PROVIDENCE — Jurors got a first-hand account of bribery in Lincoln yesterday, as a local car dealer testified in ex-Town Administrator Jonathan F. Oster’s bribery trial about how a member of the town’s Planning Board, and a then-Oster political ally, Robert R. Picerno, shook him down for $25,000 in early 2001.

Robert J. Campellone, one of the men the state says was a target of the bribe plot, described his dealings with Picerno and his effort to buy a six-acre piece of land on Route 116 that the town controlled. Oster is facing two bribery and two conspiracy charges, one each in connection with the alleged plot to get Campellone to pay the $25,000 bribe.

Defense lawyer C. Leonard O’Brien was able to make parts of his own case with Campellone. He established that the car dealer had been providing favors to Picerno for at least a year before Oster took office and got Campellone to say he had never talked to Oster about the bribes he paid Picerno.

Campellone was arrested for bribery on Feb. 14, 2002, as part of the corruption investigation in Lincoln. Under a plea deal with the state, he got a deferred five-year sentence and his record expunged in 2007 in exchange for testifying in the Picerno and Oster cases. It was an agreement O’Brien highlighted for the jury.

In 2004, Picerno pleaded no contest to four counts of taking, or trying to solicit, bribes, and three counts of conspiracy to solicit bribes. One of those counts involved Campellone collecting a bribe on Picerno’s behalf.

Under direct examination by Assistant Attorney General Bethany Macktaz, Campellone said that in January 2001 Picerno asked him if he wanted to buy the H&H Screw Co. property on Route 116. Campellone agreed he would pay the town $105,000 for tax title to the six-acre property and pay Picerno $25,000 in cash. He said Picerno said at one point “my guy’s only been in ten days,” a reference, Campellone said he assumed, to the recently inaugurated Oster.

He said he’d expected the deal would close by the end of January 2001, but months later nothing had happened. He said at one point that he called Oster to find out if his bid was being considered by the town. He said Oster told him it had to be approved by the Town Council and that Picerno “is not lying to you.”

O’Brien specifically asked Campellone whether, when he questioned Oster, he ever mentioned that he, Campellone, had paid Picerno $25,000.

“You didn’t tell Mr. Oster you’d given Robert Picerno $25,000, did you?” O’Brien asked.

“No,” Campellone replied.

Campellone said his enthusiasm for the purchase waned after a meeting he had with Picerno and lawyer Donald Lembo in which they presented him with documents that would create a partnership of him, Lembo and Picerno to own the property. Campellone said that was a surprise to him. He planned on owning the land himself, he said, especially since he was putting up all the money.

“I just told him I don’t need partners,” Campellone testified.

He said he finally soured on the deal in June 2001 when his lawyer, Joseph DeAngelis reviewed the paperwork and told him the deal “stinks” and to get out of it. Campellone said he told Picerno he was out and wanted his bribe back. To convince Picerno to refund it, he told him he had tape-recorded one of their conversations about the payoff. The tape, difficult to understand in many places, was played in court.

Picerno eventually paid him back, Campellone said, in part with a $15,000 check made out to Campellone from Major Construction Associates, a company doing business with the town. Major Construction is owned by Robert Gelfuso, the man the state said was Oster and Picerno’s second bribery target.

Under O’Brien’s questioning, Campellone said he’d had dealings with Picerno for more than a year before Oster was elected. Picerno bought a car from Campellone in December 1999. He gave Picerno a free alarm system for the car and later a free set of tires. He also said he let Picerno drive the car with his dealer plates for more than a year.

Normally, dealer plates are used by dealership owners, salespeople, or officers of the owning corporation. Car buyers are given a temporary registration and 20 days to officially register. He said the dealer plates let Picerno avoid registering it, dodging the 7 percent sales tax on a $22,000 vehicle and town taxes that would have been assessed on it as well.

jhill@projo.com