Peter Neronha has called a news conference for Oct. 3 in his home town of Jamestown to announce his 'future plans.'

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Peter Neronha, the top federal prosecutor in Rhode Island until he was knocked out of office by the Trump administration, will be seeking a new office: attorney general.

Neronha has called a news conference for Tuesday, Oct. 3 to announce his "future plans" at the Jamestown ferry landing, 1 East Ferry Wharf, in his home town of Jamestown.

But spokesman Dante Bellini confirmed Monday that Neronha has filed paperwork with the Rhode Island Board of Elections to create a campaign committee to run, as a Democrat, for the job held by the state's term-limited Attorney General Peter Kilmartin.

Neronha, 53, was one of 46 U.S. attorneys forced to resign last March by the Trump administration.

He began a public-service career in 1996 as a prosecutor in the state attorney general’s office. In 2002, he became an assistant U.S. attorney. In 2009, then-President Barack Obama appointed him as the U.S. attorney for Rhode Island. Under his lead, his office prosecuted a string of former public officials, including former House Speaker Gordon Fox. and more recently one-time House Finance Committee Chairman Raymond E. Gallison Jr.

Formerly unaffiliated, Neronha registered as a Democrat on March 29.

While his announcement is not a total surprise, it may speed the decision-making of other Democrats weighing a run for attorney general, including state Rep. Robert Craven, D-North Kingstown, who told The Journal on Monday he would announce his own decision the first week of November.

Asked whether Neronha's candidacy would affect his own decision, Craven said: "No, not really." He said Neronha called him earlier Monday to give him a heads up, as a courtesy, and they agreed to get together over coffee this weekend and discuss where they both stand.

"We'll see what happens,'' said Craven, who is also a former state prosecutor. "I really have not made up my mind."

Neronha has been out and about frequently since leaving the U.S. attorney's office. At some venues, he's talked about the scourge of opioid addiction.

Earlier this month, he brought his personal Democratic brand of politics, sentencing theories — and backstory as the great-grandson of a Portuguese fisherman who came here from the Azores — to a group of activists invited to hear him speak by the Rhode Island Civil Rights Roundtable.

He began: "My mother is an immigrant from Germany. After World War II, she came here as a nanny. She didn’t speak English ... She worked in a bakery in Newport and learned English at Rogers High School at night ... I was the first person in my family to go to college.”

Over the next hour, Neronha — responding to questions from the group — vented his dismay at the Trump administration’s 1980s-style, “one-size-fits-all, lock-’em-up-as-long-as-possible” approach to criminal sentencing, and his own belief in the benefits of “diversion’’ in many cases as an alternative to prison.

— kgregg@providencejournal.com

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On Twitter: @kathyprojo