HARRISBURG -- Several staffers who worked for former state Rep. Mike Veon of Beaver Falls testified yesterday that they did nothing but campaign work for weeks at a time, often using printers, copiers and dozens of $300 toner cartridges paid for with public funds.

Testimony in the government corruption case is expected to continue today with two of the 12 defendants in the case expected to take the stand against their compatriots.

Two of the defendants were on the verge of making plea agreements in exchange for their testimony, said Philip Ignelzi, attorney for state Rep. Sean Ramaley.

"Two of the witnesses that are going to be testifying tomorrow we believe are presently defendants in the case. We don't know who they are," Mr. Ignelzi said after speaking with Anthony J. Krastek, the senior deputy attorney general prosecuting the case. "He specifically said they were trying to work out an agreement."

Kevin Harley, spokesman for the attorney general's office, could not be reached last night.

Ten defendants, including Mr. Veon and current and nine former House staffers, waived their rights to a preliminary hearing, leaving only Mr. Ramaley, D-Economy, and Mr. Veon's former district office manager, Anna Marie Peretta-Rosepink, as the only defendants having hearings.

Attorneys for Mr. Veon and defendant Brett Cott, a former policy analyst, said they waived their rights because preliminary hearings have a low burden of proof and because they didn't want the hearings to affect the outcome of the presidential and statewide elections on Nov. 4.

The waivers raised early suspicions that some of the defendants cut deals in exchange for cooperation.

"The question is, who cut deals and who is left standing at the end of the day?" said Robert Del Greco, Mr. Veon's attorney. The prospect concerns him, he said, because he believes his client is the major target of the prosecution.

Bryan Walk, attorney for Mr. Cott said yesterday afternoon that his client has not taken a deal.

"A lot of people caught up in this shouldn't be caught up to this extent and people who are not caught up in this that probably should be," Mr. Walk said during a break in the proceedings.

Back in the courtroom, witnesses described the election work being done at state expense between 2004 and 2006.

The work included preparing challenges to 2004 presidential candidate Ralph Nader's nominating petitions, they testified yesterday in Dauphin County Common Pleas Court.

The Nader effort was "massive and completely consuming," testified Melissa Lewis, who worked in Mr. Veon's office and now is caucus director of the Allegheny County delegation. "That's what we did all day long."

Others ran political phone banks, prepared mailings and campaigned door-to-door for candidates while being paid by the state, she said.

Staffers also were asked about Mr. Ramaley's work. Prosecutors allege Mr. Veon gave him a no-work state job so he could spend all his time running for office in 2004.

Ms. Lewis testified that she never saw Mr. Ramaley do legitimate legislative work during the month and a half of that they worked together in Mr. Veon's district office. Instead, he spent his time working on his own political campaign, she said.

On cross-examination, Mr. Ignelzi tried to establish that Ms. Lewis's testimony was based on hearsay. He suggested that Mr. Ramaley may have done legislative work that she didn't see because their desks were in different areas.

"You can't tell the court that Sean Ramaley never did any legislative work," Mr. Ignelzi said. "You don't know what he was doing."

"No, I only testified to what I witnessed," she responded.

Another prosecution witness, Stephen Webb, worked side-by-side with Mr. Ramaley for months.

Both were paid by the state to do legislative work, but their real jobs were to run Mr. Ramaley's campaign for state House, Mr. Webb said.

In other testimony, Harrisburg-based staffer Richard Pronesti said that he often was dispatched to Western Pennsylvania to work on campaigns of Mr. Veon and others and that his election-related travel expenses were normally charged to the state.

Mr. Cott and Mrs. Perretta-Rosepink coordinated the campaign work, he said, and Jeff Foreman, another former staffer charged in the case, instructed him to charge the expenses to taxpayer-funded accounts.

Joseph Tarquinio, an information technology employee, testified that taxpayers also paid for dozens of toner cartridges used to print campaign literature.

"They used the campaign offices [at first] but the volume was so much the equipment couldn't handle it all, so the copier in the legislative office or the printers [were used,]" Mr. Tarquinio said. "The toners came from Harrisburg, from our office" and sometimes two a day were used. They cost at least $300 each, he said.

Another legislative assistant, Janet MacNeil, testified that she began working on campaigns out of Mr. Veon's office in 2003. Then, she was employed by Lend-A-Hand Network, a nonprofit organization created by Mr. Veon, funded by the state. It operated out of the same large office as Mr. Veon's district office and another Veon-created nonprofit, Beaver Initiative for Growth. She described work for all three enterprises as being intertwined with each other and with campaign work.

"It was just natural. [Campaign work] was what everybody did. We all did it," she said.

Mr. Ramaley observed stoically from the defense table. Seated next to him, Ms. Perretta-Rosepink passed frequent notes to her attorney. Neither took the stand.

The hearing is set to continue today in Harrisburg.

The corruption investigation was spurred by newspaper revelations that millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded bonuses were distributed to staffers as veiled compensation for campaign work.