"The Saint" fires his attorney

In a handwritten note filed Tuesday with the courts, reputed mobster Anthony “The Saint” St. Laurent fired his attorney in an on-going murder-for-hire case.

Scrawled on a lined sheet of paper and signed by St. Laurent, the note simply stated: “I hereby fire Victor Beretta as my attorney and request 3 weeks to get a new lawyer.”

(See St. Laurent's hand-written note.)

Until now, St. Laurent has been represented by Victor Beretta , his second attorney since being charged in January with two counts in a case that accuses the 62-year old mobster of trying to pull off a gangland slaying of a rival mobster.

Beretta filed paperwork Friday informing the courts St. Laurent was taking his fight against federal the murder-for-hire charges to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

Last week, Federal Judge William Smith ruled the case against St. Laurent can move toward trial rebuking St. Laurent’s claim that a 2006 plea agreement with the government cleared him of the charges. Prosecutors argued they had no such deal, and the judge agreed.

“Defendant’s interpretation of the plea bargain finds no support in the text of the agreement, his statements at the plea hearing, or the evidence of the parties’ negotiations,” Judge Smith wrote in the November 10 decision.

St. Laurent’s appeal goes to the First Circuit, but a check of court records shows Beretta has not yet filed with the appellate court. A call to his office has not been returned.

“We will handle it at the Circuit as the government deems appropriate,” said Tom Connell, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Peter Neronha. He declined to comment further.

In January, the U.S. Attorney’s office charged St. Laurent after he allegedly tried, on three separate occasions, to hire would-be hit-men to gun down rival mobster Robert “Bobby” DeLuca. But each time the FBI had a wired informant recording the alleged solicitation attempts.

(Hear extended audio of the FBI wiretaps.)

The hit was to go down at DeLuca’s workplace “Sidebar and Grille” in Providence.

St. Laurent is in the middle of a five year sentence at Fort Devens federal prison in Massachusetts after pleading guilty in an attempted extortion case.