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Man With Long Record To Be Evaluated For Trial

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 3, 2008

TAMPA - A man with a 33-year-long criminal record who talked in secretly recorded conversations about two slayings and other crimes may not be mentally competent to stand trial, his defense attorney says in a court filing.

A year after Thomas Guth was released from federal prison in 2003, his lawyer told a judge in Chicago that he wanted to start a new life away from the city in Pueblo, Colo.

The judge agreed to release Guth early from probation so he could move away with his then-15-year-old son.

Guth wound up living with his son in a $500,000 Gulf Boulevard condominium he purchased in Clearwater. And before long, authorities say, he was selling a gun to another felon and planning an armed robbery.

Investigators also suspect he was involved in mortgage fraud and a stock scheme, court documents state.

On Tuesday, Guth's attorney filed a request to have him examined by a court expert to determine whether the 58-year-old defendant is competent to stand trial.

A judge today granted the motion and ordered an evaluation.

According to the defense filing, Guth served in the U.S. Army for four years, fighting for 16 months in Vietnam. Guth told his attorney he was later diagnosed as having post-traumatic stress disorder. That diagnosis was given by a doctor working in a prison where Guth was serving a 13-year sentence for drug conspiracy. Since the diagnosis, Guth has been taking medication and receiving treatment, according to the defense filing.

According to prosecution court filings, Guth was secretly recorded as he talked about two slayings, killing a dog and bombing a liquor store. After his arrest in March, he told agents he was responsible for a bombing, according to documents on file in U.S. District Court in Tampa. Agents think the bombing was connected to organized crime and happened in or near Addison, Ill., in 1982.

Agents are trying to identify the slayings Guth spoke about in a recorded conversation, but didn't acknowledge when interviewed by law enforcement, according to the prosecution court filing.

Guth told investigators, according to a court filing, that he settled in the Chicago area when he was discharged from the military after serving in Vietnam. He wanted to work in law enforcement, but when that didn't work out, he started working in a massage parlor.

He opened up his own massage parlors in the Chicago area and started associating with the local Italian mobsters, committing crimes with them, the prosecution filing states. Mobsters approached him and told him a pair of Polish brothers who owned several liquor stores were not paying money to La Cosa Nostra and needed to be sent a message. Guth said he agreed to blow up one of the stores, records said.

He was not arrested for the fire, but his record includes at least 19 prison sentences and arrests, starting with a 1975 arrest for keeping a house of ill fame, according to a prosecution court filing. He was also charged in 1975 with keeping a house of prostitution in Schiller Park, Ill., and arrested the next year for pandering, keeping a place of prostitution and soliciting for a prostitute in Waukegan, Ill.

Guth is being held without bail.

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837 or esilvestrini@tampatrib.com.

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