HARRISBURG — A state prosecutor described the former second-ranking state House Democrat on Friday as the mastermind of a scheme to rip off taxpayers to win elections and "expand his own kingship."

Jurors in the six-week-old political corruption trial of former Beaver County state Rep. Mike Veon and three of his ex-aides deliberated for less than two hours before asking to be sent home for the weekend. Outside the jury's presence, prosecutors and defense lawyers haggled bitterly over what portion of the boxes of e-mails and other evidence would be sent into the jury room.

Earlier Friday, Senior Deputy Attorney General Patrick Blessington urged jurors to focus on witness testimony and evidence rather than what he called distractions by the defense.

"It's exactly what common sense tells you — Veon's running the show," Blessington said in closing arguments, as he showed jurors a series of e-mails he said demonstrated Veon's central role in the alleged conspiracy. "How many times do you have to be hit in the face with a brick to know what is what?"

He sarcastically dismissed defense arguments that Veon did not know public staffers were performing campaign work on the taxpayers' dime, including the employee who testified he spent nearly all of his work hours raising donations and other election efforts.

Veon is on trial with former senior aides Steve Keefer, Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink and Brett Cott. They face charges of theft, conspiracy and conflict of interest in what prosecutors say was the diversion of taxpayer resources for campaigns and other improper purposes.

Veon's attorneys have said he should not be expected to have known what all of his underlings were up to, but Blessington reminded jurors that the former lawmaker was the type of micromanager who would reword an invitation to a small-town spaghetti dinner.

Blessington responded to defense attacks on witnesses who had been granted immunity, calling the three-year investigation "a political corruption case that took the form of organized crime."

He noted that many of them were former Veon aides or people who, like the other defendants, held elite jobs within the House Democratic caucus.

He described Perretta-Rosepink, who ran Veon's Beaver Falls district office, as the western leader of "Team Veon," and said a lavish Veon fundraiser at a Beaver County restaurant drained significant taxpayer-paid time from Veon's state employees.

Prosecutors allege state taxpayers ended up funding a wide array of partisan political efforts, including opposition research, attack e-mails, phone banks, door-to-door canvassing and the design and mailing of literature. They also claim Veon sent Cott and another state worker across the country to drive two motorcycles to the annual rally in Sturgis, N.D., and that having the state pick up the dinner tab after weekly basketball games Veon hosted was a crime.

Defense attorneys, in their closing arguments, argued that the evidence against their clients fell short, that some of the alleged infractions were so minimal that they were not criminal, and that the prosecution did not prove there was a pattern of awarding bonuses that showed they were linked to campaign work.