Celona

PROVIDENCE –– Jury selection began yesterday in federal court in the second corruption trial of two former Roger Williams Medical Center executives.

Robert Urciuoli, the former hospital president, and Frances Driscoll, a former vice president, face charges that they put former state Sen. John A. Celona on the hospital payroll to perform political favors. The defendants counter that he was hired for legitimate services, promoting a hospital-affiliated assisted-living center to senior citizens.

A jury convicted Urciuoli and Driscoll in October 2006, but a federal appeals court in Boston overturned the convictions in January 2007, saying that the judge had improperly instructed the jury on one aspect of the case.

Jury selection began in U.S. District Court in Providence yesterday morning, presided over by Magistrate Judge David L. Martin. The trial, which will be handled by Chief U.S. District Judge Mary M. Lisi, is set to begin next Tuesday. Lisi has indicated that she expects the trial to be finished by Oct. 3 at the latest.

This trial will be different, based on new appellate court rulings regarding theft-of-honest-services cases as well as the prosecution’s avowal, in pretrial papers, not to call Celona as a witness, provided the defense agrees to the admission of certain documents and facts.

Celona, who is in prison for selling his office to Roger Williams, CVS and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, saw his credibility severely damaged in the first Roger Williams trial and, more recently, during a trial this spring that resulted in the acquittals of two former CVS executives who hired him as a consultant to the Woonsocket-based drugstore chain.

mstanton@projo.com