WASHINGTON - The police in Fort Lauderdale announced Tuesday that three men had been arrested in the 2001 gangland-style murder of a prominent Florida businessman there, a killing that occurred in the midst of a bitter, well-publicized dispute with the Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

One of the suspects, Anthony Moscatiello, a 67-year-old resident of Howard Beach, Queens, is described by the police in New York as a veteran bookmaker for the Gambino crime family.

Investigators have never asserted that Mr. Abramoff was involved in the killing of the businessman, Konstantinos Boulis. Mr. Abramoff's business partner at the time, Adam R. Kidan, has acknowledged a business relationship with at least two of the arrested men, including Mr. Moscatiello. But Martin Jaffe, a lawyer for Mr. Kidan, said his client had had nothing to do with the killing and had cooperated fully with the Fort Lauderdale police in their investigation, "and they've never given any indication to us that he's a target or subject" of the inquiry.

Mr. Boulis, a Greek immigrant who sold control of his SunCruz gambling-ship fleet to Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Kidan for $147.5 million in 2000, was gunned down the following February after his car was forced to a stop by two other vehicles in an ambush in Fort Lauderdale.

Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Kidan, a Republican Party fund-raiser and former owner of a Washington mattress retailer, were indicted in Florida last month by a federal grand jury on fraud charges related to the purchase of the SunCruz fleet, accused of using falsified documents to persuade lenders to underwrite the purchase of the gambling ships from Mr. Boulis. Both men have pleaded not guilty to those charges.

Mr. Abramoff's lawyer in that case had no comment on the arrests in the murder case.

The Justice Department is pursuing a separate corruption investigation of Mr. Abramoff in Washington that focuses on his lobbying here and accusations that he defrauded Indian-tribe clients out of millions of dollars in fees. That inquiry led last week to the arrest of a senior White House budget official on charges that he lied to investigators about his ties to Mr. Abramoff.

The Fort Lauderdale police said Mr. Moscatiello was arrested Monday night at his home in Queens. The other suspects - Anthony Ferrari, a business associate of Mr. Moscatiello, and James Fiorillo - were reported to have been arrested at their homes in Florida. Mr. Moscatiello's lawyer did not return a call seeking comment. It was not immediately clear who was representing the two other men.

Within months of the killing of Mr. Boulis, who was known as Gus, Mr. Kidan publicly acknowledged having made payments of almost $250,000 to Mr. Moscatiello and Mr. Ferrari, saying they were legitimate business expenses connected to management of the gambling fleet.

"There was never any secret about these payments," he told The Miami Herald in August 2001. "If I'm going to pay to have Gus killed, am I going to be writing checks to the killers? I don't think so."

Mr. Boulis remained a minority partner in SunCruz after selling the gambling fleet to Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Kidan, but his relationship with the new owners quickly turned ugly. At one point, Mr. Kidan accused Mr. Boulis of trying to stab him with a pen and obtained a court order that resulted in Mr. Boulis's eviction from SunCruz's offices.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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