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June 16, 2008

Judge designates con man Kluth a 'habitual' criminal

PROVIDENCE -- At a Superior Court hearing today, Judge Netti C. Vogel declared convicted con man John P. Kluth Jr. to be a habitual criminal.

Attorney General Patrick C Lynch had asked for Kluth be designated such under a Rhode Island statute.

The designation carries with it two ramifications: at Kluth's sentencing, scheduled for Wednesday, Vogel will be obliged to add additional jail time on top of the sentence. The statute also requires her to impose a minimum number of years that Kluth must spend in prison before is is eligible for parole.

The question of parole is -- except for under the habitual criminal statute -- almost exclusively the concern of the state Department of Corrections and the parole board.

At Kluth's hearing today, Lynch selected six of the 30 swindles that Kluth was convicted of to illustrate that Kluth was a repeat offender.

Victims who testified at Kluth’s trial said he would tell them that his lobster truck had broken down and he needed a quick loan to fix it before his lobsters went bad. He promised to return money and to thrown in some lobsters to say thanks.

But there was no truck, there were no lobsters and there wasn’t any repayment.

-- Journal staff writer Gregory Smith

Multimedia: Hear what John Kluth says he did with the money

Posted by Brandie Jefferson  at 3:31 PM | Permalink

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