BOSTON -- The trial began Wednesday in the case of a former state trooper accused of stealing drugs from a state evidence locker and threatening to kill his wife.

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Jack Harper Reports On Trial

NewsCenter 5's Jack Harper reported that the first witnesses were called after heated opening statements.

Officials said that Sgt. Timothy White and his wife were involved with a Hyde Park drug dealer.

"Timothy White, who the evidence will show, wanted his wife to have sex with other men while he watched," Prosecutor William Bloom said. "Timothy White slapped his wife across the face so hard that her ears were ringing and she fell to the ground. As she tired to get up off the ground, she was on all fours and he kicked her in the side, right by the rib that he had fractured just seven months earlier during a different assault."

"When she fell off her boyfriend onto the floor in her drug addicted stupor, she hurt herself," defense attorney Robert George said.

"There was only one drug dealer who was dressed in a police officer's uniform in that unit, and that's the defendant," Bloom said.

George said that White's wife, Maura, was trafficking cocaine and sexually involved with other dealers.

"These drug-trafficking, drug-addicted, wife-swapping, cheating people will testify in this case that you should believe them over everyone else," George said.

"He went over to his wife, grabbed her hard by the chin, jammed the weapon in her mouth and said, 'I think I'll do you instead,'" Bloom said. "You are going to hear that Maura White struggled. She pulled free and he slapped her again, and he went around and jammed the gun between her buttocks. He said, 'Maybe you'll like this better.'"

"They are liars and their testimony will prove it because they told different stories all along the line," George said.

The first witnesses were Stoughton, Mass., police officers who arrested White at his home.