By JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — In perhaps some of the most compelling courtroom action so far in the CVS bribery trial, defense lawyers won the right to call John Celona back to the stand, alleging that the prosecution allowed him to dramatically change his testimony without warning the defense.

However, those lawyers have decided against doing so and the trial will likely go to closing arguments on Thursday.
U.S. District Court Judge Mary Lisi considered the defendants’ motion for a mistrial “with prejudice,” meaning the case would be dismissed and former CVS executives Jack Kramer and Carlos Ortiz could not be retried, but concluded that was an “extreme remedy,” and instead ruled that she would allow the defense to re-open the disgraced former senator’s cross-examination.
Because the lawyers for Kramer and Ortiz, two CVS vice presidents who put Celona on the company payroll as a consultant in 2000, have declined to recall Celona as a witness, the testimony phase of the trial is likely concluded and the jury will return Thursday to hear closing arguments from both sides.
While the prosecution and Kramer have formally rested their cases, Ortiz did not do so Tuesday, but is now expected to at the start of Thursday’s proceedings. Lisi told the jurors they would probably begin their deliberations on Friday.
During a 45-minute argument over the mistrial motion, the judge said she agreed with Kramer attorney Scott Corrigan and Ortiz attorney Anthony Traini that the prosecution had committed a procedural violation in not alerting the defense that Celona, the government’s star witness in the case, had completely reversed himself on a major piece of testimony.
Last week, Celona testified that he had a telephone conversation with someone at the Rhode island Ethics Commission concerning whether he could accept a position as a consultant with a drug store chain, but that he did not specify that he was looking to work for CVS.
That contradicted previously sworn testimony Celona gave to two grand juries and at the corruption trial of three Roger Williams Medical Center executives in District Court last year.
Lisi said she and the defense learned only recently “that the government knew in advance of trial that Mr. Celona had changed his testimony.” She said it was “beyond my wildest dreams” that the government had not provided that information to the defense.
She said that when its “star witness” has taken a different position on a key piece of testimony, “the government has a duty to disclose that in a timely manner. That wasn’t done in this case.”
U.S. Attorney Robert Corrente, who has not actively engaged in the courtroom proceedings of this trial until now, made the arguments on behalf of the prosecution team, saying the defense motion “calls into question the actions of my office, the prosecutors trying this case and the (U.S.) Department of Justice.”
Corrente called the defense allegations “outrageous,” but acknowledged that Celona has varied his account so often before grand juries, trials and federal investigators that “we have a mess on our hands, judge.” He acknowledged that “we couldn’t be sure until it came out of his mouth what he was going to say at trial.”
Despite that, Corrente argued that the defense hadn’t proved that Celona’s change in testimony “constitutes perjury, let alone prosecutorial misconduct.”
Corrigan asserted that the prosecution “accepted a gift that was too good to be true,” a change in testimony that turned exculpatory information into incriminating evidence.
He said Celona’s switch “goes right to the heart of the defense in this matter.”
The only evidence Corrigan presented before resting Kramer’s case was a collection of clips from Celona’s cable television show on which Kramer appeared touting the CVS Charity Golf Classic, the CVS Downtown 5K road race and the CVS Highlander charter school. These were presented without explanation or context, as were a collection of news reports from NBC-10 on the golf tournament and road race.
The prosecution maintains that Celona’s $1,000 per-month consulting contract with CVS was a ruse to conceal the fact that the onetime influential senator was getting legislation passed or killed at CVS’ behest. The defense claims that Celona was brought on to do “legitimate” community relations work for the Woonsocket-based pharmacy giant.