miles from where Bulger once allegedly controlled the city’s criminal underworld, opening statements were delivered today in the most explosive organized crime trial ever to take place in this city. Whitey stands accused in a 32-count indictment that alleges he ran a racketeering enterprise from 1975 to 1995 that was second-to-none in New England. Bookmaking, dope peddling, extortion, gun trafficking, money laundering, and at least 19 acts of murder are attributed to a man who has been characterized as a Machiavellian gangster and ruthless serial killer. Now, at age 83, stripped of his “street cred” and power, he is the Incredible Shrinking Man, a physically diminished former gangster with a bad heart and few friends or advocates beyond an imprisoned girlfriend and a defense attorney who, though highlyhis self-identity as an Irishman. He could, however, be a racketeer specializing in bookmaking, gambling, drug dealing, and assorted other crime. The most startling aspect of Bulger’s defense is that he will admit that he committed many of the crimes of which he is accused (except for the murders), but will claim he did so because he was protected through a corrupt relationship with the criminal justice system in New England that involved many cops, agents, and prosecutors beyond Connolly and Morris.

Among other things, Carney laid out the historical precedent for the Bulger era in a corrupt relationship between mobster Joseph Barboza, one of the FBI’s first top-echelon informants, and the entire criminal justice system in New England. Protected by his handlers, Barboza testified in a notorious 1960s