(WHDH/AP) — The former FBI agent serving a 40-year prison sentence for alerting Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger that he could be implicated in a murder is seeking to be released from prison on medical grounds.
Peter Mullane, the lawyer for John “Zip” Connolly, confirmed to 7NEWS that Connolly will have a compassionate release hearing Tuesday morning in Florida.
The 80-year-old is suffering from multiple melanomas and diabetes, Mullane added.
Connolly, who was James “Whitey” Bulger’s FBI handler, was convicted in 2008 of second-degree murder after a mob hitman killed World Jai Alai President John Callahan in Fort Lauderdale in 1982. Trial evidence showed Connolly tipped Bulger that Callahan was about to implicate the gang in another killing.
Separately, Connolly served nearly 10 years in prison after being convicted in 2002 of racketeering and obstruction of justice for protecting members of Bulger’s Winter Hill Gang from prosecution and tipping them about informants in their ranks.
Bulger, who spent 16 years as one of America’s most wanted men before being arrested in California in 2011, was killed in federal prison in West Virginia in 2018.
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