04:59 PM EDT on Friday, May 13, 2005

By MIKE STANTON
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- Matthew L. Guglielmetti, a high-ranking mobster at the center of a federal corruption investigation of the Rhode Island construction industry and the Laborers' International union, pleaded guilty today to federal cocaine trafficking charges.

But the man described by prosecutors as a capo regime in the Patriarca crime family is not cooperating with the feds, his lawyer made clear afterwards, despite any "street talk'' to the contrary.

"They made an effort to get him to cooperate when they first arrested him,'' said Guglielmetti's lawyer, John F. Cicilline ``But he refused to talk to them, right from the beginning, and they haven't made any additional efforts.''

Shortly past noon today, the stand-up guy stood up in federal court and admitted to Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres that he conspired to protect 67 kilos of cocaine that was purportedly passing through Rhode Island, en route to Canada. The cocaine was real, but the plot was fictitious. The FBI, using undercover agents, orchestrated the drug shipment.

Guglielmetti, 56, will be sentenced Aug. 11. He faces a possible 12-year prison term under a plea agreement he signed with federal prosecutors in March.

He wore the khaki prison garb of the federal Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls, where he has been since his arrest on Jan. 20, the same day that FBI agents and state police detectives raided offices of the Laborers' union in Providence and Capital City Concrete in Cranston.

Guglielmetti, who presided over gambling and loan-sharking for the New England Mafia, has been a member of Laborers Local 271. In 2003, he served as union steward for Capital City Concrete during construction of a parking garage for the new Kent County Courthouse in Warwick.

He also was a silent partner in a Johnston company, Hemphill Construction, that turned out to be a front for the FBI as it probed the local construction industry for nearly three years. Guglielmetti also thought that Hemphill was used to launder drug money. As part of the deal, the government agreed not to charge Guglielmetti with further crimes involving his "association and involvement'' with Hemphill.

Guglielmetti, who did nearly five years in prison in the 1990s after pleading guilty to federal racketeering charges in Hartford, Conn., was stoic today. At one point he looked at the reporters in the courtroom and asked his lawyer, ``Where's Jack White?'', referring to Channel 12's veteran mob reporter, who was not there.

Two men that prosecutors say Gugliemetti recruited to guard the cocaine were also charged, Anthony P. Moscarelli, 44, and Alan J. Blamires, 49, both of Johnston. Moscarelli has pleaded guilty while Blamires, who initially agreed to plead guilty, has changed his plea to not guilty.

-- Mike Stanton can be reached at 277-7724, or mstanton@projo.com

-- With Associated Press and Journal archival reports