One of the jurors who convicted James “Whitey’’ Bulger of murder and racketeering has urged a judge to show leniency when sentencing the gangster’s girlfriend, Catherine Greig, later this month on a criminal contempt charge.
“May I respectfully remind Your Honor that Ms. Greig has no criminal record beyond harboring Bulger; that she loves him as a wife loves a husband; and that her behavior in prison has been exemplary,’’ Janet Uhlar, of Eastham, wrote to US District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV in a letter dated March 20 and filed in Greig’s case Monday.
Uhlar, who has been corresponding with Bulger since his 2013 trial and previously said that she regretted her verdict, wrote that she was disturbed that Greig could face up to life in prison on the contempt charge, which carries no minium or mandatory sentence.
The former juror said it was alarming that Greig could receive a harsh sentence, while several of Bulger’s former associates who were involved in murders were given lenient sentences in exchange for cooperating with the government.
Greig, 65, who was captured with Bulger in June 2011 living in a rent-controlled apartment in Santa Monica, Calif., was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2012 for helping him elude authorities for more than 16 years.
She faces sentencing April 28 on the new criminal contempt charge for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating whether more people helped Bulger while he was a fugitive. She already had nine months added to her sentence for civil contempt.
In a court filing Monday, Greig’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, objected to a pre-sentencing report by the US Probation Office that concluded Greig should face 46 to 57 months in prison for the contempt charge under federal sentencing guidelines, which are advisory.
“This is totally without logic, common sense or foundation in the law,’’ wrote Reddington, arguing that court officials unfairly reached the calculation by linking her case to Bulger’s. He argued that the guidelines should be about two years, but said he will recommend she serve less than that.
Bulger, 86, is serving a life sentence at a federal penitentiary in Florida for participating in 11 murders while running a sprawling criminal organization from the 1970s to the 1990s. Jurors acquitted him of seven slayings and could not reach a verdict on whether he strangled 26-year-old Debra Davis.
In her two-page letter, Uhlar wrote, “That trial was alarming — but sadly, it was not the criminality of Bulger that was most disturbing. That was expected. Instead it was the revelation of the depth of corruption within the Department of Justice in Boston.’’
Uhlar wrote that she believes that “the US Attorney’s Office in Boston and the Boston media have developed an obsessive, prejudiced, passion in regard to James Bulger (and anything associated with him).’’
Shelley Murphy can be reached at shelley.murphy@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @shelleymurph.
