PITTSBURGH — A former state-paid staffer of Republican state Sen. Jane Orie said today he did so much work on the 2009 election campaign of now-state Supreme Court Joan Orie Melvin that he fell behind on the legislative work he was being paid to do that fall.

“I was so busy with the political stuff, I couldn’t keep up,” Joshua Dott testified in the political corruption trial of Orie and her sister, Janine Orie, an aide to Melvin, who is not charged with wrongdoing or on trial with her sisters.

Sen. Orie, 49, and Janine Orie, 56, are charged with conspiring to use the senator’s state-funded legislative staff to work on the 2009 campaign of Melvin, then a Superior Court judge who was elected to the Supreme Court that November.

Sen. Orie alone is also charged with using her state staff to do campaign and fundraising work for her from 2001 to 2009 and directing them to help Melvin’s unsuccessful 2003 campaign for a Supreme Court seat.

Dott testified that he drove Melvin to campaign stops in Wilkes-Barre and Johnstown, wrote thank you letters, put out campaign signs and kept records of Melvin’s campaign contributions, all while on state time as a member of Orie’s staff.

Attorneys for Orie and her sister have argued, however, that staffers like Dott did the work on comp time or after hours as volunteers.