'Whitey' Bulger wants public defender, FBI leaks stopped

Boston (CNN) -- An attorney for James "Whitey'' Bulger has petitioned a U.S. District judge to combine two pending racketeering charges against the reputed mobster, rather than allow prosecutors to drop the less severe charge against him, according to court documents acquired Thursday.

The move, prosecutors say, is meant to complicate the case against Bulger for racketeering and 19 murder charges he faces.

U.S. District judge Judge Mark Wolf is expected to decide whether the two indictments should be merged at the first of two hearings at Thursday afternoon in Boston.

Defense attorney Peter Krupp has accused federal prosecutors of dropping the less serious charge in order to "game the system" and allow a different judge to hear the case. "Having encountered difficult questions from this court in lengthy hearings in the late 1990s, the government chose to have the newest allegations returned in a separate indictment, so that it might be assigned a different docket and drawn to different judge," said Krupp.

The racketeering indictment, filed in 1995, was assigned to Wolf. The murder charges are part of a case brought in 2000 and assigned to a different judge.

"The government's apparent forum shopping is contrary to the public interest and undermines public confidence in the judicial process," Krupp argued. "The government's actions, choosing to pursue a new indictment, rather than a superseding indictment before this Court, reflect a manipulation of the case ..."

The racketeering charges would slow down their murder case, government prosecutors said.

Wolf is also expected to consider who should pick up Bulger's legal tab and how leaks from federal agents in the case can be stopped.

Bulger's attorneys have argued that the leaks about the case endanger the former fugitive's right to a fair trial on murder charges.

"If it is now possible -- and Mr. Bulger seriously questions whether it will be possible -- for Mr. Bulger to receive a fair trial, law enforcement leaks of non-public information must end, with disclosures of information limited to the judicial process," Krupp wrote.

Prosecutors say the 81-year-old Bulger was the boss of South Boston's Irish mob before he fled an impending racketeering indictment in 1995. At the same time, he was an FBI informant whose handler tipped him off about the charges -- a tale that became the basis for the Oscar-winning crime drama "The Departed."

Bulger was arrested last week in California, along with his longtime girlfriend, 60-year-old Catherine Elizabeth Greig. She has been charged with harboring a fugitive.

He has asked for a public defender, but prosecutors -- who said FBI agents seized more than $822,000 in cash from Bulger's Santa Monica apartment -- say he should pick up his own legal tab.

"He has every incentive to lie and stick the taxpayers with the bill for his defense," prosecutors wrote in court papers filed Tuesday. They said Bulger has admitted to stashing more money away with "people he trusted" but would not name, and suggested that Bulger's brother William could pay for a lawyer.

William Bulger is a former president of the University of Massachusetts and a state Senate leader. He was forced to step down from his university job after then-Gov. Mitt Romney, now a Republican presidential candidate, accused him of being evasive during congressional testimony about "Whitey's" whereabouts.

Prosecutors asked Wolf to require both William Bulger and a third Bulger brother, John Bulger, to submit affidavits before a decision is made.

Whitey Bulger also asked the judge to order federal agents to turn over notes of their interviews with him following his capture, arguing the documents are needed to defend himself against charges that he has hidden assets and will assist his defense.

Bulger lived "a relatively comfortable lifestyle" for the 16 years he was a fugitive, taking numerous gambling trips to Las Vegas, according to a government document filed in his case. Prosecutors say Bulger waived his Miranda rights after his arrest and told agents who were taking him back to Boston that he had been "a frequent traveler as a fugitive," according to the government.

"Bulger acknowledged visiting Las Vegas on numerous occasions to play the slots and claimed he won more than he lost," the filing said. "Bulger also admitted traveling to San Diego and then crossing over into Tijuana to purchase medicines."

Bulger also told the feds that he traveled back to Boston "on several occasions while 'armed to the teeth' because he 'had to take care of some unfinished business,'" the document said. Bulger refused to tell the agents any details of his Boston visits, it said.

CNN's Sheila Steffen and Jason Kessler contributed to this report.

CNN

Lightning, gas leaks, hail don't stop first responders in Joplin

(CNN) -- Struck by lightning, caught up in the smell of gas, braving two-inch hail and relentless rain: None of it could stop hundreds of firefighters, police officers, medical personnel, National Guardsmen and more from heading into the devastation around Joplin, Missouri, in a desperate search for survivors.

Nor could the fact that many of the first responders searched through the rubble of buildings at the same time many of their own homes had been eviscerated. Amidst the struggles, there were victories: 17 people were rescued Monday, city manager Mark Rohr told CNN's Eliot Spitzer.

"They've lost their homes, but they have been out there for 40 hours saving lives," Richard Serino, deputy administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said from Joplin. "The work they have done ... to say it is to be commended is an understatement."

Not much more than 12 hours after the tornado touched down, Rohr said that between 400 to 500 firefighters, public works personnel and other municipal employees showed up Monday morning, unasked, hoping to help.

The city manager said that the turnout, and the fact many others who have pitched in in other ways, is no surprise in Joplin, a city of 50,050 residents in southwest Missouri.

"Joplin is a city of neighbors helping neighbors," he said. "And with this spirit, we will overcome the hardship."

Yet the continually confounding weather Monday proved a major challenge. Rohr said that two first responders were struck by lightning while looking through debris -- he did not detail the victims' conditions afterward -- with persistent thunderstorms prompting a temporary halt to the searches.

And even by Monday evening, a full day after the twister struck, Rohr said there were "gas leaks all over the city."

"When we drive around, we can smell the gas," the city manager said. "And there are wires down everywhere. You have just got to be careful, as you navigate through the city."

