Ex-Providence tax collecter Robert Ceprano has sued Providence.

The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

PROVIDENCE –– Robert P. Ceprano, the fired Providence tax collector who has accused Mayor David N. Cicilline of tax favoritism, has launched another volley at City Hall with a lawsuit alleging conspiracy, corruption, libel and wrongful termination.

The suit accuses John M. Cicilline, the mayor’s imprisoned brother, of attempting to defraud the City of Providence by writing a bad check for $75,000 on behalf of a delinquent taxpayer. Furthermore, it alleges, the mayor and his aides “willfully conspired … to conceal John Cicilline’s illegal activities.”

Ceprano also charges that he was fired not for poor job performance, but because he resisted the mayor’s efforts to perform tax favors for political friends and supporters. The mayor acknowledges “advocating” for taxpayers who brought problems to his attention, but says their concerns were legitimate — based on mistakes by the city or an honest mistake by the taxpayer.

The suit, filed Monday in Providence County Superior Court, seeks unspecified damages, but Ceprano’s lawyer filed a $10-million claim with the city in February.

“The allegations are totally baseless and completely false,” Mayor Cicilline said Tuesday. “When you look at the individuals involved, the amount of money, the attorney representing Mr. Ceprano, it’s clear that this is an effort by people who are political enemies of mine.”

Ceprano’s lawyer is Artin H. Coloian, a confidant and former top aide to Vincent A. Cianci Jr., whose tenure as mayor ended in a felony corruption conviction that grew out of bribery cases involving tax favors. Cicilline said the Cianci forces don’t like that he has spoken out against the corruption of the Cianci years.

Cianci, who hired the veteran IRS investigator Ceprano after the previous tax collector was indicted, has been a persistent Cicilline critic since being released from prison. He devoted much of his WPRO radio talk show Tuesday to the lawsuit, then repaired to Coloian’s Sidebar restaurant, where Coloian fielded media calls.

In his suit, Ceprano also raised a new allegation, that Mayor Cicilline personally intervened on behalf of a prominent taxpayer: Nortek CEO Richard L. Bready.

According to the lawsuit, the mayor and his chief of staff pressured Ceprano to waive interest on overdue property taxes from Bready in 2005 for two East Side properties up for tax sale: 145 Benefit St. and 24 Stimson Ave. When Ceprano refused to accept a $25,000 check from Bready because it did not include back interest, the suit says, Bready gave the check directly to Cicilline.

Cicilline allegedly passed the check on to his then-chief of staff, Michael Mello, who told Ceprano to waive the interest, describing Bready as “a generous contributor to the city,” the lawsuit says.

Ceprano wrote a notation in the city tax records, attached as an exhibit to the lawsuit: “At the request of Mayor Cicilline & Chief of Staff Michael Mello interest will not be charged on this account. Individual has been described as a generous contributor to the city.”

Cicilline called the assertion “absurd.”

“I don’t recollect ever having a conversation with Mr. Bready about taxes,” said Cicilline, who says he has been friends for years with Bready and his wife, Cheryl. “That’s totally false. I would remember that.”

Also an exhibit is Bready’s check, dated May 31, 2005. A month later, Bready and his wife each contributed $1,000 to the mayor’s political campaign fund, according to state election records –– among contributions totaling $7,500 that they made between 2002 and 2007.

In 2006, Cicilline and Richard Bready co-hosted a Running of the Bulls Gala at the Breadys’ Newport home to raise money for The Sun Also Rises Foundation, which promoted a run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, to raise money for global humanitarian issues.

Bready was traveling Tuesday and could not be reached for comment, according to a secretary at Nortek.

Mello, who now works for GTECH, said: “This is the first I have heard about this matter, and I certainly have no recollection of what Mr. Ceprano describes. I have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.”

Ceprano’s suit focuses on an episode first revealed by The Journal last fall, involving a bad check for $75,000 that the mayor’s brother, lawyer John M. Cicilline, gave the city in 2006 on behalf of a delinquent taxpayer, Felix Nelson Garcia. John Cicilline had insufficient funds in his bank account to cover the check, which was never cashed, and the taxes have never been paid. Today, Garcia owes the city more than $130,000.

Meanwhile, the city lifted a lien on Garcia’s property, enabling him to refinance it for $484,000 without having to pay his back taxes.

Mayor Cicilline subsequently hired an outside auditor, KPMG of Boston, to investigate. Meanwhile, the Rhode Island State Police also launched an investigation, which an official described Tuesday as “ongoing.”

The audit concluded that “errors in judgment” had been made by several city officials, including the mayor’s aides, in the handling of the $75,000 check. The mayor maintains that he never knew about the check until last fall. That contradicts Chris Bizzacco, a top aide, who said he told the mayor and that Cicilline asked him to resolve it but didn’t issue specific instructions.

John Cicilline, a prominent criminal-defense lawyer who didn’t normally handle tax matters, is serving 18 months in federal prison after admitting to a $150,000 shakedown of two drug-dealer clients in Massachusetts.

Mayor Cicilline said that he was preparing to fire Ceprano last fall, for poor job performance, when the news of the $75,000 check broke. Instead the mayor placed Ceprano on leave, pending the audit, then fired him in January, after the audit was completed. The mayor pointed to the audit’s findings of inefficiencies in the tax office as supporting his decision.

Ceprano counters that the mayor never had anything bad to say about his job performance, which included boosting the city’s tax-collection rate from 93 percent to 97 percent and reducing the number of properties going to tax sale.

mstanton@projo.com