DA: Alleged Bulger Extortion Victim Was Poisoned

Authorities say a Massachusetts man is charged with attempted murder for allegedly poisoning the iced coffee of a man who had hoped to testify at James "Whitey" Bulger's trial.

A jogger found Stephen Rakes' body July 17 in the woods in the Boston suburb of Lincoln. Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan says the investigation indicated 69-year-old William Camuti of Sudbury owed Rakes money and acted alone.

A murder charge has not been filed because the medical examiner is still waiting on test results.

Prosecutors say Rakes and his former wife were forced to sell Bulger their South Boston liquor store in 1984 to use as a headquarters for his gang.

Rakes had looked forward to testifying but learned the day before his body was found that prosecutors wouldn't call him.

7/18/2013 Related Story: Alleged Victim In 'Whitey' Bulger Racketeering Trial Found Dead

Defense 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 defense," 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 defense. Bulger has claimed he received immunity from a now-deceased federal prosecutor. Casper ruled before trial that that was not a legal defense 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, including the murder of Tulsa businessman Roger Wheeler, in 1981. 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, Calif., in 2011.