Former Hopkins basketball star heads to court

A plea hearing is scheduled for this week for a former Hopkins High School basketball star who was charged last summer with helping to rob a western Wisconsin bank at gunpoint, authorities said today.

Anthony Diloreto, 18, of Minnetonka, is scheduled to appear before Burnett County District Judge Kenneth Kutz for his hearing Thursday at 2:30 p.m., a court official said. Diloreto is charged with being a party to an armed robbery and being in possession of a short-barreled shotgun.

The charges stem from Diloreto's alleged plan to have driven the getaway car for a 16-year-old boy, who was carrying a shotgun believed to belong to Diloreto when he robbed a Bremer Bank in Danbury Aug. 16, authorities said. The plan was for the 16-year-old to rob the bank while Diloreto waited outside to drive the getaway vehicle.

DiLoreto apparently heard sirens and drove away before his 16-year-old cohort came out of the bank. Police and rescue workers were responding to an accident involving an all-terrain vehicle across the street from the bank at the time of the robbery.

Police arrested the 16-year-old suspect about 45 minutes after the robbery as he walked in a field near Danbury, which is across the St. Croix River and about 100 miles northeast of the Twin Cities.

Police arrested Diloreto at his family's Minnetonka home several hours after the incident. He has been free on $5,000 cash and $12,000 bond.

DiLoreto, a 7-foot center for Hopkins last year, had earned a scholarship this year to play at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

--PAUL WALSH