PARK CITY, Utah — James “Whitey” Bulger speaks.

Although the 84-year-old former crime boss declined to take the stand at the summer 2013 trial where he was convicted of multiple counts of murder and extortion, he can be heard defending himself in a new documentary playing at the Sundance Film Festival.

Bulger is perhaps the most compelling voice in Joe Berlinger’s film “Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger,” which also includes interviews with prosecutors, defense attorneys, journalists and victims’ relatives.

“The most exciting thing about this film is it’s the first time we actually hear Whitey Bulger,” the director said in an interview. “And it will probably be the last time, because he is now in the custody of the federal government, which has deemed Whitey off limits for interviews.”

In the film, Bulger tells his defense attorney that he was never an FBI informant, but rather had federal agents on his payroll, paying up to $50,000 in cash for information, wiretaps and photo surveillance.

“Money is the common denominator,” Bulger tells his attorney, J.W. Carney, Jr., in a phone conversation. “Organized crime people cannot exist without contacts, and these people know it… . Everybody can be corrupted.”

Bulger was just as vehement in his denial about being an FBI informant – an issue critical to Berlinger’s film. Berlinger explores the defense team’s allegations that Bulger was not an informant and suggests “there’s a much deeper conspiracy and cover-up that’s going on.”


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