PROVIDENCE — For the past two weeks, the testimony in former Lincoln Town Administrator Jonathan F. Oster’s bribery and conspiracy trial has sounded like his former ally Robert R. Picerno was the one on trial.

But yesterday, the state began to introduce evidence it hopes will convince the jury that while Picerno was the one who collected the money, it was Oster, as the town’s chief executive, who was tasked with manipulating town government in a way that would earn the bribes.

State Police Inspector Stephen Bannon, who was a sergeant with the state police Financial Crimes Unit in 2002 when Oster and Picerno were arrested, testified that he visited Town Hall and made a phone call to Oster in an effort to move the investigation beyond Picerno.

Oster is facing two counts of bribery and two counts of conspiracy in the case. The state charges he and Picerno twice schemed to extort bribes from would-be buyers of a piece of town-controlled land, the H&H Screw Co. site on Route 116. The state says Oster’s role was to get the town to sell the land for $105,000 in exchange for $25,000 cash payoffs.

Picerno pleaded no contest in 2004 to four counts of taking, or trying to solicit, bribes, and three counts of conspiracy to solicit bribes.

Bannon, and now inspector but then Sgt. Elwood Johnson gave lengthy testimony on direct examination by Assistant Attorneys General Bethany Macktaz and William Ferland about the various listening devices and surveillance technologies they used to monitor Picerno in his dealings with Oster and David Wayne Daniel, one of the bribery targets. Bannon also described how the police came up with the $20,000 they needed for the bribe to Picerno and how Citizen’s Bank helped by providing them with a false cashier’s check for $105,000 made out to the Town of Lincoln.

Bannon came late to the investigation and testified about its endgame in January and February of 2002. By then, state police had weeks of secretly recorded conversations from Picerno’s phones and meetings he had with contractor Robert Gelfuso, Daniel’s partner and one of the targets of the bribery schemes. Bannon said state police were trying to determine the level of Oster’s involvement.

Bannon testified he and two auditors went to Town Hall on Feb. 4, 2002, supposedly to look into the fact that a file about Picerno’s house on Preakness Drive was missing from the assessor’s office. Bannon said that while he and the auditors looked at records and taped an interview with then-assessor Emerson Johnson, the real reason he and the auditors went to Town Hall was to make a public appearance and see what effect it would have on Oster and Picerno.

Bannon then tried to stir the pot further on Feb. 13, 2002, when he called Oster. The reason he gave Oster for the call was to tell the administrator that after examining the records in the assessor’s office, the state police had decided there was nothing criminal in the disappearance of the file on Picerno’s house, though he said things appeared disorganized in that department.

He then added, as a seeming afterthought, a question about the H&H Screw property, which Picerno, Gelfuso and Daniel had been discussing for weeks at their various meetings and phone calls. He asked Oster if Picerno was involved with the property. Oster said no, it was Robert Campellone, the car dealer from down the street, who had wanted to buy it.

Oster added that Campellone had wanted to buy the land in the summer — he even remembered the Campo corporate name — but said Campellone never came up with the money and so the deal was dead.

On cross examination O’Brien repeatedly hit on the fact that Oster answered correctly about the July 2001 plan that never went through. As he pressed Bannon on his investigative techniques, O’Brien would move around the courtroom, often standing behind the seated Oster, so Bannon would have to look at them both as he answered.

O’Brien, who has sought with other witnesses to portray the state police as obsessed with charging his client, implied that Bannon’s conversation with Oster was deceitful.

But on Ferland’s redirect, Ferland pointed out that Bannon was questioning a possible suspect in a bribery case.

“You don’t tell someone who is a bribery suspect, ‘Hey, we’re investigating you,’ do you?” Ferland said.

jhill@projo.com