PITTSBURGH — State Sen. Jane Orie fabricated documents last year to bolster her own defense during her first trial, prosecutors alleged Friday.

Former Orie chief of staff Jamie Pavlot backed up those claims, saying that her signature was forged on one document and then copied and pasted onto another document to make it appear she had seen orders from Orie that stipulated no staffers were to receive compensatory time for campaign work.

For the second consecutive day, prosecutors meticulously combed through evidence in an effort to show Orie manipulated several documents before her first trial, documents that eventually caused a mistrial and prompted additional charges of perjury and forgery against the state senator, whose district includes southern Butler County.

“In a not-too-artful way,” Deputy District Attorney Lawrence Claus said, someone clearly manipulated Pavlot’s signature on a memo concerning mileage reimbursement for staffers.

In another instance, Claus asserted that Pavlot’s signature appeared to be forged on a document from Orie to staffers, warning them that no “comp” time would be given for political work.

Claus said these documents were altered to make it seem like Orie had given many directives to Pavlot not to award “comp” time for campaign work.

Orie’s defense attorney, William Costopoulos, has maintained through the trial that Pavlot repeatedly ignored the state senator’s orders.

But some of the evidence is so clearly fabricated, Claus said, that the memo concerning staffers’ mileage reimbursement had so many errors it was hard to count.

“First of all, it has no letterhead,” Pavlot said. “The address of the office is wrong. And then there’s my signature. There are definite questions there.”

In addition to the alleged forgeries, Claus accused Orie of tampering with other documents by adding handwritten notations after the fact that often chastised or reprimanded staffers for doing political work in her legislative office.

Pavlot repeatedly testified to seeing many of these documents, but never with the lengthy, handwritten notations by Orie in the margins.

She added that it was extremely uncustomary for Orie to write out directives or orders.

Whenever the Republican state senator wanted to get in touch with her chief of staff, Pavlot said she’d almost always send her an e-mail. As a secondary resort, Pavlot said Orie would call her on the phone.

It would be extremely out of character for Orie to print out an e-mail or memo, write notes in the margin and then deliver it, Pavlot said.

In other unusual instances, several of these handwritten orders appeared on e-mails from Pavlot to various staffers, which raised questions as to how Orie saw those e-mails in the first place.

Costopoulos began his cross-examination of Pavlot in the early afternoon Friday after prosecutors spent more than two days questioning her.

The defense attorney presented a different kind of evidence called meta data, which is information stored on computers that show the exact date, time and author of any kind of document.

One of the key memos in question, the one concerning mileage reimbursement that prosecutors say was forged, was created on July 4, 2001, by Pavlot, according to the meta data.

“The document that (the meta data) links to you, you’re saying you’ve never seen it before?” Costopoulos asked.

Pavlot maintained that she’d never seen that document, and she asked why she would be in the office on a national holiday typing up a memo for staffers.

Concerning the other controversial memo about Orie’s purported directive not to award “comp” time for campaign work, Costopoulos pressed Pavlot on whether she was being truthful when she said she’d never seen the document before despite the fact that her signature is on it.

“That’s what it says, and that’s my signature,” she said. “But I didn’t sign that document.”

Testimony was to continue Saturday morning, when Pavlot was expected to wrap up her testimony.