BOSTON – A federal appeals court today vacated the corruption convictions of two former Roger Williams Medical Center executives and ordered a new trial.
Robert A. Urciuoli, the former Roger Williams president and CEO; and Frances P. Driscoll, its former vice president, both had appealed their convictions last January.
Urciuoli had been convicted of charges related to stealing the honest services of former state Sen. John A. Celona by paying him for political favors. Driscoll had been found guilty of one count of mail fraud.
Urciuoli had been sentenced to 36 months in jail. Driscoll had been sentenced to eight months in jail and eight months on home confinement.
In their appeals, the defendants argued that the judge’s instructions “wrongly allowed for conviction” based on Celona’s lobbying of mayors and meeting with insurance companies, “conduct that they claim does not constitute a federal crime.”
The First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that, “unlike most conduct typically the subject of case law, urging local officials to obey state law is not easily described as a deprivation of honest services, actually or potentially harmful to the State of Rhode Island …
“The government says that a legislator’s informal duties commonly extend to representing constituents with local officials and engaging on oversight functions as so to this extent should be regarded as official; but Celona’s conduct falls in a borderland where analogies can easily be drawn both to public and private conduct.”
But the court also concluded that “considerable evidence – including the communications between Urciuoli and Celona – supported the government’s view that, with active help from Celona, Urciuoli was deliberately seeking to invoke the threat of Celona’s power over legislation. …
“So we conclude the instructions were over-broad, in so far as they licensed the jury to consider the rescue-run advocacy as a deprivation of honest services, but that the insurance episodes were properly considered potentially criminal …”
Celona, who served as a committee chairman in the Senate, admitted to selling his office for personal gain. He pleaded guilty to three counts of mail fraud and was sentenced last year to 30 months in federal prison.
Roger Williams Medical Center, meanwhile, averted prosecution in the influence-peddling scandal that has come to be known as Operation Dollar Bill through a January 2006 agreement with prosecutors that included the establishment of a comprehensive ethics program, overseen by a new ethics monitor, and the implementation of other new corporate governance provisions. (READ MORE.) A similar agreement between prosecutors and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island was announced last month. (READ MORE.)
In an after-hours statement, Roger Williams Medical Center said: “Today’s court decision has no impact on our commitment to the community or the good work we have done over the past two years.
“During that time, we have continued the tradition of excellence in patient care that is synonymous with Roger Williams Medical Center. At the same time, we have added programs and improvements that have made us a better, stronger institution. Our focus remains unchanged,” the hospital said.
Additional information, including the full text of the appeals court’s decision in U.S. v. Urciuoli and U.S. V. Driscoll (07-1297.01A), is available from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit at www.ca1.uscourts.gov.
