PROVIDENCE — Jurors in ex-Lincoln Town Administrator Jonathan Oster’s bribery and conspiracy trial heard prosecution witnesses yesterday describe how Robert R. Picerno, the man the state says was Oster’s partner in the bribery scheme, had easy access to Oster’s office and got unusual treatment from the town concerning his property taxes.

Defense lawyer C. Leonard O’Brien used his cross-examination of the state’s witnesses to try to weaken the impressions they left and he tried to mitigate testimony that is expected to come later in the trial.

Oster is facing two counts of bribery and two counts of conspiracy. The state charges that he and Picerno sought bribes on two occasions to sell a piece of land the town controlled. In 2004, Picerno pleaded no contest to four counts of taking, or trying to solicit, bribes, and three counts of conspiracy to solicit bribes.

Former Lincoln police Detective Lt. Albert A. Martell testified that during 2001 he had been informally looking into Picerno’s activities. Under questioning by Assistant Attorney General William Ferland, Martell said he sometimes saw Picerno on a deck in the back of the Town Hall side of the building. The deck had access to the rest of Town Hall through a sliding door into a conference room that was next to Oster’s private office. It was rarely, if ever, used by the public, Martell testified.

O’Brien asserted that said nothing about Oster and Picerno’s relationship. He got Martell to say the conference room also opened to the public works and engineering departments, offices Picerno, as a member of the Planning Board, would have reason to visit.

Martell also told how he had interviewed contractor Robert Gelfuso, whose company was renovating the Fairlawn Playground in 2001. Martell said Gelfuso complained that Picerno and Stephen Balestra, the town official who oversaw the federal money used on the playground project, were pressuring him to inflate his bills and kick back the overcharges. Martell said Gelfuso told him another time Picerno pressed one of his partners for a $5,000 bribe, supposedly to buy Oster campaign fundraiser tickets. Martell testified that he passed the information onto the state police.

O’Brien zeroed in on Martell’s account of the allegations. He repeatedly asked the former detective if Gelfuso accused Oster and each time Martell said Gelfuso didn’t.

Former Assistant Town Solicitor William Dickie testified about a 2001 Picerno tax lawsuit. Dickie handled the suit Picerno’s wife Joyce filed contesting the way the town assessed taxes on the family’s Preakness Drive home. She challenged the method the town used to assess taxes from 1998-2000, refusing to pay about $22,000 in property taxes over those three years, some before Oster took office.

Dickie said then-assessor Emerson Johnston wanted to settle the suit for $11,000, but Oster said he could get Picerno to agree to $15,000.

The state played a secretly made tape of a Nov. 20, 2001, Town Council executive session in which Dickie recommended letting the Picernos pay $15,000 of the $22,000 debt to settle the suit. Among reasons Dickie offered at that time was that the $7,000 difference between what was owed and what was being offered, when compared to the cost of litigating the case, wasn’t worth it.

The council went along with the recommendation. But a few days after the meeting, Dickie said Councilman Dean Lees Jr., who had abstained, threatened to go to the state police over the matter, saying the suit was being improperly settled.

Dickie said he then did more research and found that the Picernos hadn’t filed a timely appeal with the assessor, or the paid the taxes, both requirements that must be met before a suit can be filed. He said he then recommended the council fight the suit.

He testified he had relied on the word of Johnston that the appeals had been filed. He said he never asked about whether the taxes were paid because he assumed Johnston would have told him if they weren’t.

O’Brien pointed out that in a court filing answering the Picerno’s suit, filed before the executive session, Dickie cited the law about timely appeals and payment of the taxes. Dickie explained that he had used a boilerplate document to respond and hadn’t specifically read the statute the document he filed cited.

“So you raised that defense,” O’Brien said, “you just didn’t know you were doing it.”

jhill@projo.com