John P. Kluth Jr., left, whose trial began yesterday in Superior Court in Providence, has been charged with 32 counts of obtaining money under false pretenses. His lawyer, Mark Smith, is at right.

The Providence Journal / Andrew Dickerman

PROVIDENCE — You’re walking or driving down the street. A friendly man hails you by name.

Actually, you don’t recognize him, and you’re a bit embarrassed by that.

He puts you at ease by pointing out one or two things that you have in common. It seems that you live in the same neighborhood. And, wouldn’t you know it, you grab an occasional beer in the same tavern.

After a minute or two of chit-chat, he happens to mention that he’s in a pickle. Would you be able to help?

That gambit, or something quite similar, was the way a stocky former Newport lobsterman by the name of John P. Kluth Jr. worked a classic con game on numerous Rhode Islanders over the years, according to law enforcement authorities.

Kluth, who went on trial in Superior Court yesterday on 32 charges of obtaining money under false pretenses, would lay a trap for compassionate but unwary folks by somehow establishing a sense of familiarity, Special Assistant Attorney General Roger Demers told a jury.

He would then make a pitch for money, Demers said, claiming that he had a disabled truck with a perishable load of lobsters and needed a quick loan to get the truck fixed in order to get the load to market in time.

But the truck was a phantom, and virtually every one of the 32 complainants against Kluth never again saw him or the money they gave him, according to Demers.

Kluth’s lawyer, Mark L. Smith, sought to sow some doubt in his opening statement to the jury regarding what those sums represented.

“Was it a loan? A false pretense? A gift? What is it?” he asked rhetorically.

“When the defendant asked for money from people and they said no, that was fine, and he walked away,” Smith said. In more than one case, he said, someone changed his mind, called Kluth back and gave him some money after all.

After the jury was seated and sworn in at about noon, Smith asked Judge Netti C. Vogel to order a change of venue for the trial. Kluth has been the subject of prejudicial pretrial publicity, the lawyer said, and he suggested that the case be tried in New Hampshire instead. Kluth faces at least 16 more pending charges that he bilked people in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and Smith said those states would be unsuitable.

Vogel replied that precautions had been taken to screen out any potential jurors who might have been biased by news media coverage, and she said, “I am satisfied that the jurors in this case have not been infected by pretrial publicity. … Not even close. …”

After the motion was rejected, three alleged victims testified: Special Assistant Attorney General Edmund F. Murray Jr.; James B. Fain, of Coventry; and Eileen Dropkin, of Warwick.

Murray recalled pulling up to a traffic light on Dyer Street downtown one day in September 2005 as he was commuting to work in the civil division of the attorney general’s office. He heard a voice come from the sidewalk.

“Hey, Eddie,” a man called out. Murray turned.

“Hey, Eddie, I’ve got a problem,” the man said.

Murray said he thought that he recognized the man, who quickly told him that he had a broken-down refrigerated truck and an endangered load of lobsters. Murray beckoned him into the car and agreed to help.

“I thought I recognized him from Benefit Street Pub” in Pawtucket because he resembled a shellfisherman nicknamed “Digger” who was a fellow patron of the pub, Murray said. The man identified himself as “John Caine,” and Murray said he asked, “Related to Pat Caine?”

“Yes, he’s my cousin,” the apparent acquaintance responded. Lawyer Patrick Caine, a Murray friend, also frequents the pub.

It seemed that “John Caine” had $600 and he needed an additional $275 to pay the repair bill for the truck. One thing led to another, Murray retrieved $300 from an ATM inside a bank, and he gave it to “Caine.” The grateful man promised to drop by the pub at 7 p.m., repay the $300 and give Murray a couple of lobsters as a gesture of thanks.

As he sat with a beer at the pub that evening, Murray said, Patrick Caine came in with his wife. It did not take long for Murray to realize that Caine did not have a cousin.

“My stomach got real upset real quick,” Murray recalled on the witness stand. And he acknowledged that he had to endure six people laughing at his gullibility that evening. “John Caine,” he said, never showed up.

Murray, who testified that he later identified “John Caine” as being Kluth from a police photo array, declared, “I was certain that I was going to get [the cash] returned to me.”

While on the stand, Fain, 81, told a story about how a stranger approached him in the parking lot of the Christmas Tree Shop in Warwick on Oct. 25, 2006. He did not know the man, he said, but the man persuaded him that his mother lived on Fain’s street and knew Fain.

After hearing the man’s tale of woe about a disabled lobster truck, Fain said he concluded, “I thought this fellow probably was in great need.” The man said he needed $386 for the truck repair and Fain said he went to a nearby ATM, withdrew $400 and gave it to him. The man offered to give him the $14 difference, but Fain declined.

Fain said he watched the man go into the Christmas Tree Shop — the man had promised to bring the repayment to Fain’s house the next morning — and he had a sinking feeling.

“As soon as that happened, I knew I had been taken,” Fain said. He stayed outside for a while, hoping the man would emerge, but he did not.

Dropkin, 83, testified that she fell victim to Kluth on Feb. 11, 2006 — a gloomy day with a storm fast approaching, she recalled — as she sat in her car in a supermarket parking lot in Warwick. A man wearing a watch cap and a navy blue peacoat tapped on the window of the car, and she said that she mistook him for a former neighbor. After hearing his story about a broken-down lobster truck, Dropkin said, she gave him $100 that she took from an ATM.

The trial, which is expected to last about three weeks, is scheduled to resume this morning at the Licht Judicial Complex.

gsmith@projo.com