Whitey Bulger enforcer speaks with 7NEWS

BOSTON -- One of Whitey Bulger's enforcers, Ed Mackenzie, worked for Whitey for years. He says Bulger even told him to make his fights vicious so the word would spread not to mess with the Winter Hill Gang.

"I never thought he'd be caught," said Ed Mackenzie.

From 1985 to 1990 Ed Mackenzie was a man sent to break legs and settle scores.

"I smashed that cinder block over this guy’s leg - broke it in half

and stuff like that. He asked me to punish him,” said Mackenzie.

Whitey Bulger found Mackenzie training as a professional kickboxer in Southie at the age of 20. Soon Whitey was employing Mackenzie for his skills.

"This guy owes money. this guy’s not paying, go over and make sure he pays it. This guy needs a beating - it’s stuff like that," said Mackenzie. “But see with me I think in the beginning I was vicious trying to prove my worth to Whitey Bugler by biting ears and noses and whatever it took," said Mackenzie.

Mackenzie added: “We were drug dealers. I was a fighter. I liked to fight in the ring and out of the ring.”

In fact, in Mackenzie's book “Street Soldier: My Life as an Enforcer for Whitey Bulger and the Boston Irish Mob,” Mackenzie says he was set to make $100,000 a week by importing cocaine from Colombia.

"On a good week, and on a bad week you didn’t, but it was insane money…anything that came from South Boston was under Whitey's control," said Mackenzie.

But why choose a life dedicated to Whitey?

"I was a foster kid…I was in three or four different foster homes. I was raped at 9-years-old, I was molested again at 17. I was just a lost lamb in search of a shepherd," said Mackenzie.

But Mackenzie says his most chilling memory was being face to face with the criminal mastermind.

"When you looked into Whitey Bulgers' eyes it was like looking into the abyss - down deep darkness and there was a set of eyes looking back at you. He had that dead icy blue eyes. He was just the ultimate predator," said Mackenzie.

Mackenzie was indicted in 1990 on a drug trafficking charge, but he cooperated with the FBI and only served eight months in federal prison.

He says he turned his life around after that, getting a prelaw degree from UMass and gaining custody of his two daughters.

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