$8 million awarded to family of slain FBI informant

Controversial life ... Richard Castucci snr with Frank Sinatra.
JUST over 30 years ago Richard Castucci jnr looked into the boot of his father's car and saw something so horrific he has been unable to erase it from his mind.

His father - a Boston strip club owner, bookmaker and friend of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis jnr and Muhammad Ali - was inside, wrapped in a sleeping bag. His head had been blown off.

Mr Castucci upended his life, moving to Australia from the violent, gang-plagued streets of Boston that claimed his father.

He now lives in an undisclosed location in NSW, and is a father of three children.

But the sight of his father's body in the boot always haunted him.

His father, Richard Castucci snr, was killed in 1976 after a corrupt FBI officer tipped off notorious Boston mobsters James "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi that Castucci snr was an FBI informant.

They ordered his death and, soon after, a gunman executed him with a bullet to the back of his skull.

In a Boston court last week Mr Castucci and his family finally received justice for the FBI's betrayal. US District Court Judge William Young ordered the US Government to pay the Castucci family $US6.5 million ($8 million). Mr Castucci will receive $US500,000. His mother, Sandra, was awarded $US3 million.

"I saw my father in a sleeping bag with his head blown off," Mr Castucci, 48, told the judge during testimony on Tuesday, The Boston Globe reported. "It was horrible."

The Castuccis successfully argued in their wrongful death suit that the FBI's "reckless" and "negligent" behaviour in 1976 led to the murder of Castucci snr.

As well as mixing with celebrities, including attending Sammy Davis jnr's wedding in Las Vegas in 1960, Castucci snr was a part owner of Boston strip club The Squire Lounge.

US government lawyers argued in court that the Castuccis should not be paid compensation because Castucci snr failed to pay taxes and his earnings might have come from illegal sources.

"Plaintiffs have offered not one witness who could testify from personal knowledge that the large sums of money allegedly contributed by the deceased to his family had a legitimate source," US government attorney Mary McElroy Leach wrote in a filing to the court.

"I'm just glad it's over, that's all," Sandra Castucci, 72, told the Globe.

The law also caught up with John Connolly jnr, the FBI agent who tipped off Bulger and Flemmi that Castucci snr was an informant. Connolly jnr is serving a 40-year jail sentence for plotting with Bulger and Flemmi to kill a Boston businessman in 1982.

Bulger, accused of 19 murders, extortion and money laundering, has been on the run since 1995 and is believed to be in Europe. Flemmi is serving life for 10 murders.