Richard Rose, right, (shown with fellow prosecutor Terrence Donnelly during the Cianci trial) says now of former Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr.: “The city has changed. There’s new leadership. There’s no room for him. There’s no room for a police department where you have to make campaign contributions to get promoted. The city no longer feels like it’s under a cloud.”

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy Mary Murphy

Ten years ago, when federal prosecutor Richard W. Rose joined the corruption case against Vincent A. Cianci Jr., the lead FBI agent warned him that there would be a lot of pressure taking on the popular Providence mayor.

When it was over, the FBI’s W. Dennis Aiken told Rose, “Somebody’s gonna leave town.”

So the irony wasn’t lost on Rose when he left town this spring for a six-month stint as a federal prosecutor in New Orleans, just as Cianci was preparing to come home after 4 1/2 years in prison after his conviction in Operation Plunder Dome.

On Wednesday, as Cianci slipped out of Fort Dix, N.J., in the dead of night to head to his new, temporary home in a Boston halfway house, the man who prosecuted him climbed onto a plane in New Orleans and flew home for a long weekend break.

While news camera crews stood vigil outside the Coolidge House, hoping to catch a glimpse of Cianci, and reporters chewed over every detail of the ex-mayor’s journey and impending reentry into Providence (“Toupee, or not toupee?” one TV reporter mused in a live shot), Rose enjoyed a more unobtrusive homecoming at T.F. Green Airport.

On Friday, sitting in a Starbucks in Wayland Square on the city’s East Side, Rose said that he has put Plunder Dome behind him, and hopes that Cianci will do the same.

“I would hope that when he returns to Providence, he will be contrite and remorseful and anxious to live a life below the radar,” said Rose. “I would hope that he would enjoy the warmth of his family and allow the leaders who now run the city to continue to do their job. The city has made tremendous strides and we don’t need to go backwards. Beyond that, I wish him well.”

Rose isn’t surprised, however, to hear that radio station WPRO’s Ron St. Pierre, who remained in touch with Cianci in prison, says that the ex-mayor has no remorse, because he maintains his innocence.

“I don’t know about the good Buddy,” said Rose. “I saw the bad Buddy — the one that was about personal enrichment and aggrandizement.”

THIS IS Rose’s first visit to Providence since he went to New Orleans in March. He is part of a federal task force of prosecutors and agents from throughout the country who have volunteered to help combat gun-and-drug violence in a city that has been overwhelmed since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He expects to be in New Orleans until October, then return to Providence to resume his duties as the anti-gang coordinator for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Providence.

As a hot summer approaches, Rose is prosecuting about two dozen cases. The number of homicides this year in New Orleans has already hit 80, in a city with a post-hurricane population close to that of Providence, which had four homicides for the year, as of Friday. One of Rose’s cases involves a New Year’s Eve theft of 117 guns from a sporting goods store; fewer than half of the guns have been recovered, and some have surfaced in other crimes.

Nearly two years after Katrina, Rose said, things are still so unsettled that the city is having trouble reopening its schools, because criminals keep stealing the copper pipes used in the plumbing.

“As the city rebuilds, the biggest need is for leadership — leadership with integrity,” said Rose. “That’s what it takes to lead a city and to lead people, particularly when there are tough decisions and scarce resources. People want to know that they’re being dealt with honestly, fairly and with the best interest for the greater good in mind.”

Shortly after Katrina, with New Orleans in chaos and the government’s woeful response a national disgrace, a woman wrote a letter to the editor of The Providence Journal that said, “Would somebody free Buddy Cianci from federal prison, and send him to New Orleans to give them the leadership they need to whip that city into shape?”

Rose shakes his head at such sentiments. He responds with advice he has given more than 3,400 Rhode Island schoolchildren as part of Street Smarts, designed to warn them away from the illusory promise of gangs and drugs.

“All I can say is what I tell the kids in Street Smarts — don’t believe the hype.”

Last week, local talk shows and blogs were filled with debate about Cianci, sparring over whether he had been good or bad for Providence, his place in the city’s renaissance and in its future, and the severity of his crime and the government’s prosecution of him.

