
Stephen Joseph "the Rifleman" Flemmi (born 9 June 1934) was Whitey Bulger's second-in-command in his "Winter Hill Gang" in Boston, as well as a longtime FBI informant.
Biography[]
Stephen Flemmi was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1934, the son of Italian immigrant parents; his father served in the Royal Italian Army during World War I. He enlisted in the US Army in 1951 and served two tours of duty in the Korean War, and he was awarded the Silver Star and Bronze Star. Flemmi became involved with the criminal underworld of Boston during the 1960s, becoming partners with Whitey Bulger; in 1965, he became an FBI informant, as did Bulger. The two of them informed on the inner workings of the rival Patriarca crime family of Rhode Island, but their own criminal activities embarrassed the FBI. In 1994, Flemmi was arrested, and he was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to a decade in prison.