Whitey Bulger taken to Boston hospital

By Travis Andersen and Matt Rocheleau

Notorious gangster James “Whitey” Bulger was taken to Boston Medical Center early this morning, Plymouth fire officials said.
Plymouth Fire Department battalion chief Kevin Murphy said in a phone interview tonight that firefighters responded to the Plymouth County Correctional Facility at 1:48 a.m. and took Bulger to the hospital.
Murphy said he did not know why Bulger was hospitalized and declined further comment.
The Plymouth County Sheriff’s Department, US Marshal’s Service, and US attorney’s office in Boston all refused to comment this evening.
A hospital spokeswoman said she had no information, and Bulger’s lawyer, J.W. Carney Jr., did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Bulger, 83, was examined at a Boston hospital in December and returned to the jail later in the day, but officials at the time would not say why.
While he has always been a physical fitness buff, Bulger has for decades suffered from a common ailment that prompts him to take Atenolol, a beta blocker used to treat high blood pressure and improve blood flow to the heart.
Bulger is scheduled to stand trial this spring in federal court in Boston on a sweeping indictment that alleges that he participated in 19 murders, among other crimes.