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 exhibited no 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.