From left to right, Fotios A. "Freddy" Geas in April 2007, May 2007 and January 2008. (Collier County Sheriff; The Republican file)

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Fifteen years before emerging as a suspect in one of the most infamous prison murders in U.S. history, Fotios "Freddy" Geas was neck deep in five murder plots in a single year.

Some never got off the ground. Some did.

Formerly of West Springfield, Geas, 51, was sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for the 2003 murders of Genovese crime family boss Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno and fellow hustler Gary D. Westerman, who had been outed as a state police informant.

Geas was briefly housed in the same West Virginia maximum security prison with notorious Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger earlier this week, where Bulger swiftly came to a bloody end within hours of being transferred.

Geas' name quickly circulated as a suspect in the brutal attack that left Bulger dead in his cell. No one has been charged in Bulger's death, which U.S. Department of Justice officials said is being investigated as a homicide. A second Massachusetts native, Paul J. DeCologero, formerly of Lowell, is the second suspect, according to The Boston Globe.

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Massachusetts State Police in April 2010 at the Agawam property where investigators found the remains of Gary D. Westerman. (The Republican file)

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At Geas' 2011 double-murder and racketeering trial in federal court in Manhattan, government witness Anthony Arillotta -- once one of Geas' closest friends before becoming an informant in 2010 -- testified that Geas was an unflinching partner in violence.

Four men: Geas, his younger brother Ty, Emilio Fusco and Arillotta, fatally shot and smashed Westerman with shovels on Nov. 4, 2003, before dumping his body in an eight-foot ditch in a wooded lot in Agawam.

Freddy Geas blasted Westerman with a gun five inches from his head to finish him off, Arillotta told jurors. The four re-filled the hole, which had been obscured by cardboard and leaves. They threw the shovels over a bridge and went to a grocery store to buy white vinegar to wipe the gun resin off their hands, Arillotta said. They never returned to the scene to clean it up.

The following night, they went to Morton's Steakhouse in Hartford, Connecticut, to celebrate. Geas was self-congratulatory over their teamwork and later broke into song as they drove back by the murder site later that night.

"Freddy started singing 'On top of Old Smokey ... all covered in blood'," dissolving into laughter, Arillotta recounted.

Geas helped dig the hole weeks before, Arillotta testified. It had multiple gangters' names on it before it became Westerman's makeshift grave, court testimony showed. Westerman's remains were not recovered until Arillotta led law enforcement to the site seven years later.

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A booking photo of Gary Westerman from the late 1990s. (The Republican file)

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Geas and his younger brother began building their criminal rap sheets as adolescents. The years they spent not behind bars were precious few.

Their earliest arrests primarily involved brawling and in Freddy Geas' case, a 1996 truck heist with no other than Westerman.

The two used bolt cutters to break into a freight yard and steal a tractor-trailer full of computer equipment, furniture and other goods. He and a third man were arrested in June of that year with drugs and brass knuckles in their car. Geas and Westerman were sentenced to three to five years in state prison after pleading guilty. This presumably when Geas began to build his network of frequent flier prison buddies, including one he would later recruit for murder.

Other early exploits included a beating of an Agawam police officer at an accident scene in 1990 -- for which Geas was acquitted. Ty Geas, meanwhile, was sentenced to jail for a previous brawl involving a scrum of teens and young men involved in a brawl outside a McDonald's restaurant. The younger Geas' defense lawyer argued his client was being targeted for his already burgeoning criminal reputation.

Late Hampden District Attorney Matthew "Matty" Ryan disagreed.

He told a judge he believed Ty Geas was "getting away with murder," but conceded to a lighter sentence as a show of good faith.

The brothers amassed 75 adult arraignments by the early 2000s, police records later showed.

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Worthington Street in Springfield in March 2003. (The Republican file)

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Later incidents included more bar fights, attacks on jail guards, and assaults with bats, ice picks and guns outside two pubs in downtown Springfield, where machismo was fueling a violent tear in 2003.

That year, Arillotta was formally inducted into the Genovese crime family during a secret ceremony in Bronx. New York, where then-acting boss Arthur "Artie" Nigro sponsored his induction.

Arillotta, the Geases, Nigro, Fusco and other local gangsters and fringe characters plotted to take out weakened boss Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno three weeks after Westerman was killed. That plot was as deadly.

Bruno died at the hands of Geas' "crash dummy" -- Frankie Roche, a tattooed, reckless fringe character Freddy Geas met in jail -- whom Geas recruited. Bruno was killed Nov. 23, 2003.

Geas provided the guns and $10,000 to help Roche get out of town after the murder. Roche was arrested in 2004 in Florida. FBI agents accidentally shot him in the back during the arrest.

Roche was the first arrested in the Bruno plot, then Freddy Geas, when Roche flipped. Arillotta, Ty Geas, Nigro, Fusco, late New York gangster John Bologna and East Longmeadow mobster Felix Tranghese fell like dominoes.

The Geases, Nigro and Fusco were the only ones among the bunch who didn't turn government witness. All but Fusco were sentenced to life in prison.

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A 2002 surveillance photo in Springfield shows John Bologna, left, and Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno. (Police photo / The Republican file)

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Freddy Geas' widely-known distaste for "rats" has played prominently into the Bulger narrative, as Bulger was among the most duplicitous informants in FBI history.

In addition to the Westerman and Bruno murders, Freddy Geas and his younger brother were central to plots against Greater Springfield bookie Lou "The Shoe Santos," and Giuseppe "Villa Joe" Manzi.

The two were rival gangsters and Manzi was suspected to have riddled Arillotta's house with bullets in the summer of 2003 in retaliation for an explosive bar fight when the Geases attacked Manzi's crew with guns, bats and an ice pick.

The plot against Santos fizzled, though the Geases and others staked out his weekly doctors' appointments, Roche testified at trial. Roche told jurors Arillotta was offering an Uzi and $25,000 to take out Manzi in the middle of a downtown intersection.

Neither materialized.

It was these failed attempts at murder that spurred the Geases to develop a laser focus to establish their "strength" in the rackets.

"We knew we had a hole dug," Arillotta testified. "Ty was amped up about no one getting killed. Freddy gets amped up. He gets me amped up."

"We're about nothin', we're weak. No one's dyin'," Arillotta testified about the Geases' laments.

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Arthur "Artie" Nigro in an undated booking photo. (The Republican file)

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In the spring of 2003, Freddy Geas was the driver and lookout during the attempted murder of Frank Dadabo, a Bronx union boss who had angered Nigro, who in turn, put a hit out on the 65-year-old man.

Arillotta and Ty Geas ambushed Dadabo in his car in the middle of a New York City street. He didn't die. Nigro later counseled Arillotta he and his crew should get better at head shots, Arillotta testified.

Once Arillotta was made, he and the Geases began running roughshod over more established gangsters for a brief period. Freddy Geas helped in extortions of night club owners and vending machine brokers.

Law enforcement officials tracking the brash, young new regime were puzzled by the Geases' position as Arillotta's most trusted associates.

"How do two Greek kids end up at the top of the heap?" one wondered in 2006, at the peak of their rise.