HARRISBURG — Electioneering took precedence over legislative work in the district office of a former state lawmaker on trial for using public employees and equipment to wage political campaigns, an ex-employee of the Pennsylvania House Democratic caucus testified Tuesday.

"If it was campaign time, then campaign stuff was definitely the priority," said Melissa Lewis, who worked in Rep. Mike Veon's Beaver Falls office before getting a transfer to the state Capitol.

Lewis told the jury about her own participation in a range of campaign efforts that included canvassing door-to-door, poring over the nomination petitions of political opponents to find mistakes, organizing fundraisers for Veon and filling boxes with partisan literature that was assembled behind the closed doors of Veon's Harrisburg offices.

Veon, the former House Democratic whip, is on trial with three former aides. They are charged by the state attorney general's office with theft, conspiracy and conflict of interest.

Lewis, who no longer works for the House, testified under a grant of immunity.

Under cross-examination by Veon attorney Dan Raynak, Lewis acknowledged that she never heard Veon tell her to campaign on state time without taking leave. But she also insisted he was unquestionably in charge, was copied in on campaign-related e-mails and that she believed he knew exactly what his staff was doing.

"In our world — Rep. Veon's office — you don't dare cross him," Lewis said.

Raynak said after the hearing that Lewis was unable to give specific reasons to back up her opinions.

"I don't think that in any big organization that everyone's going to know everything that's going on," Raynak said. "It's just impossible."

Her recollections of campaign work in Beaver Falls included taking marching orders from Veon co-defendant Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink, some of the most specific testimony regarding Perretta-Rosepink so far in the 4Z\x-week-old criminal trial. Perretta-Rosepink supervised Veon's district office before his defeat in the 2006 election.

Lewis said she and other legislative employees spent a week in 2004 working on an ultimately successful challenge to presidential candidate Ralph Nader's nominating petitions.