At trial, feds paint 'mayhem' of mobster 'Whitey' Bulger

• Bulger was arrested in 2011 in California
• He disappeared in 1994 after being tipped that he would be indicted
• He%27s accused of leading the feared Winter Hill Gang

BOSTON — James "Whitey" Bulger made "millions upon millions" in the 1970s and '80s by operating a bunch of criminal enterprises and paying off law enforcement agents — but the guys who call him a ruthless murderer can't be trusted to tell the truth.

That's how Bulger's attorney, J.W. Carney, made the case for his client Wednesday during opening arguments in the long-awaited trial of the 83-year-old Bulger, who was on the FBI's most-wanted list for more than a decade.

"They've done a lot of negotiating with the witnesses, (and) things have evolved with the witnesses," Carney said. "We're going to try to show you what happens in the prosecutors' kitchen."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Kelly told jurors that Bulger wasn't just overseeing bookies, drug dealers and other illegal affairs. He stockpiled weapons, extorted millions from those who crossed his cronies and participated — sometimes brutally — in 19 grisly murders, Kelly said.

"That's what we're dealing with in this case," he said, "a hands-on killer who was the leader of a criminal enterprise."

The case brings to trial the reputed kingpin of the Winter Hill Gang, an Irish Mob that allegedly worked closely with the Italian mafia. Victims' family members are hoping for an overdue day of justice that many thought, during the 16 years when Bulger was on the run, might never come.

In reviewing photos and video of alleged mobsters in 1980, jurors began what is forecast to be a summer-long journey back in time to a rough period in Boston's history.

From Carney, they heard about a Federal Bureau of Investigation so riddled with corruption that agents would routinely turn blind eyes to illicit activities and didn't care whether witnesses were truthful.

From Kelly, they heard how those who posed threats or crossed Bulger's crew would be handcuffed to chairs, questioned, strangled or shot, buried in South Boston basements — and later exhumed and reburied so new homeowners wouldn't find them.

"At the center of all this murder and mayhem was one man: James 'Whitey' Bulger," Kelly said.

Both sides agree that Bulger is no saint. They disagree about the nature of his relationship with the FBI and the trustworthiness of his closest partners in crime.

Carney disputed prosecutors' claims that Bulger was a longtime FBI informant. He said law enforcement, including FBI agent John Connolly — later convicted of murder, racketeering and other crimes — was simply "on the payroll" so Bulger could avoid indictment, be alerted when a search was coming and get a heads-up as to where the bugs were planted to record his conversations.

So extensive was the corruption, Carney argued, that Bulger didn't need to hide as a most-wanted fugitive.

"He settled in California," Carney said. He was "not hiding, (but) living openly in plain sight for the next 16 years while those former FBI agents, I submit, pretended to look for him."

He also suggested the prosecution's star witnesses — Bulger associates John Martorano, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi and Kevin Weeks — would agree to lie and implicate Bulger in order to minimize their own prison sentences.

But litigation expert Alan Dershowitz says the government's witnesses, who've already been sentenced, "have nothing to gain by lying. If they lie, they lose their deals." And the fact that they're criminals doesn't necessarily quash their credibility.

"If you're going to prosecute the devil, you don't go to heaven for witnesses," said Dershowitz, a professor at Harvard Law School. "You go to hell for witnesses."

Kelly foreshadowed a parade of witnesses who will testify to Bulger's wrath: a bookie and a businessman who paid hefty sums to stay alive; a hit man who helped hide the boss' personal stash of guns; a former customs agent familiar with Bulger's attempt to ship a boat filled with weapons to the Irish Republican Army.

Kelly kept the focus on the most heinous crimes of which Bulger is accused. He described in graphic detail what happened to some of the victims, whose pictures appeared on a screen for the jury. For John McIntyre, he described an end that was crude and painful.

"The defendant, James Bulger, tried to choke him with a rope, but the rope was too thick," Kelly said. "So Bulger asks him: Do you want one in the head? 'Yes, please.' So Bulger shoots him in the head."