NORTH KINGSTOWN –– It was to be a routine request from North Kingstown, asking a judge to confirm the town’s ownership of two vacant lots it acquired a year earlier at a tax sale.

The previous owners had been notified by certified mail but didn’t respond.

Case closed. … Uh, not so fast.

Judge Jeffrey A. Lanphear noticed one of the names: John Celona, as in former North Providence state “senator-for-hire” John A. Celona, now serving time in a Pennsylvania federal prison.

“Celona received the certified mail notice but didn’t pick it up at the post office,” A. Lauriston Parks, a lawyer representing the town, said matter-of-factly yesterday morning in Washington County Superior Court.

“Is this the same Mr. Celona that probably can’t pick it up right now?” Lanphear asked.

Lanphear granted the town’s request in regard to the most recent owner, Samuel McGovern, who bought the lots at a tax sale in 2006, but out of caution continued Celona’s part of the case to Sept. 5 so that Parks can attempt to notify Celona in prison.

Parks had mailed the certified letter to Celona’s 51 Pinewood Drive address in North Providence. Family members, he said, accepted the notice but did not pick up the letter at the post office.

Still, Lanphear said, “I think you are going to have problems not only with me but also with the title insurance if you don’t attempt to serve him.”

Celona, 55, is serving a 2 1/2-year sentence at a low-security prison in Loretto, Pa., about 90 miles east of Pittsburgh.

His projected release date is March 28.

He was also sentenced to seven years, four to serve concurrently with his federal sentence, on state corruption charges.

Both cases revolved around the central allegation that Celona, now 55, the one-time operator of a family-owned business and city councilman who rose to power as chairman of the Senate Corporations Committee, which handles health-care legislation, effectively sold his public office to three major health-care companies for personal gain.

The state Ethics Commission also fined Celona a record $130,000 in 2006 for his role in the corruption scheme.

To recover the North Kingstown land, Celona would have to pay an estimated $3,849.18 plus legal fees involved with the town’s attempting to clear the land title, said Philippe Bergeron, the town’s acting manager filling in for Michael Embury.

The two vacant lots in question, roughly 9,000 square feet combined and valued at $21,700 each, are at the end of Atlantic Avenue, a dead-end road in the Mount View neighborhood, and abut the Quidnessett Country Club. Narragansett Bay sits about 1,000 feet away, past some wetlands.

Town records show Celona’s parents, Anthony and Geraldine Celona, who have since died, bought the land in 1959.

McGovern bought an interest on the land in 2006, paying $393.70 in back taxes for both lots.

But a year later, the outstanding tax bill reached $1,172.22, prompting a second tax sale.

With no one bidding, the land reverted to the town.

To build or sell the land –– or do anything on the land for that matter –– the town needs to clear the title, Parks said.

The town would require zoning variances to build anything on the lots.

Bergeron said so far the town has no plans for the land.

“More than likely, they’ll revert back to open space,” Bergeron said.

marmenta@projo.com