Kluth

PROVIDENCE — John P. Kluth Jr., a native Newporter who turned from trapping lobsters to trolling for different quarry on the streets, was convicted yesterday in Superior Court of tricking 30 people out of money.

A jury convicted him of 30 counts of obtaining money under false pretenses for having told his victims a whale of a tale: that he had a broken-down refrigerated truck with a perishable load of lobsters and that he needed a quick loan so that he could get the truck fixed and his cargo to market.

Usually, according to trial evidence, he promised his marks that he would make swift repayment and would throw in some free lobsters as a gesture of thanks. Prosecutors said the truck was a phantom and proved through the victims’ testimony that he frequently used aliases and did not repay the money as promised.

“He was a confidence man,” Providence police Lt. Daniel E. Gannon, the lead investigator in the case, said after the verdict was returned yesterday afternoon. “He was on top of his game. But his game is at an end now.”

Kluth was acquitted on one count, of allegedly using the lobster-truck story to con $450 from Cranston philanthropist Alan Shawn Feinstein. The lead prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Stephen A. Regine, said he could not guess why the jury opted against conviction on that count.

The 48-year-old former lobsterman, whose last known home address was in Bristol, sat impassively as the jury foreman recited the lengthy verdict. Defense lawyer Mark L. Smith declined to comment afterward.

Kluth said in a Providence Journal interview last year that his life capsized in a series of misfortunes, including the loss of a shellfishing boat in a gale and the deaths of close friends in marine and highway tragedies, but that he was not looking to blame anyone else for his actions.

A back injury suffered in a shipyard job caused him to become addicted to prescription painkillers and then heroin, and his loss of government disability assistance made it necessary for him to ask people for money, he told the newspaper.

Police and court records show that his criminal misbehavior, however, began on the cobblestone streets of his home city and predates by many years the occasion of his back injury. He has been convicted of at least 54 crimes in three states, varying from passing bad checks to drug possession.

Kluth did not take the stand in his own defense, so the jury did not hear his life story.

HE WORKED his con game outside stores and banks and churches around Rhode Island, approaching mostly the elderly, striking up a conversation and managing to persuade those who gave him cash that he was a neighbor or a fellow parishioner or somehow acquainted, according to trial testimony and law-enforcement officials.

Referring to the elderly victims, some of whom were hard of hearing and shuffled into court with canes, Regine said, “It was sad seeing how vulnerable they were.”

But his victims also included prominent Rhode Islanders, such as John E. Orton, a retired Superior Court judge; Eugene McMahon, state jury commissioner; Edmund F. Murray Jr., a special assistant attorney general; John Sullivan, an investigator for the attorney general’s consumer protection division; William V. Devine Jr., a lawyer and son of William V. Devine, head of the attorney general’s criminal investigations division, who was a major and chief in the Providence and North Providence police departments, respectively; accountants and financial-services executives.

“There are a lot of people that he scammed,” Regine said. “We believe that this verdict is justice. …”

Regine thanked those who had the fortitude to make complaints and then testify in court against Kluth. “I hope that this verdict brings some satisfaction to those people as well,” he added.

During its deliberations yesterday, the jury asked for a recap of some of McMahon’s testimony, and the court reporter took the witness stand to read the record that she had taken. McMahon, who is in his mid-70s, said he initially spurned an overture from Kluth on a downtown street in 2006 but that he restarted their conversation and gave Kluth $100 because he thought that he had to help a neighbor. Kluth had pretended to be his neighbor.

When he realized his blunder, McMahon testified that he was embarrassed and decided to keep the incident to himself. After Kluth’s alleged flim-flams were publicized, however, McMahon made a complaint to the police last September.

Later yesterday, McMahon slipped into the gallery to hear the verdict and congratulated Gannon and the prosecution team. “Good job,” he said.

Sheepishness prevented a number of people from going public against Kluth, according to law-enforcement officials, who said they heard privately from some of them.

“I believe that the verdict was for the silent victims as well,” commented Gannon, who said he spent about 2½ years chasing Kluth and building a case against him. Although the single largest group of charges originated with the Providence police, the state police and a variety of other city and town police departments made cases, too.

Kluth stood trial in the Licht Judicial Complex, steps away from many of the spots where he worked his con game. One of the 30 victims was Donald Winfield of Warwick, who was serving as a juror in federal court when Kluth fleeced him out of $200 downtown in September 2005.

The 30 for whom the jury returned verdicts lost a total of $16,555, according to court records, with individuals losing sums ranging from $25 to $5,200. Regine said the attorney general’s office hopes to be able to win them restitution.

Forty-four prosecution witnesses testified during the two-week trial, and the jury deliberated for about eight hours Thursday and yesterday. At one point during the trial, Kluth tried to fire his lawyer, but after some discussion with the judge and the lawyers, he changed his mind. The defense did not present any witnesses.

Kluth, who has been held at the Adult Correctional Institutions for 13 months, unable to post bail, was remanded to the prison after the verdict, this time with his bail revoked. Because Kluth is legally entitled to seek a new trial, Judge Netti C. Vogel did not set a date for his sentencing.

gsmith@projo.com