Late last night, James “Whitey” Bulger’s defense team entered into evidence a photo showing the alleged gangster sitting next to a smiling man wearing a black clerical shirt and white collar.
Although the man is not identified in the photograph, the Boston Globe confirmed that he is the former vice chancellor of the Boston archdiocese, Frederick J. Ryan, who was defrocked by the Catholic Church after allegedly sexually abusing a number of boys in the 1980s.
“Given Whitey Bulger’s lack of respect for humanity, it comes as no surprise that Whitey Bulger is associated with a serial pedophile such as Fred Ryan,’’ Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian told the paper when he confirmed the former achdiocese’s identity.
When Ryan was defrocked in 2006 he was the highest ranking member of the clergy to fall after a rash of child abuse claims were unleashed upon the Catholic Church in Boston in 2002.
Ryan was accused of taking two Catholic Memorial High School students to the chancery of the Archdiocese of Boston where he molested them. In 2002 the two men, represented by Garabedian, successfully sued the archdiocese.
The photo of Bulger and Ryan was one of 20 pictures of the alleged mobster that his defense attorneys filed to the court on Wednesday. The pictures might be used as exhibits in Bulger’s defense.
Bulger faces allegations that he took part in 19 slayings while leading Boston’s Irish mob in the 1970s and 80s.
With My Fox Boston.