The city of Providence has settled a long-running legal dispute with a prominent state representative, avoiding a potentially embarrassing civil trial that was scheduled to begin this week.
In the end, state Representative Gregory Costantino, a Democrat from a well-known family who represents Smithfield, Lincoln, and Johnston in the legislature, will receive $22,000 from the city to end a lawsuit that stems from a failed 2005 property tax sale.
”It only took four mayors and 19 years, but I refused to give up,” Costantino said this week.
The money sounds low stakes, but the details are juicy.
Costantino, whose family owns Venda Ravioli on Federal Hill, wasn’t yet an elected officeholder in 2005 when, court documents and city tax records show, he attempted to buy an abandoned triple-decker on Husted Court through his real estate business, Cost Realty.
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He was using the tax sale process, which allows real estate investors to pay delinquent taxes on a property and eventually take possession of the property if the original owner doesn’t pay the taxes to the investor.
When Costantino delivered a $37,210 check to the city tax collector in April 2005, he was accompanied by then-councilman Luis Aponte. In a deposition, Aponte said the two were business partners who planned to sell the property, but acknowledged that he didn’t put up any money for the tax sale. Costantino has long disputed that they were working together.
The deal quickly fell apart. A separate lien on the property was discovered, which prevented Costantino from taking the title on the property. But instead of issuing a refund to Costantino, the city cut a check to Aponte. There has never been a clear explanation for why this happened.
Aponte gave Costantino $10,000, but said in a deposition that he “mishandled” the rest of the money.
Flash forward to 2012, the year Costantino was elected to the General Assembly.
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Costantino sued Aponte and the city of Providence, and a judge eventually ordered Aponte to pay $139,089 (that’s a lot of interest). Aponte, who rose to council president in 2015 but resigned from the council in 2019 after pleading no contest to embezzling from his campaign account, has continued making payments to Costantino.
But Costantino still wanted the city to be held liable too, so he continued to pursue his lawsuit against City Hall.
The legal battle has had starts and stops over the years, but a trial date was finally scheduled for this week. Instead, the city’s law department agreed to settle the case, and the City Council Claims Committee approved the deal in March.
The settlement is expected to be finalized at a Superior Court hearing on Friday.
A spokesman for Mayor Brett Smiley declined to comment.
”At the end of the day, it wasn’t about the money,” Costantino said. “It was a matter of principle.”
This story first appeared in Rhode Map, our free newsletter about Rhode Island that also contains information about local events, links to interesting stories, and more. If you’d like to receive it via e-mail Monday through Friday, you can sign up here.
Dan McGowan can be reached at dan.mcgowan@globe.com. Follow him @danmcgowan.