PROVIDENCE — The Ethics Commission yesterday established a schedule for briefs to be filed regarding the prosecution of Senate President Joseph Montalbano on charges that he used his political position to reap financial benefits from a proposed casino in West Warwick.

Commission lawyer Dianne L. Leyden proposed that Montalbano, through his lawyer, Max Wistow, has until July 6 to submit a legal brief to the commission. She will have until Aug. 6 to respond to Montalbano’s position. After both sides exchange briefs, Montalbano will have until Aug. 16 to counter Leyden’s argument.

Finally, Leyden and Wistow are scheduled to appear before the Ethics Commission on Aug. 21 to air their positions. The Ethics Commission unanimously approved the schedule and ruled that each side will be limited to 30-minute presentations at the public hearing followed by 10-minute rebuttals.

In a related development, the Ethics Commission decided to table any action against former Senate President William Irons, who is being prosecuted in a separate case, until Montalbano gets an answer to several constitutional law issues.

The rulings could have a direct impact on the Irons case.

Among the claims that Wistow has raised that most concern reform groups is that the immunity that legislators enjoy under the state and federal constitutions bars the commission from even trying Montalbano on four of the eight charges against him because they depend on his votes in the Senate.

After yesterday’s brief hearing before the Ethics Commission, Wistow met with reporters in the hallway. He said that Montalbano’s voting record “itself can’t be the basis for the charge against him.” But, he said, if Montalbano, or any other elected official, was involved in an “illicit arrangement,” they could face criminal prosecution.

From 2003 through mid-2006, the Town of West Warwick paid Montalbano’s law firm, Montalbano & Montalbano, $86,000 for legal services, including land title work involving property adjacent to the then-proposed Harrah’s-Narragansett Indian casino. Voters resoundingly defeated the proposed casino last fall.

A total of eight ethics charges were filed against Montalbano:

Two say that his votes in May and June 2006 to place the casino plan on the ballot involved conflicts of interest because, at the time, Montalbano was doing legal work for the town involving land linked to the casino plan.

Four charges say that he failed to report income from West Warwick on his mandatory financial-disclosure forms for 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005.

Two more charges claim that he failed to file written statements describing the potential conflicts of interest involved in his two votes on the casino resolution.

Wistow has said that Montalbano’s failure to disclose the income was inadvertent, and he has raised several defenses against the other charges, including the assertion that the mandatory filing of disclosures of potential conflict of interest amounts to self-incrimination.

bmalinow@projo.com