Bulger's Trial Delayed to March 2013

Reputed mobster James Whitey Bulger's criminal trial will be delayed four months at the request of his attorneys who sought more time to prepare a defense.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns set a new trial date of March 4, 2013.

Bulger's attorneys argued it was a "Herculean task" to review all of the evidence in the case, which they said amounts to 321,665 pages, 31 videos and 1,038 cassette tapes. They initially asked for a delay of one year.

"Despite diligent efforts by defense counsel and his associates, it simply has been impossible to review this much discovery in the time allotted," attorneys J.W. Carney Jr. and Henry B. Brennan wrote in their request.

Bulger was one of the FBIs most wanted men until his arrest in Santa Monica in June of last year. He eluded authorities for 16 years, most of it with longtime companion Catherine Greig.

Greig was recently in prison for helping Bulger while on the lam.

Prosecutors wanted the trial to begin this November and offered to help the defense sift through all of the evidence.

"The families of nineteen murder victims as well as numerous other extortion victims have waited for almost seventeen years for justice because the defendant decided to remain a fugitive for sixteen years," they wrote in their opposition. "Some of these victims have passed away while the defendant walked the beaches of Santa Monica."

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