Journal illustration / Frank Gerardi

Todd Andrews, left, Brown University vice president and former CVS manager of corporate communications, answers questions from prosecutor Stephen G. Dambruch, center, in court today. Judge Mary Lisi presides.

PROVIDENCE -- CVS's former communications director testified today that when he learned John A. Celona was a paid consultant of the giant Woonsocket-based drugstore chain, he devised a title and prepared "talking points" to explain Celona's duties in case a reporter ever called to ask about it.

Todd Andrews, now vice president of alumni relations at Brown University, testified in federal court that defendant Carlos Ortiz told him about Celona early in 2001, about one year after the then-North Providence senator went on the CVS payroll as a $1,000-a-month consultant.

Andrews said that Ortiz raised the issue during a "gripe session" about his boss, John R. "Jack" Kramer.

Ortiz and Kramer are accused of 23 counts of bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud for allegedly hiring Celona as a consultant from 2000 to 2003 to do the company's bidding. The defense, however, says Celona did legitimate community outreach, promoting CVS and its charitable endeavors to senior citizens.

Later in the day, the prosecution appeared to have finished presenting its case, and Chief U.S. District Judge Mary Lisi sent jurors home early, telling them to return Tuesday, after the holiday weekend.

Andrews testified that Ortiz told him "that Mr. Celona was acting as a P.R. consultant for CVS, that he was going to senior centers and talking to seniors about services they were getting from CVS," Andrews said of Ortiz.

Ortiz also told Andrews that Celona helped prepare Kramer for appearances on Celona's cable access television show.

"He told me that Celona had an Ethics Commission ruling that made that work permissable," Andrews said.

Ortiz also said, according to Andrews, that Celona was providing reports "accounting for what he was doing for the company."

At the end of the conversation, Andrews said, Ortiz asked him: "please don't tell anyone."

Andrews testified that he went back to his office and developed written talking points, later approved by Ortiz, that described Celona's duties. Andrews said that he also gave Celona a title -- community outreach specialist.

Earlier today, a former CVS vice president, Jim Smith, testified that when he took over the CVS government affairs department in spring 2003, he conducted a budget review and asked Ortiz about Celona's consulting agreement.

"I asked Carlos, 'Are we getting any value for that?' and he said no. So I recommended that we terminate him," Smith said.

Celona was terminated later that summer.

After hearing today from Smith and Andrews, jurors heard from Susan DelMonico, a lawyer who works in the Woonsocket-based CVS’s regulatory compliance division.

DelMonico testified that starting in the late 1990s, she spent a lot of time touting CVS in visits to senior citizens centers around Rhode Island as the company’s manager of community relations. She also said that she met former Celona at political fundraisers she attended with co-defendants Kramer and Ortiz.

But the prosecution didn’t get to another point it apparently wanted to highlight –– a conversation that DelMonico said she had with Kramer about Celona.

A defense lawyer for Ortiz objected to the prosecution’s question. That led to a sidebar conference between the lawyers and the judge, and after that, there were no further questions from the government and none from the defense.

After DelMonico finished, Judge Lisi turned to prosecutors at 11:30 this morning and said that it appeared the government had no more witnesses for the day. She then sent the jury home about 90 minutes early for the long holiday weekend.

Judge Lisi told the jurors to return to court next Tuesday at 9 a.m., at which point the government is expected to rest and the defense will have its turn to argue motions seeking dismissal of the charges and, barring that, to present its case.