Lawyer Jeffrey Pine arrives with Christine Egan, CVS legal counsel, center, and Robin Seeley, CVS legislative research assistant, at federal court yesterday.

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

PROVIDENCE — In January 2001, Sen. John A. Celona rose to a coveted position in the General Assembly: Senate Corporations Committee chairman. At the time of his appointment, the North Providence legislator was completing his first year as a $1,000-a-month consultant for CVS, the Woonsocket-based drugstore giant.

Carlos Ortiz, a top CVS executive, met with Celona and they exchanged e-mails. Ortiz wanted to make sure that Celona had a job title — 11 months after Celona said that he came on board as a do-nothing consultant for CVS.

“If anyone asks what you do for CVS you should identify your title as Community Service Consultant,” wrote Ortiz. “How does that sound to you?”

The discussion of a formal job title surfaced yesterday at the bribery, fraud and conspiracy trial of Ortiz and John R. “Jack” Kramer, another former CVS executive, in U.S. District Court. They are accused of hiring Celona to help promote CVS’ legislative agenda at the Rhode Island State House.

Ortiz, 64, was vice president for government affairs, while Kramer, 75, served as senior vice president for community relations and government affairs.

At 10:20 a.m. yesterday, the sixth day of the trial, Celona, who is serving a 2½-year federal prison sentence in Pennsylvania, was escorted into the third-floor courtroom by federal marshals. The former legislator wore a dark suit and glasses. Missing was his trademark toupee. His dark eyebrows were the only hair on his shaved head. It also appeared that he had lost about 30 pounds from the days when he was living the high life as an influential politician attending as many as three political fundraisers a night.

Celona sat in a chair on the witness stand and calmly answered more than two hours of questions from Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen G. Dambruch.

Dambruch methodically led Celona through his criminal past where he pleaded guilty in June 2005 to charges that he sold his elected office to CVS, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island and the Roger Williams Medical Center. As part of the agreement, a year was shaved off his sentence in exchange for his “total cooperation and truthfulness.”

Much of the day was spent discussing freedom of choice pharmacy legislation in 1998 and 1999. The legislation looked to expand an exclusive CVS-dominated network of drugstores that could fill prescriptions. CVS was opposed to the legislation, threatening millions of dollars in sales, according to an internal company memo written by Ortiz and introduced last week.

Opposing CVS –– the “corporate giant,” in Celona’s words –– in the emotional debate was a coalition that included Stop & Shop, Walgreen’s, independent drugstores, several senators and a vocal group of senior citizens who wanted more choices.

Leading the cause for CVS was Ortiz, Kramer and lobbyist Joe Walsh, a former legislator and Warwick mayor. Celona said that the trio tried to convince him that the legislation would “hurt a Rhode Island company,” CVS, and should be defeated.

On May 19, 1998, the legislation was defeated in committee by an 11-to-4 vote, with Celona among the minority.

The debate returned in 1999. This time, Celona sponsored a pharmacy choice bill and issued a news release, introduced as an exhibit yesterday. Killing the bill, he wrote in the release, would be “a negative double-edged sword” for customers and small, independent pharmacies that cannot compete with large drugstore chains such as CVS. The release said that he had fielded more than 100 calls and letters from constituents.

Again, the legislation died in committee, with Celona once again supporting it. Afterward, before the end of the session, Celona testified that he told Walsh that CVS was not being responsive to the legislators who supported pharmacy choice and their constituents. In response, he said, Walsh arranged a meeting in the Senate lounge that was attended by Walsh, Ortiz, Celona and other senators who felt the same way –– Joseph Montalbano, Stephen Alves, William Walaska and Michael McCaffrey.

During the meeting, Celona testified, he aired his grievances with CVS, and Walsh offered to set up a meeting with Tom Ryan, the chief executive officer of CVS. But Celona said that he didn’t need to meet with Ryan. That contradicted Walsh’s testimony last week that it was Celona who repeatedly sought a meeting with Ryan, but that Walsh ignored his plea.

