PITTSBURGH — Federal prosecutors in Pittsburgh will seek to drop 27 of 41 counts against celebrity pathologist Cyril Wecht before his retrial and will ask that the trial be moved 120 miles away to Erie due to "saturation" local media coverage.

U.S. District Judge Sean McLaughlin had planned to set a new trial date at a status conference Friday, but decided not to do so because he expects pretrial arguments to delay the coroner's second trial anyway.

Prosecutors say Wecht, the former Allegheny County coroner, used government staff and equipment to benefit his lucrative private practice. The notable forensic expert has used the private practice to investigate numerous famous deaths, including those of JonBenet Ramsey, Vince Foster and Elvis Presley.

At Friday's hearing, prosecutors revealed that they would, for the second time since Wecht's January 2006 indictment, reduce the number of counts against him.

Wecht was originally indicted on 84 theft- and fraud-related counts.

Prosecutors dismissed 43 of the counts to "streamline" the complicated case before the first trial. Jurors heard seven weeks of testimony and then deliberated for more than 50 hours over 11 days, but they could not agree on a verdict and a mistrial was declared in April.

McLaughlin is expected to grant the motion to dismiss 27 counts of theft of honest services, because Wecht's defense team doesn't object. That would leave Wecht facing 14 counts.

"They've dropped 70 felony charges against this man that we've had to defend against for two years," said Wecht's attorney, Jerry McDevitt. "I don't get the sense that anybody (in the public) wants this man put through this ordeal again."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Leo Dillon said dismissing the charges will further simplify the case for the jury, but that the underlying allegations will remain the same.

Prosecutors contend that Wecht used deputy coroners, secretaries and lab workers to run errands and do work on private cases, and that he sent bills and other correspondence to his private clients using the county's fax machine.

Each of the 27 counts being dismissed deals with a particular alleged misuse of county personnel or equipment. But those allegations form the basis of five remaining counts of stealing more than $5,000 from the county in the calendar years 2001-2005.

McDevitt said he'll argue before trial that such "aggregate" thefts cannot be legally proven by cobbling together the value of "petty offenses," such as fax machine use and having deputies drive Wecht to the airport on private business.

Wecht also will face four counts of mail fraud and five wire fraud counts that accuse him of overbilling private clients.