HARRISBURG — One current and one former state lawmaker took the stand in the public corruption trial of their former colleague Mike Veon on Monday, telling jurors about the card games and taxpayer-catered meals Veon once hosted in his legislative office.

They were among the witnesses who testified as the defense began to put on its case Monday, a court session that ended with the judge issuing a stern warning to one of Veon's attorneys regarding his courtroom decorum.

Rep. Jim Wansacz, D-Lackawanna, said he played in Veon's regular Tuesday night basketball games, after which the participants would often reconvene in the Capitol for dinner, often takeout ethnic food picked up by state workers.

Wansacz and former Rep. Dan Surra both testified that some of the get-togethers also included cigar smoking and beer drinking.

Veon was a busy man, often pulled in many different directions during the day, Wansacz said.

"We did have to eat, and that was a way we could get together," he said.

Surra, who lost his 2008 re-election campaign and currently works for the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, told jurors that much of the talk during those events concerned legislation and floor strategy.

"It's a room full of legislators and key staff — that's what we do," he said.

That testimony might help jurors decide whether the cost of the meals — and the use of public employees to go pick them up — was proper.

Surra said the card playing was "spades and hearts, games like that" and that he never saw anyone gambling for money.

Surra also said he felt that prosecutors with the attorney general's office attempted to intimidate him and sought to put words into his mouth when they interviewed him in the investigation that resulted in charges against the defendants.

The defendants are accused of using state resources and legislative employees to wage political campaigns, as well as other illegal purposes.

Another witness, House parliamentarian Reizdan Moore, testified about a meeting he attended in early 2007 about the awarding of bonuses to legislative employees with Attorney General Tom Corbett.

Moore said he was not aware that the two high-ranking Democratic caucus leaders whom he accompanied, Mike Manzo and Scott Brubaker, had been using the bonus system to reward staffers for helping out on political campaigns. Manzo and Brubaker pleaded guilty to criminal charges in January and testified for the prosecution in the current trial.

Moore said Corbett "did most of the talking" and referred to then-Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, who has since been charged as a result of the same investigation.

Corbett, Moore said, told him to "let Bill know that he brought this on himself."

After jurors were sent home Monday, Judge Richard Lewis warned Veon attorney Dan Raynak that he could face imprisonment or a fine if he continued what Lewis said has been a pattern of disrespectful and defiant courtroom behavior.

The judge said his caution was prompted by Raynak's reaction to a ruling against him regarding additional questions Raynak wanted to ask of an investigator for the attorney general's office.

If Raynak planned to continue such behavior, the judge warned, he should bring his checkbook and toothbrush with him to court each day.

Raynak declined to comment afterward.

Veon, a former Beaver County representative who was the No. 2 ranking House Democrat before his defeat in the 2006 election, is on trial with former aides Brett Cott, Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink and Steve Keefer. They are accused of theft, conspiracy and conflict of interest. The trial is in its sixth week; the prosecution case finished on Friday.