PITTSBURGH — A forensic accountant testified Friday that work done by state Sen. Jane Orie's staff on campaign and political events and materials was worth up to $550,000.

Kevin Flanigan, who also is a detective with the district attorney's office, also said Orie would have had to pay an additional $180,000 out of her own funds during that time for a professional fundraiser.

He based that calculation on campaign finance records, which showed Orie raised more than $1.8 million from 2001 to 2009, and also on the assumption that the rate for professional fundraisers is 10 percent of the total amount earned.

All together, Flanigan testified Orie gained about $730,000 by illegally forcing her staff to work on campaign events such as fundraisers.

Orie, R-40th, is charged with felonies ranging from theft of services from the state and criminal conspiracy. Prosecutors allege she directed her state-paid staff to work on nonlegislative activities, which is illegal because staffers are forbidden from engaging in such activity while being paid by the state.

The senator and her sister, Janine Orie, who is suspended from her job as Justice Joan Orie Melvin's aide, are charged with illegally using the senator's state-funded staff to work on Melvin's 2009 election to the state's highest court.

Melvin is not charged. But Sen. Orie, alone, is also charged with using her staff to do campaign and fundraising work for herself since she took office in 2001, and on Melvin's failed bid for the Supreme Court in 2003.

Flanigan was the last witness called by the Allegheny County District Attorney's office, which rested its case Friday morning.

During a span of about two and a half weeks, the prosecution called nearly 20 former or current Orie staffers, all whom alleged they did varying degrees of campaign or political work on state time.

The defense's first witness, Ken McCrory, immediately disparaged Flanigan and his conclusion, saying that his methods and calculations “fail virtually every accounting standard that exists.”

Flanigan testified he derived his conclusions based on a simple formula: he took each staffer's testimony from court about the percentage of time that staffer spent working on campaign material, and multiplied that figure by the staffer's hourly wage.

Flanigan also said his final number of $550,000 is “very conservative” because many staffers got pay raises while working in Orie's office. Flanigan only used the salary level at which a staffer was hired.

But McCrory, a certified public accountant and forensic accountant for 37 years, said Flanigan's final calculation is based on speculation and shaky estimates from staffers who were stressed, under duress and often asked to recall events that took place many years ago.

What's more, McCrory said, is that many staffers testified to working longer days than the seven and a half hours required by the state.

In a hypothetical situation, McCrory asked prosecutors to assume a certain staffer worked 10 hours a day during the duration of their employment. If that staffer later testified they spent up to 25 percent of their time on campaign work, then the state still got it's seven and a half hours and therefore there was no illegal activity.

William Costopoulos, Orie's attorney, also derided Flanigan's calculations.

He said that final dollar amount counted by the detective included testimony from former staffer Kathy Campbell, who told the jury earlier in the trial that she spent only 30 hours in Orie's office working on campaign material, time that was spread over 10 years.

When broken down, Costopoulos said, that figure equates to about 15 minutes of campaign work done per month, a figure that is not financially significant enough to warrant prosecution.

After the prosecution rested its case Friday morning, Judge Jeffrey Manning quickly rejected a motion by Costopoulos to dismiss the charges against Orie.

The defense later called Butler attorney Tom King as one of its first witnesses.

In a short testimony, King told the jury he organized two fundraisers for Orie in Butler County in 2002 and 2005, respectively.

King also said he presided over getting the venue, the menu and the guest lists and even made a lot of calls himself to solicit interest in the fundraiser.

“I know lots of people in Butler County, and it's very Republican territory,” he said.

Prosecutors had presented a fax that King sent to Orie's Cranberry office in 2004, a fax that had the names of 225 people on it. They alleged that King might have compiled the list but that he made few phone calls to solicit interest, a task that instead fell to staffers who made those calls on state time.

The defense will continue its case Monday, while a verdict is expected by the end of next week.