PROVIDENCE — A federal jury spent just 90 minutes in deliberations yesterday before returning not-guilty verdicts against John R. “Jack” Kramer and Carlos Ortiz, two former CVS vice presidents who were charged with more than 20 counts of bribery, mail fraud and conspiracy.

Above, former CVS executive John R. Kramer leaves U.S. District Court after being found not guilty on all charges. Below, Carlos Ortiz, center, and his wife, Jan, listen as his lawyer expresses relief that the trial is over.

The Providence Journal Bill Murphy, top; Bob Thayer, below

The acquittals were stunning in their swiftness as the jury spent almost the same amount of time listening to the judge’s jury instructions yesterday morning as they did deciding the fates of the onetime executives at the nation’s largest drugstore chain.

At 12:30, Kramer, 75, walked out of the U.S. District Courthouse and clapped his hands. He motioned for the cluster of reporters to move closer to him and his multimillion-dollar defense team.

“I can’t believe what I’ve been through,” he said. “This has been so unfair.”

Kramer said that his faith and family pulled him through the ordeal that hounded him for more than three years. As he awaited the verdict, he held one of his lawyer’s hands. “I was praying that I would get my life back,” he said.

Kramer, who was flanked by family and friends, refused to take any shots at John A. Celona, the former senator from North Providence and the prosecution’s star witness.

“John Celona has his own problems and I don’t want to get into it,” he said.

Ortiz and his wife, Jan, followed Kramer. “I knew all along that I was innocent,” said Ortiz, 64, in a barely audible voice.

Asked if he regretted hiring Celona, Ortiz said, “Regret is probably the wrong word. You always do a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking. I’ve been doing that for the last 3½ years.”

He declined to address a question about whether he was angry that the government charged and prosecuted him, but his wife, Jan Ortiz, did not hold back.

“I am not very happy with the government for putting together this sham case,” she said. “The jury didn’t seem to think it was much of a case.”

Robert Clark Corrente, the U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island, was gracious in defeat. He stood on the courthouse steps and calmly fielded questions.

“We brought the charges that were justified by the evidence that we had,” said Corrente. He vowed that federal investigators would resume their probe, Operation Dollar Bill, into political corruption at the Rhode Island State House by “1:15” today.

After the verdict was announced, Corrente went over to shake hands with the defense lawyers and offered his hand to Kramer, who refused to take it.

The jurors — eight men and four women — left the courthouse by 12:45 and scattered across Kennedy Plaza. Most declined to comment.

But one juror, Anthony San Giovanni, of Warwick, said the government’s case would have been stronger without Celona. And he thought that other witnesses the government called also “didn’t measure up.”

He said he felt that there was something fishy about Celona’s consulting job with CVS, but it wasn’t enough.

“My perception living in Rhode Island all my life is, ‘Yeah, this probably did go on,’ but I didn’t see any proof beyond a reasonable doubt that CVS did this.”

Minutes after the verdict was announced, CVS Caremark issued a statement from its corporate offices in Woonsocket:

“We learned earlier today that Jack Kramer and Carlos Ortiz, two CVS employees who have been on administrative leave from the Company, have been acquitted of all charges relating to their involvement in entering into a $12,000 per year consulting agreement with former state senator John Celona in 2000. CVS has fully cooperated with the government in connection with this matter since its inception over four years ago, and believes that the judicial process has produced a fair and just outcome. Today’s verdict is consistent with the Company’s long-held view that Mr. Kramer and Mr. Ortiz had not engaged in criminal conduct. We are pleased that these two men and their families that this long and painful ordeal has ended.”

THE TRIAL lasted three weeks, and the government’s case was based largely on the testimony of Celona. The corrupt ex-politician was brought back to Rhode Island from Pennsylvania, where he is serving a 2½-year sentence for selling his office to CVS, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island and Roger Williams Medical Center.

Celona stumbled through three days of cross-examination. Defense lawyers hammered away at him about inconsistencies in his testimony versus past grand jury testimony. They also repeatedly called him “a liar and tax cheat” who was less than forthcoming on his tax returns.

