Greig to battle 8-year sentence

Catherine Greig, long-time girlfriend of mobster James “Whitey” Bulger, filed the notice of appeal Tuesday against the eight-year sentence she received a day earlier in court, officials said.

Greig’s attorneys filed the notice of appeal Monday morning, said Susan Goldberg, deputy circuit executive of the Office of the Circuit Executive. No date has been set for the hearing yet.

It is “too soon to tell” what the appeal will mean for the case, Goldberg said in a phone interview.

Greig received eight years in federal prison, three years of supervised release and a $150,000 fine in Monday’s sentencing hearing at the Moakley Courthouse in South Boston, where she faced charges in connection to Bulger, her boyfriend.

Greig was convicted of identity theft, harboring, conspiring to protect and successfully protecting a criminal with knowledge that he was a criminal, according to a redacted sentencing memorandum filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Pirozzolo before the sentencing.

Neither Greig’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, nor Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Pirozzolo, who prosecuted Greig, was available for comment.

Greig previously pleaded guilty to charges of harboring a fugitive in March, Goldberg said.

“The judge determined that appropriate sentence to the acknowledgement of those crimes was eight years in prison,” Goldberg said.

Boston University  School of Law professor David Rossman said in an email interview Wednesday that the appeal is rather unlikely to be successful.

“The grounds for an appeal from a conviction following a guilty plea are very, very limited,” he said. “It is unlikely to succeed.”

Rossman added the eight-year sentence Greig received yesterday was what the judges would consider “fair” punishment.

“The eight-year sentence was well within the range of what federal judges would consider fair,” Rossman said. “It will not be overturned by an appellate court any more than the underlying conviction will be overturned.”