Background
Kevin Weeks was born inCriminal career
In 1975, Weeks became a bouncer at a popular neighborhood bar called Triple O's Lounge, owned by Kevin O'Neil. This was a frequent hangout of the Winter Hill Gang, an Irish-American crime family which was then headed by James J. "Whitey" Bulger. It was here that Weeks first met Bulger, as well as Bulger's Italian-American partner Stephen Flemmi. Beginning in 1978, Weeks began working for Bulger part-time as muscle and a personal driver. Impressed by Weeks' knack for making money and genuinely liking him, Bulger decided to bring him in closer than any other associate. Meanwhile, Weeks turned to running a loansharking business on the side. In 1982, just four years after beginning to work as part of the Winter Hill Gang, Weeks left his legitimate job and became a full-time mobster in the gang.The Halloran murder
On the night of May 11, 1982, Bulger was told of the whereabouts of a former associate turned federal informant, Edward Brian Halloran, known on the streets as "Balloonhead". After arriving at the scene, Weeks staked out Anthony's Pier 4 Restaurant, where Halloran and construction worker Michael Donahue were dining together. As Donahue and Halloran drove out of the parking lot Weeks signaled Bulger by stating, "The balloon is in the air", over a handheld radio. Bulger drove up with a masked man armed with a silencedNarcotics
Bulger, Weeks, and Flemmi became heavily involved in narcotics trafficking in the early 1980s. Bulger began to summon drug dealers from in and around Boston to his headquarters. Flanked by Kevin Weeks and Flemmi, he would inform each dealer that he had been offered a substantial sum to assassinate them. He would then demand a large cash payment not to do so. Eventually, however, the massive profits of drugs proved irresistible. According to Kevin Weeks:Jimmy, Stevie and I weren't in the import business and weren't bringing in theIn South Boston, most of the neighborhood's drug trade was managed by a handpicked crew of prize fighters led by John Shea. Edward MacKenzie Jr., a former member of Shea's crew, has stated that this was done because Shea viewed athletes as less likely to abuse the drugs they were selling. According to Weeks, Bulger enforced strict rules over the dealers who were paying him protection.marijuana Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various tra ...or the cocaine. We were in the shakedown business. We didn't bring drugs in; we took money off the people who did. We never dealt with the street dealers, but rather with a dozen large-scale drug distributors all over the State who were bringing in the coke and marijuana and paying hundreds of thousands to Jimmy. The dealers on the street corner sold eight-balls, ...grams, and half grams to customers for their personal use. They were supplied by the mid level drug dealer who was selling them multiple ounces. In other words, the big importers gave it to the major distributors, who sold it to the middlemen, who then sold it to the street dealers. To get to Jimmy, Stevie, and me, someone would have had to go through those four layers of insulation.
The only people we ever put out of business wereWeeks also insists that Bulger strictly forbade PCP and selling to children, and that those dealers who refused to play by his rules were violently driven out of the neighborhood. In 1990, "Red" Shea and his associates were arrested as part of a joint investigation involving the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Boston Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police. All refused to testify against Bulger, Flemmi, and Weeks. According to Weeks,heroin Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...dealers. Jimmy didn't allow heroin in South Boston. It was a dirty drug that users stuck in their arms, making problems with needles, and later on,AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m .... While people can do cocaine socially and still function, once they do heroin, they're zombies.
Of course, Jimmy lost money once the drug dealers were removed from the streets in the summer raid, but he always had other business going on. Knowing I had to build something on the side, I had concentrated on my shylocking and gambling businesses. The drug business had been good while it lasted. But our major involvement in it was over.
Mob boss
Weeks also remained in frequent touch with Bulger, with whom he had several clandestine meetings in New York City and Chicago. In 1997, shortly after '' The Boston Globe'' disclosed that Bulger and Flemmi had been informants, Weeks met with retired agent John Connolly (later sentenced to 40 years in prison), who showed him a photocopy of Bulger's FBI informant file. In order to explain Bulger and Flemmi's status as informants, Connolly said, "The Mafia was going against Jimmy and Stevie, so Jimmy and Stevie went against them." According to Weeks:As I read over the files at the Top of the Hub that night, Connolly kept telling me that 90 percent of the information in the files came from Stevie. Certainly Jimmy hadn't been around the Mafia the way Stevie had. But, Connolly told me, he had to put Jimmy's name on the files to keep his file active. As long as Jimmy was an active informant, Connolly said, he could justify meeting with Jimmy and giving him valuable information. Even after he retired, Connolly still had friends in the FBI, and he and Jimmy kept meeting to let each other know what was going on. I listened to all that, but now I understood that even though he was retired, Connolly was still getting information, as well as money, from Jimmy. As I continued to read, I could see that a lot of the reports were not just against the Italians. There were more and more names of Polish and Irish guys, of people we had done business with, of friends of mine. Whenever I came across the name of someone I knew, I would read exactly what it said about that person. I would see, over and over again, that some of these people had been arrested for crimes that were mentioned in these reports. It didn't take long for me to realize that it had been bullshit when Connolly told me that the files hadn't been disseminated, that they had been for his own personal use. He had been an employee of the FBI. He hadn't worked for himself. If there was some investigation going on and his supervisor said, 'Let me take a look at that,' what was Connolly going to do? He had to give it up. And he obviously had. I thought about what Jimmy had always said, 'You can lie to your wife and to your girlfriends, but not to your friends. Not to anyone we're in business with.' Maybe Jimmy and Stevie hadn't lied to me. But they sure hadn't been telling me everything.
Arrest
On November 17, 1999, Weeks,The informant
Imprisoned in Rhode Island, it took about two weeks for Weeks to decide to co-operate with authorities, leading some in South Boston to dub him "Kevin Squeaks" or "Two Weeks". Weeks stated that he was approached by one of his fellow prisoners, a made man in the New England crime family, who made a surprising suggestion–he should testify against Bulger and Flemmi. As the mafioso put it, "Remember, you can't rat on a rat. Those guys have been giving up everyone for thirty years." He was also unnerved when two lawyers told him his chances at trial were dismal. Prosecutors were outraged at Winter Hill's crime spree, and were also frustrated when IRA sleeper associate James "Gentleman Jim" Mulvey refused to flip. Weeks recalled that his attorneys told him that prosecutors wanted to take their anger out on Weeks and press for the maximum if he were convicted–which would have all but assured he would die in prison. In addition, Weeks was also deeply impressed by the cooperation ofFamily
Kevin Weeks married his longtime girlfriend, Pamela Cavaleri (born 1957), on April 26, 1980 at the Gate of Heaven Roman Catholic Church in their native South Boston. They have two sons, Kevin Barry Weeks (born 1982), to whom Whitey Bulger stood as godfather, and Brian Weeks (born 1986), to whom Kevin O'Connor, another former enforcer, stood as godfather. The couple later separated.Current status
Weeks was released from Federal prison in early 2005. He collaborated with journalist Phyllis Karas (of '' People'' magazine). Weeks's account of his life with Bulger and Flemmi was published in March 2006. He was a star witness at Connolly's 2008 trial on state charges of murdering former World Jai Alai president John Callahan, as well as at Bulger's 2013 trial on racketeering charges two years after Bulger was finally captured. At the latter trial, Bulger lost his composure when Weeks called him a rat and the two former compatriots almost came to blows. At a book signing in April 2006, Kevin Weeks told the crowd at a BostonIn popular culture
ActorBooks
* Weeks, Kevin; Karas, Phyllis, ''Brutal: The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob'',References
External links