Culture

Whitey Bulger Ordered to Pay $6 Million to Slain Man's Family

Good luck collecting on that

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A judge has ordered James "Whitey" Bulger to pay just over $6 million to the family of an Oklahoma businessman who, a federal jury said, was a murder victim of the once-feared crime boss.

But it remains unclear if the family of Roger Wheeler will receive any of the restitution payment that US District Court Judge Denise J. Casper awarded on Friday, court records show.

Bulger, 84, owes about $50.5 million in combined restitution and forfeiture penalties. Authorities have recovered just a fraction of that amount from him in cash and property since his capture in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2011.

A Boston jury found last summer that Bulger participated in the slayings of 11 people including Wheeler, who was killed in Tulsa in 1981. Casper presided over Bulger's sensational trial and sentenced him to a pair of life terms in November.