John M. Cicilline, brother of Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline, leaves U.S. District Court in Boston last year.

The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer

More than 150 friends of John M. Cicilline threw a “time” for him last week to help him raise money for family expenses as he heads to prison this fall.

Cicilline, a prominent criminal-defense lawyer and the brother of Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline, faces sentencing in federal court in Boston on Sept. 11 after pleading guilty to charges that he conspired to shake down drug-dealer clients for $150,000 and manipulate the criminal justice system.

Last Thursday, 150 to 200 people gathered at the Santa Maria di Prata Society in Cranston and raised an unspecified amount of money.

“I’m not going to get into that,” Cicilline said yesterday, when asked how much money he received. “It was very nice.”

“I’ve got the best friends in the world,” he added. “I couldn’t get through this without my friends.”

With his profitable law practice taking a hit following his indictment last year, and the prospect of losing his license to practice law and going away to federal prison for 18 months, Cicilline said in an interview yesterday that the money will help him pay the tuition for his two daughters at La Salle Academy and a third at the University of Rhode Island.

“I don’t have any money in the bank,” he said. “I’ve got to pay their tuitions and their insurance so they can drive. The goal is to disrupt their lives as little as possible.”

Cicilline said that the money collected last week “will put me in good shape.”

Two of his three children attended the event, he said, along with his mother, Sabra; his father, prominent lawyer John F. “Jack” Cicilline; and his brother David, the Providence mayor.

“It was a difficult event for everyone who was there and knows my brother,” said the mayor. “It wasn’t celebratory by any means. I went by to tell him I love him.”

John Cicilline and two friends who helped organize the event, scheduled from 6 to 9 p.m., said that the guests were predominantly friends and family. Cicilline said that there was only one Providence police officer present, Inspector Robert Quinn, and that he was there as a friend from Cicilline’s years of coaching girls softball in Cranston.

Quinn could not be reached for comment.

Larry Lepore, a former Providence police officer and the executive director of the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence, said that he bought two $40 tickets from a lawyer in Cicilline’s office, but arrived after the event had finished.

“Everybody I know bought tickets,” said Lepore. “He’s a pretty well-liked guy.”

Lawyer Peter Rizzo, who says he goes back 30 years with Cicilline, when both were lifeguards at Sand Hill Cove Beach in Narragansett, helped collect money at the door — cash and checks that he says he turned over to Cicilline without counting.

Rizzo said that there was no single organizer of the event –– “It was just a bunch of friends who tried to put something together, and I helped along the way.”

“It was a nice event to help a guy going through a tough time,” said Rizzo. “Nobody can plan for a federal indictment.”

Barrington restaurateur Robert Dillon, an old friend from La Salle Academy in the 1970s, said that the event was a way for friends of Cicilline to help someone who has helped others over the years. Dillon, whose daughter has played basketball with Cicilline’s daughter, said that Cicilline has “quietly subsidized” poorer children’s participation on AAU teams.

“I’m not qualified to comment on his case or his guilt or innocence, but I am qualified to say that he’s a great friend who’s well liked by many people,” said Dillon. “He probably did some things that you and I wouldn’t do, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that he’s a great guy.”

Although tickets were sold for $40, people were asked to give whatever they could, said Dillon. Some gave less, others gave more. Cicilline declined to reveal the largest single donation.

“There were twenties and fifties and hundreds and also checks,” said Cicilline. “It was nice to see . . . It was a humbling experience, to have helped so many people, to then be helped, and without having to ask.”

Besides his La Salle friends, Cicilline said that he also saw old friends and softball players he coached for eight years in Cranston League for Cranston’s Future. He says that is why the Providence police officer, Robert “Ziggy” Quinn, was there.

“His wife also coached in CLCF, and he and I went to tournaments together,” said Cicilline. “He was there as part of the softball crew, not as a cop.”

Cicilline said that he was also unaware of any police officers being asked to buy or sell tickets to the time, given his brother David’s position as the mayor of Providence.

“I would never put my brother in harm’s way,” he said. “We’re night and day. What I do shouldn’t affect my brother. We each do our own thing. I am what I am.”

Federal prosecutors say that Cicilline and his former friend and law colleague, Joseph A. Bevilacqua Jr., were corrupt lawyers who preyed on their drug-dealer clients and tried to subvert the criminal-justice system to line their own pockets. According to the charges that the pair admitted to in June in federal court in Boston, they promised clients arrested on drug charges that they could keep them out of jail for payments of $150,000.

Cicilline then enlisted a legal assistant to provide information about a large drug deal that the clients could pass on to authorities as their own, with the aim of winning a lighter sentence.

Unbeknownst to the lawyers, however, their clients had grown suspicious and gone to the authorities, who tape-recorded their conversations.

David Cicilline practiced law in the same office before becoming mayor, but was not implicated in the scheme, according to William D. Weinreb, an assistant U.S. attorney in Boston who prosecuted the case. The mayor attended his brother’s guilty plea in Boston last month, saying afterward that he needs to be there for his family, especially his parents and three nieces, during this “very difficult time.”

The mayor said yesterday that it “never occurred to me” that someone might have donated to his brother’s time last week to curry favor with City Hall. And if anyone did, he said, “it will have no impact.”

With staff reports from M. Charles Bakst.

mstanton@projo.com