Boston mob boss Robert "Bobby'' Luisi Jr. resurfaces in Memphis as pastor at a church ran by former mob boss Alonso Esposito - NOW THE WAGES OF SINS IS DEATH!

PHOTO: Alonso Esposito, a former Boston mobster-turned pastor, checks himself in the mirror before leaving on a recent Sunday for church where he is a minister at Faith Keepers Ministry in Memphis.

MEMPHIS — Memphis loves a good prodigal son story. But the faith community here seldom encounters an account quite as gripping — quite as foreboding — as the testimonial of mob boss-turned-minister Robert "Bobby'' Luisi Jr.

"I was involved between Philadelphia and Boston in at least a half a dozen murders,'' says Luisi, who has used the name Alonso Esposito since entering a federal witness-protection program three years ago.

From an easy chair in his modest Cordova ranch home, the 55-year-old ex-mobster looks more like a benign uncle — broad shoulders and a slight paunch with clipped, black hair graying at the temples — than a man who once cleared $40,000 a week trafficking cocaine.

Esposito has been much sought-after by the local news media since The Boston Globe identified him last week as a one-time Mafia crime boss who may know something about the 1990 infamous heist of $500 million of artwork, including three Rembrandts, from a Boston museum.

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