed to testify against the men who planned it, and in return prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty against him. At Geas's trial, both Roche and Arillotta testified, in hope of leniency, that Fotios Geas had set up the killing and taken part in it. In 2011 the jury convicted all three defendants of their participation in Bruno's murder.
The jury also found that the killings were not the only ones the group had planned. Nigro and both Geas brothers were convicted of conspiring in the fall of 2003 to murder Louis Santos. The brothers were also convicted of conspiring to murder Guiseppe Manzi in Springfield. Neither Santos nor Manzi was killed.
For several years the Bruno case moved slowly. In April 2008, when Roche entered his plea, Geas and another Springfield man were already facing Massachusetts state charges of helping to plan and finance the killing. Both had pleaded not guilty. Hampden County District Attorney William Bennett and U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan would not say then whether Geas would face federal charges. "We are quite confident we will be able to identify all individuals involved in this crime and hold them accountable," Bennett said.
Federal charges did follow. Geas was charged in the District of Massachusetts with murder in aid of racketeering. Then, on March 9, 2010, a grand jury in the Southern District of New York returned a superseding indictment naming Nigro, Arillotta and Geas. The next day the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, Carmen Ortiz, and the FBI special agent in charge in Boston, Warren Bamford, announced that the Massachusetts federal charges would be dismissed by "mutual agreement." Their statement said that "consolidation is the best manner to achieve a just result in this case," citing prosecutorial and judicial efficiency and new developments in the evidence, and noted that New York prosecutors, the Hampden County District Attorney and the Massachusetts State Police agreed. The Springfield case would be tried in Manhattan.
On July 23, 2010, a further superseding indictment was unsealed in Manhattan federal court, where the case had been assigned to U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel. Geas was already in custody on other matters and was transferred to the Southern District of New York to face it.
Against Fotios Geas it listed seven counts: racketeering conspiracy; racketeering; murder in aid of racketeering for the Bruno murder; murder in aid of racketeering for the Westerman murder; murder to obstruct justice for the Bruno murder; conspiracy to extort; and extortion. The racketeering counts took in the Dadabo attempt and the Santos conspiracy. The three murder counts each carried a mandatory sentence of life in prison and a possible death sentence. The FBI's announcement stressed that the charges were merely accusations and that the defendants were presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
The trial of Arthur Nigro, Fotios Geas and Ty Geas lasted three weeks in Manhattan. Arillotta, once his partner in the Springfield crew, testified for the government, as did Roche. Both described Geas's part in the death of Bruno. The prosecution was led by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mark Lanpher, Elie Honig and Daniel Goldman. The jury was anonymous, a point Geas later raised on appeal.
On April 1, 2011, the jury returned its verdict. "All three defendants were convicted for their participation in the November 2003 murder of Adolfo Bruno," the U.S. Attorney's Office announced, and Fotios Geas and Ty Geas "also were convicted of the November 2003 murder of Gary Westerman in Agawam, Massachusetts." Fotios Geas was further convicted of the attempted murder of Frank Dadabo, conspiracy to murder Louis Santos and conspiracy to murder Guiseppe Manzi, and the convictions of the three men took in racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, extortion and loansharking.
Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, described the defendants as "men who clearly did not think twice about killing anyone who got in their way." Each faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
Sentencing was first set for June 23, 2011. It took place on Monday, September 12, 2011, before Judge Castel, who sentenced Nigro, Fotios Geas and Ty Geas each to life in prison. He also ordered forfeiture: $234,000 from Nigro, $120,000 from Fotios Geas and $135,000 from Ty Geas. "With today's sentences, these men will now be put out of the mafia's ugly and violent business for life," Bharara said. The judgment was entered the next day, September 13, 2011.
Geas was offered a way to shorten that term by cooperating with the government. He refused.
