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September 18, 2006

Update: Celona storms out of court after cross-examination

PROVIDENCE -- As the cross-examination continued this afternoon, Richard M. Egbert, Robert Urciuoli’s lawyer, grilled John Celona about inconsistencies in his story to federal investigators.

It was a stormy day, ending with an angry Celona storming out of the courtroom after court adjourned.

Egbert put particular emphasis on Celona’s shifting accounts of how he came to be hired by Urciuoli and what he has said regarding his dealings with the CVS pharmacy chain.

This afternoon, Egbert confronted Celona with federal grand-jury testimony from last spring regarding Celona’s $1,000-a-month consulting deal with CVS. Celona, the government’s star witness, has pleaded guilty to selling his office to Roger Williams, CVS and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, and is cooperating with the government.

Last year, when Celona pleaded guilty, he said that he never disclosed his consulting relationship with CVS to the Rhode Island Ethics Commission. But in his grand jury testimony on May 2, 2006, Celona said that he telephoned someone at the commission and got a verbal assurance that as long as he didn’t vote on legislation that directly affected CVS, it would be okay.

Celona initially testified that he made the call on his cell phone. But then Egbert showed him his grand-jury testimony of two weeks later, in which Celona testified that he reviewed his cell phone records with the FBI and had determined that he was mistaken. Instead, Celona testified, he made the call from his home telephone.

A skeptical Egbert asked Celona who he spoke to at the Ethics Commission. Celona said that he couldn’t recall.

At the end of the day, Egbert told Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres that he had at least another half a day of questioning of Celona. Lawyers for the other two defendants, Frances P. Driscoll and Peter J. Sangermano Jr., estimated that they have about another day of questions for Celona after that.

-- Journal staff writer Mike Stanton

Posted by Steve Peoples  at 5:14 PM | Permalink

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