Former Vermont man faces prison sentence after admitting lying during investigation into death of James “Whitey” Bulger

A former Montpelier man who prosecutors accused of serving as a scout when Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger was beaten to death in a federal prison has pleaded guilty and agreed to a lesser charge that will allow him to avoid further prison time.

Sean McKinnon, 38, was charged in August 2022 with conspiring with two other incarcerated men to murder Bulger in October 2018 while they were all incarcerated at the U.S. Penitentiary at Hazelton in West Virginia.

On Monday, the charge – which would have carried a life sentence – was dropped, and McKinnon pleaded guilty to a lesser offense of lying to federal agents in connection with the investigation into Bulger’s death, according to court documents filed in the case.

Under the settlement, McKinnon faced up to five years in prison. However, Judge Thomas Kleeh gave McKinnon credit for the nearly two years he spent in prison after his arrest in the case and imposed no additional prison time.

McKinnon, who has always insisted he had nothing to do with Bulger’s murder, was allowed to leave the courtroom after the hearing, the Boston Globe reported on Monday.

“I wouldn’t wish this to happen to anyone,” McKinnon told the Globe outside the courthouse on Monday. “I’m just going home and trying to live my life.”

Neither McKinnon’s lawyers nor the federal prosecutor handling the case were available for comment on Tuesday.

Initial charging documents stated that Fotios Geas and Paul J. DeCologero beat 89-year-old Bulger in a jail cell while McKinnon acted as a “guard.”

But the agreement reached between prosecutors and McKinnon’s lawyers does not include this allegation against McKinnon. Instead, the filing says, it was DeCologero who acted as a guard. “In addition,” the document says, “DeCologero assisted Geas in placing Bulger’s body in his bunk and covering him with bedding.”

As part of the agreement, McKinnon admitted to making “false, fabricated and fraudulent statements and allegations” to a federal agent investigating Bulger’s death on the day of his death, the filing said.

According to the document, McKinnon specifically told the federal agent that he knew nothing about what happened to Bulger in the jail cell, nor was he aware of any incident in which he was involved the day he was beaten to death.

But, the file states, before he spoke to the federal agent, McKinnon had “met with Geas and DeCologero and discussed with them the attack on inmate Bulger” and knew that the two men were responsible for the crime boss’s death.

Geas and DeCologero have also reached settlements with prosecutors in the cases against them in connection with Bulger’s death. The terms of their settlements have not yet been made public, and sentencing for both is scheduled for late summer.

McKinnon was sentenced to eight years in federal prison in January 2016 after being found guilty of stealing about a dozen firearms from R&L Archery in Barre and later trading the weapons for heroin.

After his release from prison in July 2022, he lived in Ocala, Florida before being arrested in 2022 in connection with Bulger’s death.

Bulger was on the run from authorities for more than a decade before he was finally caught in 2011. He was convicted in 2013 and sentenced to life in prison later that year for 11 murders and other crimes.

Bulger, who used a wheelchair, was found dead in his cell hours after being transferred from a Florida facility to Hazelton on October 30, 2018.