Geas, his brother and Nigro appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a consolidated case. Fotios Geas argued that the trial court had wrongly denied him a continuance, that the government had failed in its duty to disclose material evidence under the Brady and Giglio rules, that the use of an anonymous jury was improper and that a witness's testimony should not have been admitted. On July 16, 2013, a panel of Judges Pooler, Lohier and Carney rejected each argument in a summary order which concluded that "the judgment of the district court hereby is AFFIRMED."
He next asked the district court to set aside his conviction and sentence. His motion, heard together with one from Nigro, claimed ineffective assistance of counsel and raised issues about ex parte transcripts, the forfeiture order and the charging language of the indictment. On June 9, 2016, Judge Castel ruled that "the Motions ... are DENIED" and declined to issue a certificate of appealability. The 2011 convictions and life sentence stood.
James Bulger had run a largely Irish gang in Boston in the 1970s and 1980s. The FBI has said he was also an informant who gave it information about his gang's main rival; Bulger strongly denied ever informing for the government. He fled Boston in 1994 after a tip from his FBI handler that an indictment was coming, was captured in California in 2011 at the age of 81 after more than 16 years as a fugitive, and in 2013 was convicted in 11 killings and dozens of other crimes and sentenced to life in prison.
In October 2018 the Federal Bureau of Prisons moved him from a facility in Florida to a federal penitentiary in West Virginia and placed him in the general population. Other prisoners knew in advance that he was coming. Geas was already there, serving his own life sentence, and a fellow prisoner, Paul J. DeCologero, a member of a Massachusetts gang led by his uncle, was held there too. Bulger died on October 30, 2018, hours after he arrived. He was 89.
Geas and DeCologero were named as suspects soon after Bulger's death, but for almost four years neither was charged while the investigation continued. Within days of the death, investigators were looking closely at Geas, a man known for his hatred of informants.
The death also brought scrutiny of the prison system itself. Experts criticized Bulger's transfer to that penitentiary and his placement in the general population rather than in more protective housing. On December 7, 2022, the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General published its review of the transfer. It found "serious job performance and management failures at multiple levels within the BOP," together with widespread incompetence and flawed policies, but it "did not find that any BOP employees acted with a malicious intent or an improper purpose." It made eleven recommendations.
On August 18, 2022, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of West Virginia, based in Clarksburg, announced that a federal grand jury had indicted three men in the death. Fotios Geas, 55, "a/k/a 'Freddy,'" was charged with conspiracy to commit first degree murder, aiding and abetting first degree murder, assault resulting in serious bodily injury, and murder by a federal inmate serving a life sentence. DeCologero, 48, faced the first three of those counts. A third man, Sean McKinnon, 36, was charged with making false statements to a federal agent.
In 2023 the Justice Department announced that it would not seek a death sentence against Geas or DeCologero.
On Monday, May 13, 2024, prosecutors filed papers in the West Virginia federal court disclosing that all three men had reached plea agreements. The agreements themselves were not filed, and the government gave no terms. Prosecutors asked the court to hold a combined change-of-plea and sentencing hearing for each defendant. Belinda Haynie, Geas's attorney, declined to comment.
McKinnon was the first to be dealt with. In June 2024 he pleaded guilty to lying to an FBI agent who had asked him about Bulger's death, and was sentenced to time served, with no additional prison term. On August 1, 2024, U.S. District Judge Thomas Kleeh sentenced DeCologero, then 50, to 51 months on a plea of guilty to assault resulting in serious bodily injury, to be served on top of the 25-year racketeering sentence he was already serving.
Geas came before Judge Kleeh in Clarksburg on Friday, September 6, 2024. He pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and assault resulting in serious bodily injury. The counts of murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, each punishable by up to life in prison, were dismissed.
The judge accepted the government's recommendation of 25 years: 15 years for voluntary manslaughter and 10 years for assault resulting in serious bodily injury, the two terms to run consecutively to each other and to the life sentence from 2011. The total exceeded the federal sentencing guidelines, and Judge Kleeh called it "fair, reasonable and just." Geas declined to make a statement before sentence was passed.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Flower told the court that the recommendation took account of the ages of both men, Bulger at 89 and Geas at 57, and that Geas "is not really going to have an opportunity to step outside." His defense lawyer, Nathan Chambers, contested parts of the government's account of Bulger's death, said Geas disputed some witness statements, and criticized the conduct of the Bureau of Prisons in harsh terms.
