( CNN ) -- Jury selection began Tuesday in the trial of reputed Boston mob boss and longtime fugitive James `` Whitey '' Bulger on murder and racketeering charges . Bulger was arrested in California in 2011 after 16 years on the run . Now 83 , he 's charged in the killings of 19 people during his days as the leader of south Boston 's Winter Hill gang . Federal prosecutors say Bulger led the Irish mob from the late 1970s through the mid-1990s . But after Bulger fled impending racketeering charges , investigators found he had been an FBI informant whose handler tipped him off about the charges -- a tale that became the inspiration for the Oscar-winning 2006 drama `` The Departed . '' Judge removed from Whitey Bulger trial . His lawyers tried to get the case against him tossed out , arguing that Bulger had been given immunity by the FBI . A federal judge denied that request in March , finding Bulger had no immunity for crimes committed after he cut a deal with the feds . Bulger 's onetime FBI handler is serving a 50-year sentence for second-degree murder and racketeering . Bulger 's brother William -- a former state Senate leader -- was forced to step down as president of the University of Massachusetts after then-Gov . Mitt Romney accused him of being evasive during congressional testimony about the whereabouts of his brother . Whitey Bulger 's longtime girlfriend , Catherine Greig , went on the run with him and was arrested with him in Santa Monica . She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to harbor a fugitive and two counts of identity theft , in 2012 . Landmark U.S. manhunts . CNN 's Ross Levitt contributed to this report .
`` Whitey '' Bulger faces racketeering charges and 19 murder counts . The indictment says that from the early 1970s to 1993, Bulger, a former Boston police officer, was involved in an organized crime syndicate called Winter Hill Gang with his brother, William (Whitey) Bulger. The reputed Boston mob boss had been an FBI informant for years .