A Staten Island lawyer is set to go to trial in May on charges that he and two accomplices ran a violent scrap metal fraud ring that once involved shaking down a co-conspirator at gunpoint for $10,000 in the lawyer's office.

But Richard Luthmann, a flamboyant Staten Island attorney who made headlines a few years ago when he challenged another lawyer to “trial by combat,” and his two co-defendants argued on Wednesday before a federal judge that they shouldn't be stuck with the label of “organized crime.”

The defendants appeared before U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York to argue for severance of the alleged counts in the case, as the judge expressed concern about holding a trial with the “Mafia lurking in the background.”

“Once we mention organized crime and 'Mafia' and gun-running, there's so much prejudice cranked into this case it's questionable that anybody's going to get a fair trial,” Weinstein said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Moira Penza, who appeared for the government, argued that the defendants are mob “associates,” but could not name a supposed crime family to which they were loyal.

Weinstein said they cannot be tied to an “amorphous concept of Mafia.”

Luthmann and co-defendant George Padula III, who federal prosecutors alleged to have hatched the scrap metal fraud ring with an unnamed co-conspirator, are charged with wire fraud, two counts of aggravated identity theft, money laundering, money laundering conspiracy and access-device fraud.

Luthmann, Padula and the third defendant, Michael Beck, who allegedly shook down the co-conspirator at Luthmann's office for money allegedly owed to Luthmann for legal services, are all charged with kidnapping, kidnapping conspiracy, extortion and brandishing a firearm.

The defendants have sought—and the government has opposed—splitting the counts into two trials: one for the alleged scrap-metal fraud, for which Luthmann and Padula face charges, and another for the kidnapping and gun counts, for which all three are charged.

Luthmann is represented by Arthur Aidala, a name partner at Aidala, Bertuna & Kamins. Beck is represented by Manhattan solo attorney James Branden.

Padula is represented by Manhattan attorney Gerald McMahon.