Oyster Bay corruption trial kicks off with opening arguments

The corruption trial of a Town of Oyster Bay highway maintenance supervisor and his uncle kicked off Thursday with a prosecutor alleging the relatives “betrayed the public trust” by diverting municipal resources to fix a friend’s sidewalk.

Salvatore Cecere, 51, of West Sayville, and Frank Antetomaso, 78, of Massapequa, are on trial in Nassau County Court on misdemeanor charges of official misconduct and theft of services.

Defense attorneys insisted in their opening statements that those crimes never happened, portraying their clients as the victims of overzealous public corruption investigators determined to make arrests.

Cecere and Antetomaso, a former town public works commissioner, are the first defendants to go on trial after a Nassau district attorney’s office investigation — which included an extensive use of wiretaps — led to the indictments last year of several people with town ties.

Among them is former Oyster Bay Supervisor John Venditto, who has pleaded not guilty separately to offenses that include felony charges of defrauding the government and corrupt use of position or authority.

A wiretapped call between Cecere and Antetomaso is key evidence in the trial that is underway.

Prosecutor Jesse Aviram on Thursday described the August 2016 call as "a recording of the defendants’ own words as they set this crime in motion.” He also told jurors that a “confession to this crime” from Cecere was a pivotal piece of evidence in the case.

The Nassau district attorney’s office has alleged Antetomaso, then the principal of an engineering firm with Oyster Bay contracts, called Cecere and asked if the town would repair a friend’s sidewalk after a dead tree damaged it.

They say Cecere told Antetomaso on the call that a program subsidizing homeowners’ costs for sidewalk repairs had ended, but he would handle the work as a favor.

Cecere then had town workers remove the tree and repair the sidewalk at the home at Greenwood Drive in Massapequa, according to prosecutors.

Authorities have said Cecere, after learning of the wiretap, admitted there was no special circumstance to justify the town performing the work.

"That sidewalk should have been the sole responsibility of the homeowner at that address. But because it was a friend of Frank Antetomaso, and because Frank Antetomaso is Salvatore Cecere's uncle, it was done by the town . . . and it was done for free," Aviram said.

Prosecutors said previously that the homeowner never got a bill. But Aviram told jurors Thursday that the owner only got a bill from the town nine months after the job was finished and following the arrests of the defendants, when the allegations became publicly known.

Antetomaso’s attorney, Joseph Conway, told jurors the homeowner paid the bill as soon as he got it. Evidence showed the bill was dated July 19, 2017 — less than a month after the defendants' court arraignments.

Conway said the town made a mistake by not billing the resident earlier for a repair job that was done out in the open and fully documented in Oyster Bay’s computer system.

The defense attorney said corruption investigators did surveillance and eavesdropped on phone calls, but never bothered to check with the town to see if there were records of the job.

Conway also said the wiretapped call showed Antetomaso was “asking a couple questions for a friend," and not asking for anything illegal to be done.

Cecere’s attorney, Joseph Ferri, called the charges “meritless."

“There are no bribes. There are no favors. There’s nothing other than a worker doing his job,” he said of his client.

Ferri said a town employee would testify that the billing delay was due to a change in town programs, with the manner of billing "still being worked out" at the time. The defense attorney also said there was no evidence Cecere or Antetomaso interfered with the town’s operations by ordering that no bill be sent.

Ferri told jurors Cecere’s statements to investigators weren’t taped and their testimony about what he allegedly told them would be based on “degraded memories of people with a keen interest in proving Mr. Cecere’s guilt."

The Mineola trial is expected to last until early next week.