Imprisoned reputed mobster faces new charges

April 20, 2009|Associated Press

PROVIDENCE - A reputed mobster already in federal prison faces new charges that he tried to arrange on a hit on a rival.

Anthony St. Laurent is scheduled to be arraigned via videoconference in Rhode Island today. He's serving a federal prison sentence in Massachusetts for extortion conspiracy. Prosecutors say St. Laurent was already behind bars when he offered to pay others to kill Robert DeLuca, a rival and also an alleged member of the Patriarca crime family.

He allegedly told associates in 2006 that if they killed DeLuca, he'd give them a piece of the profits he'd earn taking over his rackets.

St. Laurent has been indicted on charges of solicitation to commit a crime of violence and murder for hire. Court papers have shown that his lawyer and federal prosecutors are negotiating a plea agreement. DeLuca once filed court papers accusing St. Laurent of being a "top-echelon informant" of the FBI and the Rhode Island State Police. St. Laurent's lawyers have denied the accusations.

This is St. Laurent's latest brush with the law.

In January 2007, he was sentenced to more than four years in prison for conspiring to extort at least $50,000 from two men by threatening them with physical violence. In 2002, he pleaded guilty to running a multistate gambling operation from a prison cell in Kentucky. Prosecutors said the ring took in almost $1 million over a seven-week period.