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6.2.2001 00:05
Freitas savors first tastes of freedom
• Antonio R. Freitas, who assisted federal investigators as a key witness in Operation Plunder Dome, is released from prison to serve home confinement at his Westminster Street business.
BY DAVID HERZOG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- After four months behind prison walls, Antonio R. Freitas yesterday came home to the Westminster Street business where he secretly recorded his dealings with crooked city officials for the FBI.
Around 11:15 in the morning, a smiling and tanned Freitas walked into JKL Engineering, a stage for Operation Plunder Dome.
"Everything around here looks different," Freitas said, scanning the JKL lobby. "I'm just feeling out of place. It's a new place for me to get used to again."
Freitas has plenty of time to settle in.
For the next eight months, he will live at JKL, under home confinement for violating his domestic-violence probation earlier this year.
Corrections Department workers installed an electronic monitoring box on Freitas's telephone that will track his movements via a bracelet strapped to his ankle. If he ventures more than 200 feet away, Freitas said, the bracelet will send a signal to the box and dial the Corrections Department.
To go any farther, Freitas needs permission from the Corrections Department.
At JKL, Freitas has all the comforts of home. His friend, Fatima Carvalho, redecorated an upstairs kitchen for him. Down in the cavernous basement, she created a bedroom with a sitting area just across from the office where the FBI had hidden its cameras and microphones.
During his year undercover, Freitas recorded more than 100 conversations with city officials who thought he was a corrupt businessman willing to pay bribes for favors.
Freitas's recordings so far have helped federal prosecutors get six convictions in Operation Plunder Dome and a racketeering indictment against Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. A grand jury charged five others along with Cianci on April 2 while Freitas was in minimum security at the Adult Correctional Institutions.
Freitas's path to prison started in the spring of 2000, about a year after he made public his role as the FBI's undercover witness in Operation Plunder Dome, the City Hall corruptionprobe.
The Providence police charged Freitas, then in the midst of a divorce, with striking his wife, Nancy, in the face and knocking her to the ground. A month later, the police arrested him again, saying that he violated a no-contact order by going to Nancy's home.
In May 2000, the Providence police arrested Freitas a third time. They said he grabbed Nancy's buttocks and kissed her duing a fight.
Freitas pleaded no contest to assault and received a 10-day sentence, followed by 60 days of home confinement and 21 months of probation.
He steered clear of trouble until just before last Christmas, when the East Providence police charged him with assaulting a woman. Freitas allegedly punched a former girlfiend in the face at her home.
In late January, Freitas admitted the arrest violated the terms of his probation and prosecutors dropped the new charge. As part of a plea agreement, Freitas agreed to return to the ACI.
Freitas woke up at 5:30 yesterday morning, just as he has done every day in prison, then showered and shaved. After breakfast he was told to get ready to leave and rode with the two corrections officials who installed the home-confinement monitoring box.
Freed, Freitas said he plans to spend the weekend relaxing. Shortly after he arrived at JKL, Freitas played with his 1-year-old grandson, Bruno, and emptied out a Manila folder holding prison mementos: a mug with "Hard Time" printed on it and birthday cards made by an artistically-inclined inmate.
"It feels great to be here," Freitas said.
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