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BOSTON -- A judge's instructions to a jury in a federal corruption case were too broad and allowed two former hospital executives to be convicted of conduct that was not illegal, their lawyers told a federal appeals court today while pressing for the verdicts to be overturned.

Robert Urciuoli, the former president and chief executive of Roger Williams Medical Center, was convicted last year along with former vice president Frances Driscoll of paying a state senator to advance the hospital's agenda at the State House.

Former Rhode Island Sen. John Celona has already pleaded guilty and is serving a federal prison sentence. He was ostensibly hired as a consultant for an affiliated assisted-living center, but prosecutors say he was instead directed to kill legislation the hospital opposed and to perform other political favors on the executives' behalf.

Defense lawyers say U.S. District Judge Ernest Torres gave jurors flawed instructions by allowing them to consider work Celona did for the hospital that had nothing to do with State House legislation. That work included lobbying town officials for more ambulance runs to the hospital and facilitating meetings with insurance company executives about reimbursements.

Instead, the judge told jurors that they could consider work that Celona, acting in his official capacity as a senator, performed on the hospital's behalf either behind the scenes or "under the cloak of his office."

That definition is overly broad and legally flawed, Martin Weinberg, a lawyer for Urciuoli, told the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

He said Rhode Island citizens have a right to expect honest behavior from their lawmakers when it comes to voting on bills. But that expectation does not apply when a lawmaker participates in meetings in which he has no decision-making power or authority and is performing duties unrelated to legislation, Weinberg argued.

"The duty to disclose is a duty to disclose your interests when you are the decision-maker," Weinberg said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Lockhart, however, argued that the instructions were proper and should not have been crafted so narrowly to limit the focus on Celona's voting record. He said the former senator did not present himself as a private, disinterested negotiator when he met on the hospital's behalf with town officials or insurance company executives.

"He is holding himself as a senator," Lockhart said.

Chief Judge Michael Boudin peppered both sides with questions about what they felt the appropriate instructions should have been. He pressed the lawyers to define the scope of a lawmaker's "official" duties and whether they can include tasks unrelated to legislation.

"The question is, how do you draw the line?" he asked.

Full story from the Associated Press ...

Extra: More about the case from projo.com and The Providence Journal ...

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