Celona testified that he left the Senate lounge meeting still a supporter of pharmacy choice. Later that spring, he testified, at a McCaffrey fundraiser at a Knights of Columbus hall in Warwick, Celona said that Kramer first broached the idea of Celona’s working for CVS.

“We sat down and started talking,” said Celona. “We discussed CVS and how I was active in the community with seniors and that CVS could use another consultant.”

That led to a meeting that summer, on July 8, 2000. Celona testified that Kramer’s office contacted him and invited him to CVS headquarters, where he, Kramer and Ortiz discussed pharmacy choice and the senator’s view that while the drugstore chain had won the legislative battle, it had “taken a beating publicly.”

He said that the two CVS executives told him that he had a lot of influence among the senior citizens and that he could be an “asset” to the company. Kramer asked him to write a proposal, which Celona sent him in September.

That winter, in January 2000, Celona met again with Ortiz and Kramer at CVS headquarters. He testified that he was offered a paid position as a consultant. Celona also testified that Ortiz asked him if this would be okay with the Rhode Island Ethics Commission, and as a result phoned the commission and obtained “verbal advice” clearing the way. He added, however, that he didn’t identify CVS as his prospective employer.

“I didn’t want to publicize my change in position [on pharmacy choice] so quickly from being an adamant opponent to supporting it overnight,” said Celona. “I thought it would hurt my credibility. The public might feel that it was because I was being paid.”

Within weeks of becoming a CVS consultant, Celona testified that he “took a walk” –– skipping a vote in the Senate Corporations Committee on pharmacy choice.

“I didn’t want to publicly change my position because I had been so adamant against it,” Celona told the jurors.

Celona testified that he was asked to “take a walk” by then-Sen. William V. Irons, the chairman of the committee.

Irons, an insurance broker, had his own financial ties to CVS, collecting commissions on health insurance for CVS employees in Rhode Island. He also has been good friends with Ryan, the drugstore chain’s chief executive officer. Those matters remain under investigation in Operation Dollar Bill, the wide-ranging federal corruption probe.

Celona also testified that he did “nothing” under his consulting agreement with CVS. It had called for him to educate senior citizens on health-care issues and promote the company.

Around the same time that CVS extended its consulting agreement for a second year, Celona testified, he also had discussions with Ortiz and CVS’ then-public relations man, Todd Andrews, about his job description.

“Now that I was chairman of the committee, I needed to have a title in case anything came up,” said Celona.

The defense has argued that CVS hired Celona not for any political favors but for help promoting the drugstore chain’s charitable endeavors, including the CVS Charity Golf Classic, on his cable-access television show.

Instead, Celona testified that he took the initiative to have Kramer on his show twice in 2000 to talk about the golf tournament and the CVS Downtown 5K Road Race in Providence. He said that he did so to justify the $1,000-a-month he was being paid — “because I wasn’t doing anything else.”

Celona also testified about a luncheon he attended at CVS headquarters with about eight other senators in March 2000, shortly after becoming a CVS consultant, during which Ortiz reviewed legislative issues.

The government introduced the senator’s calendar to show the noontime meeting. The Senate normally meets later in the afternoon, but not on Mondays. Instead, Celona had another appointment jotted down after the CVS lunch — a stress test.The Witnesses

JOHN CELONA, the imprisoned ex-North Providence senator and the government’s star witness, testified in his first day on the stand that John Kramer first suggested that Celona work as a consultant for CVS. Celona said that he didn’t perform the duties that the agreement called for, and that he concealed the arrangement because he didn’t want the public thinking he had switched sides in the debate over pharmacy choice because he was being paid — although that’s, in fact, why he says he did.

ROBIN SEELEY, a CVS employee, testified that her former boss, Carlos Ortiz, was not thrilled that Celona was a consultant, saying that Celona was being paid for his rapport with senior citizens. She also processed Celona’s invoices for payment.

CHRISTINE EGAN, a corporate lawyer for CVS, testified that Ortiz asked her for a blank consulting agreement, but that she didn’t know it was for Celona. On cross-examination, she said that Ortiz wasn’t required to show her the agreement, and that she never saw it until the current criminal case began.

mstanton@projo.com