Asked what he would tell people who say that Cianci was convicted of only one of the 18 original counts against him, Rose responded: “He was convicted of orchestrating a racketeering enterprise using City Hall. Twelve Rhode Island citizens said in a loud and clear voice that he was guilty.”

Cianci presided over a “culture of corruption” in which nine other people were charged and seven were convicted, including his top aide and chief fundraiser, Frank Corrente. That followed Cianci’s first reign as Providence mayor, from 1975 to 1984, which also ended with a flurry of indictments and convictions, including his chief of staff, as well as Cianci’s first felony conviction — for assault, but not corruption.

Meanwhile, Cianci was credited as a dynamic pitchman for Providence, an urban visionary who gained national cachet as a rejuvenated downtown, ambitious river-relocation project and trendy arts-and-nightlife scene ushered in the 1990s Providence Renaissance.

The question of whether Cianci’s positive accomplishments outweigh his bad deeds is “the age-old political conundrum,” says Rose.

“The culture of corruption hurts in so many ways. When I tell young people to work hard and get a good education, I don’t want them coming back at me with ‘Yeah, but look at what this person in power does.’ Everyone has to be accountable. Instead, I’ve had kids tell me that they see those with power and privilege allowed to do things that the poor and uneducated and impoverished aren’t.”

ROSE LEARNED about unequal justice growing up black and fatherless, skipping classes at Central High School and running the streets in South Providence. The people who were connected got the benefits; the others struggled on an uneven playing field.

When Rose was 16, he was a truant who spent a lot of time hanging out in downtown Providence, then a wasteland of dying department stores, adult bookshops and X-rated movie theaters. When the Paris Cinema, where Rose liked to watch kung fu movies and films like Superfly, also switched to porn movies, in the spring of 1975, Rose and a friend collected 1,500 signatures on a petition.

The dynamic new mayor, Buddy Cianci, who had visions of transforming downtown, was appearing on a television broadcast in Burnside Park, in front of the federal courthouse where Rose would prosecute Cianci years later. Rose went downtown, and tried to present the mayor with his petition, but was unable to.

The young Rose told a Providence Journal reporter at the time: “The mayor is trying to get people into the city. These movies aren’t helping.”

With the help of a strong mother and some positive role models, Rose found his way to the Marines, earned his high school equivalency diploma and went on to become only the second African-American federal prosecutor in Rhode Island history. He uses his story to show inner-city kids that there are alternatives to the false temptations of the streets.

AND WHAT alternatives does Rose see ahead for Cianci?

“The city has changed. There’s new leadership,” said Rose. “There’s no room for him. There’s no room for a police department where you have to make campaign contributions to get promoted. The city no longer feels like it’s under a cloud.”

A “terrific metaphor” for Cianci, said Rose, is the Russian nuclear submarine that he helped bring to Providence in his final days — joking as the jury deliberated that a submarine was useful to have around, because “you may need to get out of town in a hurry.” Earlier this spring, the Cold War relic — a waterfront tourist attraction — sank to the bottom of the Providence River during a northeaster.

Told that plans call for the submarine to be raised again, Rose said that the same should not be said for Cianci’s public fortunes.

“Fool me once, shame on you,” he said. “Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Rose said that he would not like to see Cianci as “a demagogue going on the radio, denying what we know is true.”

“If WPRO allows him to do that,” said Rose, “then shame on WPRO.”

The key, said Rose, is how the people of Providence react — including community and business leaders.

“I’d like to think that those who empowered him and were unwilling to confront him when he was at the height of his power won’t acquiesce to his return as if nothing had happened,” said Rose. “Business and community leaders should be gracious to him, but they shouldn’t allow him to be invited back into the leadership like nothing happened.

“After Ben Franklin helped draft the Constitution, he said, ‘What you have wrought is a Republic — if you can keep it.’ What Plunder Dome wrought was giving back your city — if you can keep it. Ultimately, the city will decide whether [Cianci] will be a part of the fabric.”

mstanton@projo.com