- Howie Winter
Infobox Person
name = Howard 'Howie' Thomas Winter
imagesize = 180px
caption = Howie Winter - Undated mug shot
birth_date =March 17 1929 (aged 79)
birth_place =Roxbury, Massachusetts
occupation =Criminal Howie Winter (born
March 17 1929 ) is an Americanmobster . He was the second leader of the infamousWinter Hill Gang .Early life
Winter was born on
Saint Patrick's Day inRoxbury, Massachusetts , but raised in nearby Somerville where he began his criminal life. He is of Irish and German ancestry.Irish Mob
Winter was the right-hand man to the originator of the gang Buddy McLean and took over the rackets when Buddy was killed during the Irish Mob Wars in 1966.
James "Whitey" Bulger replaced Winter as leader of the gang when Winter and members of the Winter Hill Gang were indicted on federal "horse race fixing" charges.Bulger and Flemmi were on the original indictment, but FBI agents John Morris and the later disgraced John Connolly convinced federal prosecutor Jeremiah O'Sullivan to remove Bulger and Flemmi from the indictment because they were informants.
A few years after Winter was released, he was caught dealing cocaine. When the FBI informed him that Whitey had been been a snitch all those years and offered Winter a deal if he would inform on Bulger, Howie refused the deal telling the FBI he was no "rat", despite facing another decade behind bars at age 65.
Winter was eventually released from prison in 2003. He resides in
Millbury, Massachusetts . Fact|date=March 2008 [ [http://www.thebrothersbulger.com/Howie%20Winter.htm Howie Winter ] ]Further reading
*Bloom, Robert M. "Ratting: The Use and Abuse of Informants in the American Justice System". Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002. ISBN 0-275-96818-9
*Matera, Dary. "FBI's Ten Most Wanted". New York: HarperCollins, 2003. ISBN 0-06-052435-9
*Willis, Clint (ed.) "Wise Guys: Stories of Mobsters from Jersey to Vegas". New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2003. ISBN 1-56025-498-XReferences
*English, T.J. "Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster". New York: HarperCollins, 2005. ISBN 0-06-059002-5
References
External links
* [http://thebrothersbulger.com/howie%20winter.htm Howie Winter]
* [http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_41.html AmericanMafia.com - Mob Monthly, A Round Up of the Usual Suspects] by John William Touhy
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
