Ex-partner sticks to story: Alleged crime boss killed 2 women

Boston • James "Whitey" Bulger's former partner in crime spent hours Tuesday combatively sticking to his story that Bulger strangled two young women — and even claimed that Bulger was a pedophile.

Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi made the accusation as Bulger's lawyer aggressively questioned him about his admission that he had engaged in oral sex with his girlfriend's teenage daughter, Deborah Hussey, in the 1970s.

"You want to talk about pedophilia — right over there at that table," Flemmi said, gesturing toward Bulger, seated at the defense table. Earlier Tuesday, Flemmi had said that Bulger had a 16-year-old girlfriend he took to Mexico on vacation with him.

Bulger, who exchanged obscenities with Flemmi shortly after he began testifying last week, glanced over at Flemmi when he made the remark, but the defendant did not have any visible reaction.

Bulger's lawyer, Hank Brennan, pressed Flemmi on his assertion that Bulger strangled Hussey in 1985 because she was using drugs, getting arrested and dropping their names when she got in trouble.

Brennan suggested that Flemmi, not Bulger, killed Hussey after she told her mother he had molested her.

Brennan also pointed out inconsistencies in Flemmi's testimony about both Hussey's killing and the murder of Debra Davis, another of Flemmi's girlfriends. Both Hussey and Davis were 26 when they were killed.

Bulger has strongly denied killing the women.

Flemmi testified that Bulger strangled both women with his hands, but Brennan pointed out that he had testified at earlier civil and criminal trials that Bulger used a rope.

Flemmi insisted that the inconsistencies were due to "inadvertent mistakes" that he made during his testimony and that he was telling the truth about Bulger killing the two women.

Tuesday was Flemmi's fourth day testifying at Bulger's racketeering trial. Bulger, 83, is accused of participating in 19 killings during the 1970s and '80s while leading the notorious Winter Hill Gang. He fled Boston in 1994 and was one of the nation's most-wanted fugitives until he was captured in California two years ago.

Flemmi, 79, has pleaded guilty to 10 murders and is serving a life sentence. He was due back on the witness stand Wednesday.

Flemmi denied an account by Bulger henchman Kevin Weeks who testified that he saw Bulger strangling Hussey and saw Flemmi using a rope to finish the job because he believed she was still alive.

"No, I didn't," Flemmi said after Brennan recounted Weeks' testimony. Flemmi said that after she was dead, he removed a tight brown sweater she was wearing by pulling it over her head.