The trial against John Kluth, seen here in Superior Court, is set to begin Monday. The Providence Journal / Andrew Dickerman

PROVIDENCE — Alleged con man John P. Kluth Jr. has not persuaded a Superior Court judge to throw out any of the charges against him, but time and circumstance have whittled down the number of his accusers.

Thirty-eight people had been figuratively queued up in Superior Court, pointing a finger at him as the man who tricked them out of money by asking for their help with what the authorities say was a fictional broken-down lobster truck.

But one accuser died, one is too ill to come to court, one retracted his allegation and two live out of state and are unwilling to return for a trial, according to the prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Stephen A. Regine. He intends to submit a motion withdrawing charges pertaining to those people.

Extra

--- Audio slideshow: Hear Kluth talk about what he did with the money

--- Gallery: Kluth and two men who say he fleeced them

And Superior Court Judge Netti C. Vogel has ordered a sixth case sent back to District Court.

That leaves 32 people who are expected to parade to the witness stand in Superior Court beginning next week to allege that Kluth, a burly former Newport lobsterman, scammed them out of sums ranging from $25 to $5,200, almost always by pleading for money to fix his refrigerated truck before his cargo of lobsters would spoil.

In a weeklong evidence-suppression hearing, Vogel last week heard testimony from 31 complainants and 10 police officers. Mark L. Smith, Kluth’s lawyer, said he unsuccessfully sought to persuade the judge to dismiss some of the charges based on arguments that the alleged victims either spent too little time with Kluth to reliably identify him as the man who got money from them or that their identifications of Kluth were influenced by news media reports.

Kluth’s trial is scheduled to begin Monday with jury selection, and he faces one count for each of the 32 complainants: 20 felony counts of obtaining money under false pretenses from a person over the age of 65 involving a sum of $500 or less; 4 felony counts of obtaining money under false pretenses from a person over the age of 65 involving a sum of more than $500; 7 misdemeanor counts of obtaining money from a person 65 or younger of $500 or less; and one felony count of obtaining money from a person 65 or younger, more than $500.

At some point before the trial or during a trial break, however, two of the complainants are expected to take the stand in a second phase of the evidence-suppression hearing. They were not able to testify in the first phase.

Kluth, 48, who is being held at the Adult Correctional Institutions because he was unable to post sufficient bail, has denied the charges.

In response to a motion by Smith, Vogel last week agreed to sever from the bulk of the case a misdemeanor charge that on Aug. 15, 2005, Kluth scammed $300 from a boyhood friend, Arthur Lee, 47, of Charlestown. Lee’s complaint is sufficiently dissimilar from the other alleged scams to justify its separate adjudication, in District Court, Vogel ruled.

Typical of the complaints still before Kluth in Superior Court is that of Ernest L. Meunier of Smithfield. In March 2005, Meunier was outside the former site of the Franciscan chapel in downtown Providence when, he said, a man talked him out of $400 with a story about a disabled lobster truck. Meunier made a check out to cash, took the man to a bank and gave him the money.

Meunier, who was 86 years old at the time, is a former criminal investigator for the IRS. And he’s not eager to relive his mistake in court.

“He caught me at a weak moment” after having attended a chapel service, Meunier said.

He recalled his law enforcement training in a Journal interview. “I’d been to the cops and robbers school in Washington, D.C., too. And here I am, the stupe.”

In an interview last year with The Journal and, according to court records, in interviews with the police, Kluth has offered several defenses for his alleged criminal conduct. For one thing, he has said that money he has received over the years from kindhearted people by and large were innocent loans that he repaid or meant to repay; that although he was addicted to heroin, much of the money went for legitimate living expenses and actual truck repairs; and that bail money being held by the court could be liquidated to pay people who allege that he owes them money.

Law enforcement authorities allege that Kluth often used aliases when he tricked people out of their money, but in some of the cases against him, Kluth made no attempt to hide his identity. For example, one complainant, who thought he knew his alleged victimizer from church in Barrington, handed over $200 after hearing about a broken-down lobster truck, and he asked the man for his identification. The man left with him a Mastercard in the name of John Kluth.

According to the fraud statute and Rhode Island court rulings, a person might be guilty of obtaining money under false pretenses if he obtained money by deceit. It does not matter if the accused person someday intended to repay the money, if the money was returned or if the alleged victim ultimately suffered no loss.

In a separate proceeding, regardless of the outcome of the trial, Kluth will still face 30 charges of theft and forgery pertaining to a complaint by Anthony DiPetrillo, a retired 93-year-old lawyer, who said Kluth stole blank checks from his desk in an office that DiPetrillo shared with another lawyer at 10 Dorrance St. in downtown Providence. Kluth is charged with allegedly having filled out 16 checks over 20 days in 2003 and cashing them for $8,000.

Kluth pleaded innocent to the charges and DiPetrillo has said that one or more banks reimbursed him for the loss. Kluth wrote a letter to DiPetrillo apologizing for what he had done and promising to repay the money, case records show, but DiPetrillo said that he never did repay.

Kluth also is wanted for alleged scams in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

gsmith@projo.com