By ERIC TUCKER
Associated Press

BOSTON - A lawyer for a former hospital executive convicted of corruption said a jury received flawed legal instructions from the trial judge and urged a federal appeals court Wednesday to toss out the guilty verdicts.

Robert Urciuoli, the former president and chief executive of Roger Williams Medical Center, was convicted of fraud and conspiracy for paying a state senator, John Celona, to do the hospital's bidding at the Statehouse. Urciuoli was sentenced to three years in prison but has been allowed to remain free pending the outcome of his appeal.

His lawyer, Martin Weinberg, told a three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Judge Mary Lisi erred by failing to tell the jury in her instructions that Rhode Island law permits in many circumstances state lawmakers to sponsor and vote on legislation that would affect their employer.

He said the jury needed to know that Celona's hiring was legal and that the senator was entitled under state law "to vote and promote and communicate on legislation." The lack of instructions on state law, coupled with a vague federal statute used to prosecute Urciuoli, gave jurors little guidance during their deliberations, he argued.

Urciuoli was convicted under the "honest services fraud" statute now being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law makes it a crime to deprive shareholders or the public of "the intangible right to honest services." Critics say the statute, a favored tool of prosecutors to target public corruption, is vague and criminalizes conduct that is legal.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Hon. David Souter, who formerly served on the 1st Circuit and has periodically heard appellate cases in Boston this year, was on the three-judge panel Wednesday. He suggested that Weinberg was overcomplicating a case in which prosecutors alleged a straightforward quid-pro-quo bribery scheme.

Weinberg said Celona was hired to keep abreast of legislation and promote an assisted-living home affiliated with the hospital. But prosecutors say his real job was to work to advance or kill bills based on the hospital's interests.

Urciuoli and Celona were convicted as part of the Operation Dollar Bill probe, which targeted illicit dealings between lawmakers and corporations but yielded mixed results. Celona was released from prison last year after serving federal and state sentences.

Hon. Michael Boudin, a 1st Circuit judge, asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Lockhart whether there would have been any harm in Lisi giving the requested instructions on state law. Lockhart said the instructions proposed by the defense were overly helpful to their case, and that there were plenty of references throughout the trial to the leeway afforded by state law.

The 1st Circuit threw out Urciuoli's convictions from a first trial because of evidence inappropriately introduced by the government. Urciuoli was tried again in 2008 along with a former vice president at the hospital, who was acquitted.

The court did not indicate when it would rule.