Howie Winter

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Howard 'Howie' Thomas Winter
Howie Winter - Undated mug shot
Born	March 17, 1929 (aged 78) Roxbury, Massachusetts
Occupation	Criminal

Howie Winter (born March 17, 1929) is an American mobster. He was the second leader of the infamous Winter Hill Gang.

1 Early life
2 Irish Mob
3 Further reading
4 References
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Early life

Winter was born on Saint Patrick's Day in Roxbury, Massachusetts, but raised in nearby Somerville where he began his criminal life. He is of Irish and German ancestry.

[edit] 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.^{[citation needed]}^[1]

[edit] 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-X