PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – Roger Williams Medical Center paid a former chairman more than half a million dollars to keep an eye on its former president after he lied about his expenses.

The medical center’s board hired then-chairman Herbert Cummings in 1998 to watch then-president Robert Urciuoli, who was indicted in January on federal corruption charges, The Providence Journal reported.

An internal investigation finished in July 1998 showed that Urciuoli improperly charged the hospital for family dinners, golf trips and stays at fine hotels. The board considered firing him, but decided against it.

Instead, Cummings was hired “to look over Urciuoli’s shoulder,” said Bradford Gorham, a former board member and state lawmaker.

“Hindsight is always 20-20, and viewing our decision now, in 2006, I can certainly see how one could be critical,” Cummings wrote in a statement to the Journal. “However, at the time … we thought it was a reasonable decision to make.”

Not all board members favored the move, however. Nuala Pell, another former board member and the wife of U.S. Senator Claiborne Pell, said she thought the hospital was “throwing good money after bad” and should have just fired Urciuoli.

But the hospital was engaged in merger talks that the board did not want disrupted, Cummings said.

Board members asked Cummings, recently retired from his position as vice president at Citizens Financial Group, to serve as a part-time executive, working two days a week. Over the next four years, the hospital paid him $504,000.

Cummings said he worked many more hours than he was scheduled to do, helping supervise staff and arrange a bond sale for the hospital.

William Devereau, the hospital’s lawyer, said that when he met last year with Dennis Saylor, a former federal prosecutor who led the 1998 investigation, Saylor said he felt Cummings “was trying to do the right thing.”

The hospital has defended Cummings’ work, but it also says it will no longer allow board members to serve in paid positions.

Cummings retired from the hospital board last month.

Urciuoli was indicted on corruption charges for hiring former state Senator John Celona to advance hospital interests at the Statehouse, prosecutors say.

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Information from: The Providence Journal, http://www.projo.com/

AP-ES-03-05-06 1000EST