PROVIDENCE –– A jury of nine women and three men will begin hearing evidence tomorrow in Round Two of United States v. Robert Urciuoli and Frances Driscoll, two former hospital executives accused of bribing a Rhode Island senator.

Two years after a jury convicted the two former Roger Williams Medical Center executives, and eight months after an appeals court overturned their convictions based on the judge’s instructions to the jury, federal prosecutors will try again to prove that Urciuoli and Driscoll corruptly hired a Rhode Island senator.

But the onetime senator, John A. Celona, is not expected to testify in the trial before Chief U.S. District Judge Mary M. Lisi. After spending six days on the stand during the first Roger Williams trial, and four more days testifying this spring in another corruption trial in which two former CVS executive were acquitted of similar charges, Celona’s credibility has been so badly damaged that prosecutors have said they don’t intend to call him as a witness.

Just in case, however, Celona will be on standby at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls; he was brought back to Rhode Island last week from a federal prison in Pennsylvania.

Celona, a once-powerful member of the Senate leadership and longtime public official from North Providence, pleaded guilty to charges that he sold his office to Roger Williams, CVS and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, and was sentenced early last year to 2½ years in federal prison. In return for leniency, he agreed to cooperate with federal investigators in a wide-ranging State House corruption probe dubbed Operation Dollar Bill. His projected release date is next March, though he could qualify to move to a halfway house sooner.

Early in 2006, Urciuoli, then the president of Roger Williams, and Driscoll, a former vice president for public relations, were indicted on charges of stealing Celona’s honest services as a senator. That October, after a three-week trial and seven days of deliberations, a jury convicted Urciuoli of one count of conspiracy and 35 counts of mail fraud. Driscoll was acquitted of conspiracy, but convicted of one count of mail fraud.

During the trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Celona was put on the hospital’s payroll to perform political favors, from influencing legislation to lobbying towns to increase their ambulance runs to Roger Williams to using his position as a powerful Senate committee chairman to pressure health insurers to boost their reimbursements to the hospital.

The defense countered that Celona was hired to perform legitimate work, promoting the hospital’s affiliated assisted living center. Peter Sangermano Jr., a co-owner of the assisted-living center, which paid Celona $257,000 from 1998 to 2004, was acquitted during the same trial.

During the trial, prosecutors presented e-mails and faxes between Celona and Urciuoli and Driscoll chronicling Celona’s efforts on the hospital’s behalf. A juror in that trial told the Journal afterward that while jurors had concerns about Celona’s credibility, the paper trail convinced them.

Urciuoli was sentenced to three years in prison. Driscoll, who has health issues, was sentenced to eight months in prison plus eight months of home confinement. Both were allowed to remain free, however, pending their appeal. In January of this year, the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, in Boston, overturned their convictions and ordered a new trial.

The appellate court ruled that the judge, Ernest C. Torres, had given the jury overly broad instructions defining criminal acts. The court said Celona’s actions regarding ambulance runs should not be considered a crime under the honest-services law, as it did not involve Celona’s official actions as a senator.

The appeals court did not criticize the jury’s verdict involving Celona’s other actions, involving legislation and the health-insurer reimbursements. But it did note the difficulties in defining the theft of honest services, particularly in Rhode Island’s part-time “citizen legislature” where not “very stringent” ethics laws allow lawmakers to participate in legislation affecting their employers. And it warned judges in future cases to take that into account when instructing the jury.

As a result of that decision, and jury instructions in the CVS case that were more favorable to the defense, the second Roger Williams trial will unfold in a different landscape.

The absence of Celona deprives the government of its star witness, and the presence of a corrupt politician who worked for the defendants. But his absence also subtracts a combative, evasive and contradictory witness whose performance undermined the prosecution’s case in the CVS trial and raised serious doubts with jurors in the first Roger Williams trial.

Instead, prosecutors will seek to build their case by presenting the same paper trail that led to convictions the first time, minus the evidence regarding the ambulance runs. The documents will be buttressed by testimony from other past and present legislators, lobbyists and hospital officials.

That could also change the approach of the defense, which presented little evidence during the first trial, relying instead on three contentious days of cross-examination of Celona to poke holes in the government’s case. This time, the defense could opt to call more witnesses to bolster its argument that Celona performed legitimate services, promoting the hospital and its assisted living center to his extensive network of senior citizens.

mstanton@projo.com