The challenge doesn't appear likely to get any easier Tuesday. The National Weather Service has said there is a 45 percent chance of another tornado outbreak between 4 p.m. and midnight Tuesday over a wide swath that includes cities like Dallas, Oklahoma City and -- yet again -- Joplin.

Those assisting in the rescue effort weren't just from Joplin. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon noted that some of the more than 1,000 first responders came from Kansas City and other locales. That doesn't include the 110 highway patrolmen and 250 National Guardsmen -- with another 450 on standby -- also on the scene.

Dr. Jim Roscoe told CNN that doctors, nurses and others rushed to help, after the tornado ripped through St. John's Regional Medical Center. Even with often impassible roads and treacherous weather, he said that, "within a matter of hours, we had almost more help than we could put to use."

"I just can't begin to tell you," said Roscoe, who is heading the hospital's triage unit as it treats and redirects patients coming in for help. "We've had people coming from several hundreds of miles away, grabbing their stethoscope and anything they could get, and threw it in their car and came."

Whether treating patients and searching for bodies, those on the frontlines in Joplin also face a significant psychological toll of dealing with devastation that most of them have never seen before. Nixon said they would likely have "very difficult shifts, (because) there are going to see things out there that are hard to see and hard to stomach."

Still, voicing a sentiment echoed by officials and residents in Joplin, the governor said it wouldn't prevent the first responders from heading out again, looking for survivors.

"We are going to cover every foot of this town, and we're going to make sure that every person is accounted for," Nixon said.

Click through to see the damage from the deadliest U.S. twister since modern record-keeping began.A security camera records damage from a Kansas tornado. CNN affiliate KTKA-TV in Topeka has more.The warnings seem almost ubiquitous today, but the word "tornado" used to be banned in weather forecasts.Joplin High seniors were wrapping up their graduation ceremony as the devastating storm started to roll in to town.Click through to see the number of tornadoes by year since 1950 and how many deaths resulted from these twisters.Survivors of the Joplin, Missouri, tornado describe their experiences riding out the deadly twister.Hundreds of firefighters, police officers, medics and more head into Joplin, Missouri, to search for survivors.After surviving the deadly storm, residents in Joplin, Missouri, brace for the possibility of more tornadoes.Today's five most popular stories

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New Lady Gaga album leaks ahead of May 23 release (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Lady Gaga's heavily-hyped new album "Born This Way" made its way to the Internet on Wednesday, five days ahead of its official release on May 23.

All fourteen tracks from the album were initially streamed in Europe on a special website to readers of the London-based free newspaper Metro, which Gaga guest-edited on Monday as part of a promotional blitz for the new album.

They were also released on Wednesday to premium subscribers in Sweden, Norway, Spain, the Netherlands and Finland of the music streaming service Spotify.

But all the tracks soon made their way to the Internet, giving U.S. fans and reviewers an early chance to weigh in on the third album from the New York pop-dance performance artist.

Four of the singles have already been released by Gaga, including the title track which sold one million copies in five days in February and became the fastest-selling single in iTunes history.

But Rolling Stone magazine said in a track by track review on Wednesday that Gaga had "still managed to pack in some surprises".

Entertainment Weekly called it "an inconsistent blend of icy techno-pop and greeting-card empowerment that's more a triumph of production than songwriting."

Dan Martin with British music website NME.com described the album as "a relentless torrent of heavy metal rave pop." Martin added that "Born This Way" is "an exercise in the pushing of everything to its ultimate degree. And for all the black, white and silver, it passes that test with flying colors."

U.S. fans on Wednesday were split between downloading the album illicitly or waiting until its official release next week.

"Pretty stupid to preview it and not think such a highly anticipated album would leak. She should have just waited to release her album when it was meant to be released," commented a writer called Carrie on the Entertainment Weekly website.

Gaga's Interscope Records, part of Universal Music Group did not return calls for comment.

Gaga, 25, was named by Forbes on Wednesday as the world's most powerful celebrity, partly due to her dominance of social media, where she has 32 million Facebook fans.

"She can use Twitter and Facebook to work the 'little monsters' into a frenzy that leads to record sales and media attention. She's the best example of how celebrities will need to manage their careers in the coming years," Forbes editor Dorothy Pomerantz said.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Zorianna Kit)

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Radioactive water leaks from Japan nuclear plant

Tokyo Electric Power Co. via AP

Workers for the company experimentally spray adhesive synthetic resin over the ground at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant Friday.

EnlargeCloseTokyo Electric Power Co. via AP

Workers for the company experimentally spray adhesive synthetic resin over the ground at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant Friday.

The plant has been spewing radioactivity since March 11, when a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing massive wave knocked out power, disabling cooling systems and allowing radiation to seep out of the overheating reactors.

VISIT: Japan PM travels to tsunami-hit villagePHOTOS: Landscape of lossGRAPHIC: Nuclear emergencies grip JapanFULL COVERAGE: Latest photos, videos and storiesThe water was seeping Saturday from a newly discovered crack in a maintenance pit on the edge of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear site into the Pacific Ocean, Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said.

Measurements show the air right above it contained 1,000 millisieverts of radioactivity. Exposure to 500 millisieverts over a short period of time can increase the long-term risk of cancer. But experts say radiation is quickly diluted by the vast Pacific and even large amounts have little effect.

It wasn't immediately clear if workers who have been rushing to bring the reactors under control were exposed. People living within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant have been evacuated.

Nishiyama said officials will check the level of radiation in seawater near the reactor and also seawater around 9 miles (15 kilometers) off the reactor. They will use concrete to seal the 20 centimeter crack and try to stop the radiation from leaking.

"This could be one of the sources of seawater contamination," Nishiyama said. "There could be other similar cracks in the area, and we must find them as quickly as possible."

Over the past week, radioactivity beyond the legal limit has been detected in seawater just off the plant.

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