I prefer to rehabilitate extortionist (9)
I believe the answer is:
profiteer
'extortionist' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'i prefer to rehabilitate' is the wordplay.
'rehabilitate' indicates an anagram (I've seen 'rehabilitated' mean this).
'i'+'prefer'+'to'='ipreferto'
'ipreferto' is an anagram of 'PROFITEER'.
(Other definitions for profiteer that I've seen before include "killings his speciality?" , "Racketeer" , "One making excessive gains from trading" , "one who makes too much in business" , "He charges too much in times of scarcity" .)