HARRISBURG — Emissaries from all four legislative caucuses met with the attorney general's office three years ago in what prosecutors described Tuesday as efforts to forestall an investigation after news broke that millions of dollars in bonuses had been quietly paid to employees of the General Assembly.

The meetings, which in at least some cases included Attorney General Tom Corbett, were disclosed after a former high-ranking House Democratic employee testified in court about his own participation in one of them.

Scott Brubaker, the former director of staffing and administration for the House Democratic caucus, said Corbett was purposely misled about the use of bonuses to reward employees for campaign work.

"I described every bonus program but the campaign bonuses," Brubaker said.

Brubaker said he did not lie to Corbett but said another participant, Mike Manzo, did. Brubaker and Manzo pleaded guilty to related charges in the public corruption case last month, and Manzo testified earlier for the prosecution. Manzo, chief of staff to House Democratic Leader Bill DeWeese at the time, was Brubaker's supervisor.

Manzo's lawyer, Jim Eisenhower, said Tuesday he believed Manzo had been directed to come up with a cover story, but he declined to say who gave him those orders.

Brubaker testified that they were accompanied by a third person, longtime caucus attorney Reizdan Moore, who had just been named House parliamentarian, a post he still holds. Moore, who has not been charged in the case, did not return a telephone message left at his office Tuesday.

Bryan Walk, attorney for defendant Brett Cott, said Moore has previously said that he was present at the meeting but that Brubaker and Manzo did all the talking. Walk said he wants Moore to testify.

Brubaker and former House Democratic personnel director Earl Mosley were on the stand Tuesday in the 11th day of the theft, conspiracy and conflict of interest trial of Cott, former Beaver County Rep. Mike Veon and two other former House Democratic aides.