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Bulger Had Fake IDs for AARP, Selective Service, FBI Says

An FBI agent chronicled some of the details investigators have been able to put together from Greig and Bulger's 16 years on the run during a hearing Monday.

Catherine Greig and James "Whitey" Bulger had a stockpile of aliases with a wide range of documents and ID cards stowed in their Santa Monica apartment, and had previously gone to great lengths to pick up new identities, an FBI agent said during court testimony Monday.

Greig, a long-time girlfriend of Bulger, appeared Monday afternoon for a detention hearing at federal district court on the Boston waterfront.

Greig wants to be released from federal custody and held to the confinement of a family home with a GPS tracking device while a charge of harboring a fugitive pends against her.

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FBI: Greig Posed for Fake IDs

Prosecutors called an FBI agent to testify, who spoke of Greig's involvement in posing for photos for fake IDs and one occassion where she used an alias to pick up a prescription in Santa Monica earlier this year. After nearly two hours of testimony, the hearing was continued until Wednesday.

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Family members of victims of some of the crimes Bulger allegedly committed as a South Boston crime leader in the 1970s and 1980s are expected to testify when the hearing resumes.

FBI agent Michael Carasza chronicled some of the details investigators have been able to put together from Greig and Bulger's 16 years on the run, like how Bulger allegedly once planned to use an ID of his brother, Jack, with a fake moustache on it, but was displeased with the way it came out, and how Bulger and Greig allegedly posed for photos that would be used for fake IDs.

Apt. Reportedly Had Holes To Conceal, Guns, Money

In June, the couple was arrested living in a Santa Monica apartment under the names Charles and Carol Gasko. The bedroom of the apartment had many holes in the wall concealed by hangings, Carasza said. Inside the holes, there were cash, guns and numerous documents bearing aliases including driver's licenses, an AARP card and a selective service card, Caracza said.

Carasza also played a video captured by a Santa Monica pharmacy surveillance camera showing Greig picking up a prescription written to an alias.

Shackled at the ankles and wearing blue prison scrubs, Greig smiled at Margaret McCusker, her twin sister, when she was escorted into the court room. McCusker sat in a front pew just a few feet behind her sister and periodically left the courtroom during Carasza. Greig stared stoically straight-ahead during most of the hearing.

Couple Lived in Louisiana 

When Greig and Bulger were hiding out on an isle in Louisiana in the mid-90s, Bulger regularly used a pay phone at a Wal-Mart to use calling cards to call associates in Boston, Carasza said. On one occasion known to the FBI Greig used a calling card to speak to her sister, who had been arranged to go to a third-party's home to take the call, Carasza said.

The pair was living in Grand Isle, Louisiana under the names Thomas and Helen Baxter from New York and Bulger even had a car registered to the name, a black Mercury Grand Marquis, Carasza said.

They had befriended many of the locals there, who were reluctant to help investigators find them.

"They were loyal to them," Carasza said.

Bulger faces a 24 federal charges, which allege 19 murders from the 1970s and 1980s are his responsibility. He went on the run in 1995, when he was tipped off that a federal indictment against him was imminent.


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