David B. Fein, one of Kramer’s lawyers, said that instead of telling the truth, Celona tried to give prosecutors the answers they wanted.

Daily testimony revolved around Celona’s $1,000-a-month consulting agreement which he reached with CVS in early 2000. At the time, Celona was a member of the Senate Corporations Committee.

Celona said that he did “nothing” and had no job duties as a consultant. Lawyers for CVS argued that Celona more than fulfilled his obligations by promoting the drugstore chain on his cable-access television show, The John Celona State House Report, and through meeting with seniors.

Kramer appeared on the show eight times, and he schmoozed with Celona about the CVS Charity Golf Classic and the CVS Downtown 5K Road Race. Kramer, a senior vice president for community relations and government affairs, directed the golf tournament and road race.

The prosecution countered that the monthly consulting fee was a bribe designed to influence Celona’s votes on legislation that was favorable to CVS. They zeroed in on the fact that Celona changed his position favoring pharmacy-choice legislation — which CVS opposed — by walking out on a crucial committee vote just weeks after CVS hired him.

A FEW DAYS AGO, Chief Judge Mary M. Lisi weighed a motion to dismiss the 23 criminal counts against Kramer and Ortiz. The defense argued that the prosecution had withheld evidence by failing to inform them that Celona had changed his testimony about a call he placed to the state Ethics Commission before he reached the consulting agreement with CVS.

Celona had previously testified that he asked an unnamed person at the commission whether he could be legislator and work for CVS. Two weeks ago, Celona told the jury that the conversation was more “abstract” and that he had never mentioned CVS by name.

In a highly unusual move, Corrente, the U.S. Attorney, argued against the motion to dismiss. He said that the prosecutors did not know what Celona was going to say until he took the witness stand. Lisi sided with the defense team and gave them the option of recalling Celona as a witness.

They declined.

Yesterday morning, Lisi spent more than an hour instructing the jurors on the law involving the 23 criminal charges of conspiracy, mail fraud and conspiracy lodged against Kramer and Ortiz. Before she weighed in on the legal issues, Lisi ruled that Stephen G. Dambruch, an assistant U.S. Attorney, overstepped his bounds in his closing argument on Thursday.

David B. Fein, one of Kramer’s lawyers, pointed out in his closing argument that Kramer did not meet with Celona at a May 1999 political fundraiser in Warwick. Celona had testified that Kramer approached him at his table and he broached the idea of the senator working for CVS as a paid consultant.

Fein produced credit-card receipts that showed that on the night of the fundraiser, Kramer was at his vacation home in Cape May, N.J.

In his closing argument, Dambruch said Celona may have been mistaken and was talking about a conversation he had with Kramer at another political fundraiser two nights earlier.

Lisi characterized Dambruch’s statements to the jury as “improper.” She said that he should have raised the issue when Celona was on the witness stand last week.

Once the jurors took their seats yesterday, Lisi instructed them to “disregard that remark” from Dambruch.

Lisi urged the jurors to use their life experiences and common sense to reach their verdicts. She said that the government had to prove its case “beyond a reasonable doubt” but not beyond all doubt.

“There are very few things in the world that we know with absolute certainty,” she said.

Lisi instructed the jurors that they had to consider the 21 counts of mail fraud and single counts of conspiracy and bribery as separate crimes. She also told jurors it was up to them to decide the credibility of Celona. She said that they could consider all, none or some of his testimony. In the end, the jury didn’t think much of the government’s star witness.

Outside the courthouse, Kramer, who was silent for three weeks and avoided the media, reveled in his banter with the gathering reporters. He also was effusive in his praise for Tom Ryan, CVS’ chairman, president and chief executive officer, calling him a “wonderful man.”

Kramer was asked whether he would attend next month’s CVS Charity Golf Classic at Rhode Island Country Club in Barrington, “I don’t know,” he said. “You have to ask Tom Ryan.”

bmalinow@projo.com