As of September 2024, Fotios Geas was serving the life sentence imposed in Manhattan in 2011, with the 25-year West Virginia sentence to follow it.
Geas was prosecuted twice in the federal system, in two different districts. The 2003 killings were prosecuted under the federal racketeering laws. Murder in aid of racketeering, the charge brought against Geas for both the Bruno and Westerman deaths, carried a mandatory life sentence on conviction and, in 2010, a possible death sentence.
The decision to move the Springfield prosecution to Manhattan in 2010 reflected the reach of the enterprise. The Genovese family was based in New York, Nigro was alleged to have given the orders there, and the Dadabo attempt took place in the Bronx. Consolidating the cases in the Southern District of New York placed every defendant and every count before one judge and one jury, with Massachusetts state and federal authorities agreeing. Appeals from that court go to the Second Circuit, which affirmed the convictions in 2013.
The 2018 case belonged to the Northern District of West Virginia and was heard in Clarksburg. The government's decision not to seek death, and the later plea to manslaughter, meant that the case ended without a trial and without a murder conviction.
The motive for the Bruno killing is described in two ways. The trial prosecutors and later federal statements said that Nigro ordered it because Bruno had spoken to the FBI and because it would increase his power. The earlier federal account given in Springfield in 2008 tied it to New York's anger that Bruno was not collecting and sending enough money.
Bulger's death is not a murder conviction. Geas was charged with murder and with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, but those counts were dismissed under his plea, and he stands convicted of voluntary manslaughter and assault resulting in serious bodily injury. The defense disputed parts of the prosecution's account of what happened, and Geas himself made no statement in court. The details of the government's case were never tested before a jury.
About 1967: Fotios Geas is born; he grows up in West Springfield, Massachusetts.
May 19, 2003: Attempted murder of Frank Dadabo in the Bronx, New York.
Summer 2003: Turmoil in the Springfield crew of the Genovese family.
Fall 2003: Conspiracy to murder Louis Santos.
November 4, 2003: Gary Westerman dies in Agawam, Massachusetts.
November 23, 2003: Adolfo Bruno, 57, dies in Springfield, Massachusetts.
April 17, 2008: Frankie Roche pleads guilty in Springfield federal court to murder in aid of racketeering in the Bruno case; Geas faces state charges and has pleaded not guilty.
March 9, 2010: Superseding indictment in the Southern District of New York names Nigro, Arillotta and Geas.
March 10, 2010: Massachusetts federal charges to be dismissed by mutual agreement in favor of the Manhattan case.
July 23, 2010: Further superseding indictment unsealed in Manhattan; Geas transferred to face it.
April 1, 2011: Jury convicts Nigro, Fotios Geas and Ty Geas after a three-week trial.
September 12, 2011: Judge P. Kevin Castel sentences all three to life in prison.
July 16, 2013: Second Circuit affirms the judgments.
June 9, 2016: Judge Castel denies the motions of Geas and Nigro to set aside their convictions.
October 30, 2018: James Bulger, 89, dies in a federal penitentiary in West Virginia hours after his transfer from Florida.
August 18, 2022: Geas, DeCologero and McKinnon indicted in the Northern District of West Virginia.
December 7, 2022: Justice Department Inspector General report on the transfer.
2023: Justice Department says it will not seek the death penalty.
May 13, 2024: Plea agreements disclosed in court filings.
June 2024: McKinnon sentenced to time served.
August 1, 2024: DeCologero sentenced to 51 months.
September 6, 2024: Geas pleads guilty to voluntary manslaughter and assault resulting in serious bodily injury and is sentenced to 25 years, consecutive to his life term.