St. Laurent

PROVIDENCE –– Prosecutors want a court to dismiss a federal appeal by Anthony M. “The Saint” St. Laurent Sr., who is accused of trying to hire someone to kill a mob rival and is appealing a judge’s decision not to dismiss the case.

St. Laurent wants the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in Boston, to overturn the Nov. 10 decision of U.S. District Judge William E. Smith, but that decision is “not appealable at this stage of the litigation,” prosecutors argue in a filing.

“A defendant cannot ordinarily appeal pretrial rulings in a criminal case,” the filing asserts, but St. Laurent could do so if he is convicted.

In September, St. Laurent’s lawyer, Victor J. Beretta, put his client’s former defense lawyers on the stand to argue that a plea agreement in an extortion case gave St. Laurent immunity from prosecution in the current case. The extortion case included FBI audio recordings in 2006 in which St. Laurent allegedly is heard offering to pay someone to murder rival Robert DeLuca.

St. Laurent has been serving a five-year sentence for the extortion case.

After St. Laurent’s plea in the extortion case, the government said it learned in 2007 that St. Laurent allegedly offered to pay someone else to kill DeLuca. The government said it then brought the murder-for-hire charge.

Smith wrote in his decision on St. Laurent’s motion to dismiss: “Because [St. Laurent’s] claim clashes with both the terms of the agreement and evidence about the parties’ plea negotiations, his motion must be denied.”

This month, Beretta filed notice with the court that St. Laurent will appeal.

But four days after Beretta’s filing, St. Laurent informed U.S. District Court that he fired Beretta. St. Laurent, in the handwritten filing on Nov. 17, also asked the court for three weeks to get another lawyer.

The prosecution’s filing includes a motion seeking to keep the case in U.S. District Court in Providence. The filing cites case law in which the First Circuit, which is a three-judge panel, “has gone so far as to say” that where a court decision is “manifestly unappealable, the court of appeal never gains jurisdiction of it and, consequently, the district court never loses jurisdiction of it.’”

–– Michael P. McKinney

mmckinne@projo.com