PROVIDENCE –– The jury in the Roger Williams Medical Center corruption case began its deliberations yesterday on the fate of former hospital executives Robert Urciuoli and Frances Driscoll.

After listening to instructions on the law from Chief U.S. District Judge Mary M. Lisi, the jury of nine women and three men retired to the jury room at 10:15 a.m. and worked in seclusion until 4:30 p.m. A catered lunch was sent in. There was no verdict, and no questions for the judge.

Lisi indicated at the end of the day, when she sent the jurors home, that they had spent the day looking through some of the hundreds of exhibits in the case.

The pair is charged with corruptly hiring a former state senator, John A. Celona, of North Providence, to perform political favors. The defense maintains that Celona was legally hired to perform valid work promoting the hospital and its affiliates to senior citizens.

Urciuoli, the former president of Roger Williams, is charged with one count of conspiracy and 35 counts of honest-services mail fraud.

Driscoll, a former hospital vice president, is charged with one count of aiding and abetting the alleged conspiracy.

Both were convicted by a jury two years ago, but an appeals court in January overturned their convictions based on the judge’s instructions to the jury. In that case, the appeals court ruled, U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres erroneously instructed the jury that it could consider evidence that Celona, while on the hospital’s payroll, had approached local communities about steering ambulance runs to Roger Williams to boost revenue.

That aspect of the case was not presented in this trial, which began about three weeks ago. This trial also unfolded without Celona, who had spent six days on the stand in the first Roger Williams trial. But after a combative, contradictory performance in that trial, followed by more attacks on his credibility in a recent corruption case against two former CVS executives, Celona was not called by the government this time.

The jury in the first Roger Williams trial deliberated for seven days before reaching a verdict.

But this case was more streamlined, shaped by the appellate court ruling and Celona’s absence. Instead of a central witness to narrate the parade of faxes and memos between Celona and Urciuoli and Driscoll, the prosecution had to rely on the documents themselves, which made for a drier, more disjointed presentation.

The defense countered by highlighting documents and calling witnesses to demonstrate Celona’s visits to senior centers and activities promoting the hospital’s range of services among the elderly.

In the CVS case, Judge Lisi instructed the jury that Rhode Island ethics law allows corporations to hire part-time legislators, and even to confer with them on certain legislation affecting the company. But because the prosecution took a different tack in this trial, trying to prove bribery rather than concealment of Celona’s consulting relationship, the jury did not get those instructions from the judge yesterday.

Still, the so-called “class exception,” which allows part-time legislators to consider legislation that affects their employers no more or less than any other business in that class, was a major theme of the defense, which argues that Urciuoli and Driscoll were guided by an advisory opinion from the Rhode Island Ethics Commission.

Driscoll, 69, who suffered serious injuries in a fall on the courthouse steps last week that delayed the trial for a week, was back in court yesterday, once again wheelchair-bound. Released from the hospital over the weekend after major surgery to reconstruct her shattered left arm, Driscoll returned to court on Monday for the closing arguments.

Yesterday, Driscoll was in court at the beginning of the day, when the judge charged the jury, and back in the courtroom at the end of the day, when Lisi sent the jurors home, telling them to put the case out of their minds for the evening and return, refreshed, today at 9 a.m.

mstanton@projo.com