Celona tells of using Assembly position to help hospital
Posted 1:20 p.m.

PROVIDENCE -- For the second consecutive day, former state Sen. John Celona took the witness stand as a prosecution witness, admitting he used his elected position to help a hospital and nursing home that was paying him tens of thousands of dollars.

Celona testified regarding his efforts on behalf of Roger Williams Medical Center, including bills that he sought to influence at the hospital’s direction and efforts to persuade town officials in North Providence and East Providence to increase their rescue runs to the hospital.

Shortly after going on the payroll as a consultant at the Village at Elmhurst in early 1998, Celona said that then-hospital vice-president Frances P. Driscoll asked him to try and kill a bill that would have been "detrimental" to the assisted-living center. The legislation, sponsored by then-Rep. Vincent Mesolella, would have limited Alzheimer’s treatment units to licensed nursing homes; the Village at Elmhurst had an Alzheimer’s unit.

Celona testified that he spoke to Mesolella, who said that he had introduced the bill on behalf of the nursing-home industry but had no personal feelings about it.

"I haven’t voted on the merits in 16 years and I’m not going to start now,’’ Celona quoted Mesolella as telling him.

Celona also testified that Driscoll and Robert A. Urciuoli, then the president of Roger Williams, both asked him to intervene to help the hospital get "its fair share" of rescue runs. He explained that patients in non-life-threatening situations were not always having their wishes granted to be taken to Roger Williams, and that it cost the hospital $5,000 for every transport that went elsewhere.

"Bob told me to report to Fran and try and resolve this,’’ testified Celona, who said that he then met with officials in North Providence and East Providence.

The prosecution asserts that Urciuoli, Driscoll and Peter J. Sangermano Jr. put Celona on the payroll of The Village at Elmhurst when his real job was using his public office to do the hospital's bidding.

Celona pleaded guilty last year to federal fraud charges. He has admitted being paid more than $260,000 to secretly advance the medical center's legislative interests.

Although he was listed as a consultant to the Village at Elmhurst, a Roger Williams affiliate, Celona said that Driscoll was his boss and that she frequently directed him to get involved in legislation and other matters of interest to the hospital.

For instance, Celona testified, Driscoll told him to work to kill a 1998 bill that would have prevented Roger Williams from keeping its same board of directors if it were sold and converted from a nonprofit to a for-profit hospital. Urciuoli also told him that he was against the bill, testified Celona.

Asst. U.S. Atty. Luis Matos introduced a number of documents, including faxes from Celona to Driscoll and Urciuoli documenting his efforts on various matters.

Read about Celona's testimony yesterday in today's Journal story.

-- Journal staff writer Mike Stanton