PROVIDENCE — While his friend busted the locked door with a baseball bat, Jason Smith’s job was to be the look-out.

It was still light out that late afternoon in the fall of 2004, but they were far enough into an all-but-abandoned former coal gasification plant that the chances of being seen were slim.

Though Smith said they had never come onto the property with the intention of committing a break-in, that’s what this was.

Inside the graffiti-covered brick building, the friends saw containers with liquid in them and plastic bags in some kiddie pools on the ground.

They spotted a locked, wooden cabinet and took the bat to it. The cabinet opened to reveal a pair of glass jars and an old plastic gallon milk jug, all about half filled with a silvery liquid that none of the friends recognized.

The friends took the containers and ran, setting off a chain of events that eventually led to the criminal trial against a multimillion-dollar utility company that that began in federal court in Providence this week.

Houston gas company Southern Union is facing two counts of illegally storing mercury –– that silvery liquid Smith and his friends stole –– and one count of failing to notify authorities after it learned that the highly toxic metal had been released.

Smith testified yesterday about what happened on that day when he and at least two friends broke into a building on Tidewater Street in Pawtucket owned by the gas company and stole the containers of mercury, eventually dumping them on the property and in a parking lot at a nearby apartment complex where Smith lived.

Dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, Smith, now 22, told the court about how he and his friends often wandered the overgrown property on Tidewater Street.

“We went fishing, we walked around, we played hide-and-seek, shot paintball guns,” he said.

On that day, they had brought a baseball bat, to hit rocks into the nearby waters of the Seekonk River, said Smith. The bat apparently came in handy when they decided to explore some of the buildings.

Smith said that the first mercury spill happened when one friend tripped and dropped the milk jug, breaking it on the ground just outside the building they had broken into.

Returning to the Lawn Terrace Apartments, on Pleasant Street, they opened one of the jars and poured the silvery liquid onto the parking lot pavement. They marveled at how such a small amount of liquid could feel so heavy.

“It had some weight to it,” said Smith. “I thought it was lead.”

They dumped some more in front of Smith’s apartment. They showed the jars off to Smith’s parents, who, not knowing that the jars were stolen, told them to hand them over to the police.

Instead, the three went back to the parking lot. They dumped some more of the mercury on the ground. They stepped on it. One dipped a cigarette in the mercury and tried to smoke it.

Someone, not Smith, took a jar and emptied the last of the mercury on a truck owned by Smith’s brother.

It would be a week before the break-in at the Southern Union facility was discovered by an employee, and even longer before the police could trace it to Smith and the others.

But by then the focus was on the gas company and its role in the spill.

Eventually, Smith was charged with one count of entering a building with the intent to commit larceny, one count of conspiracy to commit a larceny, and misdemeanor larceny under $500.

He pleaded no contest in July 2005 and was sentenced to two years’ probation and 200 hours of community service. He was ordered to pay $500 in restitution.

At least two of the others will probably have their day to testify in the case.

Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed another involved in the break-in, and the defense has petitioned to have a third testify, although he is currently serving a prison sentence at the Adult Correctional Institutions.

The trial, being heard before Judge William E. Smith, enters its fourth day today.

pmarcelo@projo.com