In this June, 2010 file photograph Mike Veon, the former state House Democratic whip, and his wife, Stephanie, arrive for his sentencing hearing in Harrisburg. Veon, who is serving time in prison for his conviction in that corruption case, is now on trial on additional corruption charges.

HARRISBURG — A prosecutor in Michael Veon's second corruption trial portrayed the former state House Democratic whip on Thursday as a crook who stole state grant money earmarked for economic development in his Western Pennsylvania district, while Veon's lawyer vowed that he will prove his client did not break the law.

Deputy Attorney General Laurel Brandstetter told a Dauphin County jury that Veon and co-defendant Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink illegally diverted more than $170,000 from a nonprofit Veon ran in his Beaver County district — the Beaver Initiative for Growth — for personal and political purposes.

Instead of bolstering the local economy, Brandstetter said, the money was used to pay Veon's legislative chief of staff and his law firm for consulting services, to hire a consulting company headed by a major Veon campaign contributor, to pay rent on Veon's district offices and to reimburse a former state representative for campaign work.

“Keep your eye on the ball. ... Keep your common sense about you,” Brandstetter told the jury.

Dan Raynak, Veon's lawyer, said he will mount an aggressive defense that proves Veon's innocence. He also suggested that some key prosecution witnesses may have motives to lie.

As one of the Legislature's leading power brokers, Veon did not need to use nonlegislative funds to cover rent on his district offices, Raynak said.

“No matter how many offices he wanted, no matter how much he had to pay in rent, he had that ability” to have those expenses legitimately covered by the House, the lawyer said.

He urged jurors to consider whether the transactions at issue in the trial hurt taxpayers or could be innocently explained.

Veon, 55, and Perretta-Rosepink, the longtime aide who ran his district office in Beaver Falls, are charged with theft, conspiracy and conflict of interest

Veon, who was ousted from the House by voters in 2006, is already serving at least six years in prison for his 2010 conviction on 14 counts related to spending more than $1 million in public funds on bonuses to reward legislative employees for campaign work and other political activities.

Perretta-Rosepink also was convicted in that case. Her three- to six-month jail term has been deferred pending the completion of the current trial.

Veon's sentence is the harshest imposed so far in a 5-year-old state corruption investigation into the misuse of taxpayers' money for electioneering.

Of the 25 people arrested in that probe, 12 Democrats and nine Republicans have been convicted or pleaded guilty, including former House speakers John Perzel, a Republican, and Democrat Bill DeWeese.