PROVIDENCE — The civil trial of two former University of Rhode Island students accused of creating an atmosphere that led to the death of a 21-year-old Fairfield University student in 2004 began yesterday in Providence Superior Court.

The suit, filed by the family of the victim, Francis J. Marx V, claims that the two former students — Jarrad Rocheleau of Cumberland and Loren Welsh of Neshanic Station, N.J. –– failed to exercise care, which led to Marx’s death. The family is seeking $5 million in damages, said lawyer Robert D. Parrillo.

“They’re not asking for sympathy,” he said. “They’ve had plenty of that. They’re asking that the responsible people, Loren Welsh and Jarrad Rocheleau, take responsibility for their actions.”

On the night of May 20, 2004, Marx was in Newport to attend a Wheaton College-sponsored formal dance with his girlfriend. After the dance, Marx and his friends headed downtown to go to a club when they got into a fight with some URI students in town for a pub crawl. Marx either fell or was pushed into Thames Street and run over by a charter bus carrying URI students back to campus.

The nine jurors went to Newport on Wednesday to view the intersection lawyers would reference over the coming days. Yesterday, the lawyers laid out their cases in Providence Superior Court.

Parrillo painted Marx as a “solid, clean-cut” man who would not have been so drunk that he couldn’t stand, and said Welsh and others were provoking him to fight.

“They’re going to allege that Frank Marx stumbled because he was intoxicated,” Parrillo said. “He didn’t stumble on his own accord. He was hit, pushed, forced backwards, forced into the street.”

Lawyer Mark Dolan, who represents Welsh, said there are at least 14 differing versions of the night Marx died, but none of the testimony will show that Welsh pushed Marx into the street.

“There’s no doubt that this case is a tragedy,” he said. “There’s no doubt that there is no evidence, no testimony that [Welsh] pushed or caused [Marx] to stumble, to take two steps back and fall into the street.”With so many witnesses with differing statements, there is only so much to be believed, said Ronald Langlois, lawyer for Rocheleau. With hundreds of intoxicated students herding themselves toward buses on a side street near the incident, all testimonies have to be evaluated critically, he said.

“You have to decide what to extract, what to believe,” Langlois said. “Where are the witnesses and what do they see? Who had the best vantage point?”

Jurors yesterday heard from Newport Police Officer Stephen Head, who was the first on the scene after Marx’s death. His cross-examination will continue when court reconvenes this morning at 9:30 before Judge Susan E. McGuirl. Both Welsh and Rocheleau are on the plaintiff’s witness list and are expected to take the stand in coming days.

tbuford@projo.com