Bulger walks off scotch free.

Voters in Massachusetts should be in an absolute uproar over this.

The US attorney's office let the clock run out this week on a federal grand jury in Boston investigating whether William Bulger had committed perjury or obstruction of justice, concluding that there wasn't enough evidence to seek indictments and take a case to trial, the sources said.

"Bill Bulger has been a political football for six years," his lawyer, Thomas R. Kiley, said yesterday.

Bulger, his wife, and children "have been through hell as a result of the focus on Whitey," Kiley said. "If they can get some peace that's a great thing."

US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan could not be reached yesterday, and his chief of staff, Robert Krekorian, declined to comment on the end of the investigation.

Whitey Bulger, 77, a longtime FBI informant, was warned by his retired FBI handler, John J. Connolly Jr., to flee shortly before his January 1995 federal racketeering indictment and has eluded authorities since. The international manhunt for the gangster, who is accused of 19 murders and is one of the FBI's 10 Most Wanted fugitives, alongside Osama bin Laden, has brought intense scrutiny to his family.

William Bulger, 73, of South Boston, who became president of the University of Massachusetts in January 1996, was pressured by Governor Mitt Romney to resign in 2003 after he was publicly grilled about his relationship with his gangster brother by a congressional committee investigating the FBI's mishandling of informants.

William Bulger told the committee that he didn't know where his fugitive brother was hiding and had not aided him in any way since he fled.

One law enforcement official said yesterday that investigators suspected William Bulger knew more than he was revealing and believed "if you put pressure on him, then potentially he or his family would give up where his brother is."

That's right, he's gotten away with all of it. I've never seen such a blatant miscarriage of justice perhaps ever. Billy Bulger is thumbing his nose at everyone today. Not only did he get off scotch free, he pocketed MORE money for his pension. How this guy's not in jail is an atrocity.