James 'Whitey' Bulger won't testify, slams 'sham trial' James "Whitey" Bulger will not testify in his defence and has called his trial a sham. JAMES "Whitey" Bulger won't testify in his own defence, but he said the decision was "involuntary" and that his racketeering trial was a "sham." Defence attorney J.W. Carney Jr. met with Bulger on Friday morning and returned to the courtroom to tell Judge Denise Casper that he had finished presenting witnesses. Bulger then told the judge, without the jury present, that he had decided not to testify "involuntarily." "I feel that I've been choked off from having an opportunity to give an adequate defence," he said. As far as I'm concerned, I didn't get a fair trial. This is a sham. He railed about the judge's decision prohibiting his lawyers from using an immunity defence. Bulger has claimed he received immunity from a now-deceased federal prosecutor. Casper ruled before trial that that was not a legal defence to crimes including murder. Bulger, 83, is on trial in a broad racketeering indictment that accuses him of participating in 19 murders in the 1970s and '80s as leader of the Winter Hill Gang. He has pleaded not guilty. Bulger fled Boston in 1994. He was one of the nation's most wanted fugitives until he was captured in Santa Monica, California, in 2011. Earlier on Friday, Mr Carney said Bulger wants the $US822,000 ($918,000) in cash seized from his Santa Monica apartment to go to relatives of victims who won monetary judgments in lawsuits but then saw those awards overturned by a federal appeals court because the statute of limitations had expired. It appears that two families fall into that category: Relatives of Michael Donahue and Edward "Brian" Halloran. In 2011, the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier decision that ruled the two families didn't file their lawsuits against the FBI in time. Other victims' families have had their lawsuits tossed before trial and some have won judgments against the government, but Mr Carney specifically cited those whose judgments were thrown out by the 1st Circuit. Halloran was a Bulger associate. Bulger is accused of fatally shooting him and Donahue, an innocent bystander who had offered Halloran a ride home that night, in May 1982. Prosecutor Brian Kelly said it has always been the intention of the government to give Bulger's seized assets to victims' families, but he said he isn't sure Bulger "can dictate which ones get" money. If he's convicted, Bulger would have to give up his assets anyway. It is routine for the government to seek forfeiture of assets acquired through illegal activities.