The value of information offered to prosecutors by a man who pleaded guilty in the case is debated.
PROVIDENCE -- The tortured case of Alan Blamires, the mob associate caught guarding a shipment of cocaine in an undercover FBI sting, encountered another detour yesterday.
Having pleaded guilty to conspiracy, a handcuffed Blamires was led into federal court, expecting to be sentenced for his crime. Since his arrest in January 2005, he has been held without bail at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls.
But some confusion over the value of cooperation that Blamires, 50, of Johnston, has provided the authorities prompted Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres, reluctantly, to postpone the sentencing.
This was not the first detour in U.S. v. Blamires. Last summer, a plea deal fell apart after Blamires told Torres that he was "fuzzy and blurry" from medication that he took to control his violent tendencies, and didn't understand the charges against him.
During that court hearing, Blamires also blurted out that he had "pertinent information" regarding lawyer Joseph Bevilacqua, but that prosecutors wouldn't talk to him.
U.S. Attorney Kenneth P. Madden said that he would be happy to talk to Blamires, but only after he pleaded guilty.
Finally, after a competency review and a guilty plea earlier this year, Blamires had his sit-down with Madden, an FBI agent and a Providence police detective.
Madden declined to say after yesterday's hearing what information Blamires provided, or whether it concerned Bevilacqua, the son of the late Rhode Island Supreme Court chief justice. A government motion detailing Blamires' information is sealed.
Bevilacqua is serving an 18-month federal prison term for leaking an undercover FBI videotape to television reporter Jim Taricani in a Providence City Hall corruption case, and has also been a target of an investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Madden told Torres that the information Blamires provided was "historical," and would probably not be of much use to investigators in pursuing future cases.
"There were one or two pieces of information that I hadn't known . . . but given the age of the information, there's nothing to be gained for current use," said Madden.
Nevertheless, Madden said, the government was willing to give Blamires "the benefit of the doubt" and recommend that he be sentenced to less than the mandatory minimum of 120 months, or 10 years. Madden recommended 108 months, while Blamires' lawyer, Richard K. Corley, urged the judge to go lower.
That prompted Torres to question the criteria that he could consider in fashioning a sentence. He asked the lawyers to file memoranda within 10 days.
Blamires is the last of three defendants to be sentenced following guilty pleas to charges related to guarding the cocaine shipment at a Cranston hotel on Jan. 18, 2005.
Matthew L. Guglielmetti Jr., a capo regime in the Patriarca crime family, is serving a 136-month prison term after admitting to his role in recruiting Blamires and Anthony P. Moscarelli to guard 67 kilograms of cocaine that was supposedly passing through Rhode Island. Moscarelli is serving a 96-month sentence.
Guglielmetti was working for an undercover FBI agent who was posing as a drug dealer.
The case grew out of a larger undercover investigation in which an FBI agent posing as a businessman operated a construction business with Guglielmetti as a silent partner, probing alleged corruption in the Rhode Island construction world.
When Guglielmetti, Blamires and Moscarelli were arrested last year, authorities also searched offices of the Laborers' International Union in Providence and a New England Laborers' training fund and its administrator, state Sen. Dominick J. Ruggerio.
No charges have been brought in connection with that phase of the investigation. Asked after yesterday's hearing if authorities will move forward once Blamires is finally sentenced, prosecutor Madden replied, "I can't talk about the Laborers'."
mstanton@projo.com / 401-277-7724