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By JOE MANDAK, Associated Press Writer
Wed Dec 19, 1:32 PM ET



PITTSBURGH - Celebrity pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht � a contrarian who has enjoyed the spotlight ever since he challenged the findings that a lone gunman killed President Kennedy � is a famously combative figure who is known to open up with both barrels when criticized.



So it is no surprise that Wecht is battling federal fraud charges with the same aggressiveness, in both the halls of justice and the court of public opinion.

Wecht, 76, served two 10-year stints in Pittsburgh as the elected county coroner while also consulting on many big cases around the nation, including the deaths of Elvis Presley and JonBenet Ramsey.

He goes on trial next month on charges he used county resources and staff to benefit his private practice from 1996 to 2005. His attorneys say the charges are either false or amount to minor infractions, such as the improper use of fax machines.

Wecht has enlisted former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh's law firm for his defense, and Thornburgh took his case to Congress, claiming Wecht is being targeted by a Republican federal prosecutor in Pittsburgh because he is a Democrat. The prosecutor denied the accusation, and the judge in the case ruled the claim cannot be raised at trial, in part because Wecht's lawyers previously argued the charges resulted from Wecht's feud with a Democratic district attorney.

Thornburgh appeared in Wecht's defense on CNN's "Larry King Live," where the pathologist has also been a frequent guest, commenting on major criminal cases in the news.

Wecht's lawyers also tried to get U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab removed, arguing that he had ignored rules of evidence, antagonized defense attorneys and prejudged the case. A federal appeals court rejected the challenge, but chided the judge for complicating the case by admitting 300,000 pages of documents into evidence over strenuous defense objections.

More recently, the government revealed, Wecht wrote a letter to a potential witness in the case that seemed reminiscent of the poison-pen mail the coroner has sent to his critics over the years. Prosecutors said the letter was meant to intimidate the witness.

The potential witness is a German Jew who for years has publicly sparred with Wecht, who is also Jewish, over Israeli politics and other matters. The Sept. 24 letter includes a passage attacking the man's views as anti-Semitic:

"What makes your Bavarian garden bloom so well? If you tell me the truth, I promise not to tell. Presumably, ample fertilizer is the underlying basis. Would using exterminated Jews be considered too racist?"

Wecht's attorneys said prosecutors submitted the letter in an attempt to prejudice potential jurors.

In an unusual move, the judge has said he wants to seat an anonymous jury, though he hasn't spelled out why.

Prosecutors did not ask for an anonymous jury, but said Wecht's confrontational style could make jurors afraid of becoming the target of lawsuits or criticism.

Attorney Jerry McDevitt, the point man on Wecht's defense, objected to the selection of an anonymous jury, complaining in court papers that Wecht is being treated as if he were "some mobster."

More to the point, McDevitt said, is that Wecht's expert testimony in murder cases has put people in prison, and he has a right to know the potential jurors' names in case one of them is connected to those cases.

"If I'm Hatfield, I want to know if McCoy is on my jury," McDevitt said.

Wecht probably faces only probation or a short prison sentence at most if convicted, but a conviction could reduce the considerable demand for his services.

Most recently, he has consulted on the death of Anna Nicole Smith's son, Daniel; the death of a distraught, handcuffed woman at the Phoenix airport; and the reported suicide of the black mayor of Westlake, La.

Prosecutors have not put a figure on the amount of the alleged fraud, but they said Wecht's private practice grossed nearly $9 million from 1997 through 2004.

His tactics since the indictment reflect a growing belief by some defense lawyers that they need to counter high-profile charges with high-profile defenses, experts say.

"When the prosecutor makes a splash with the announcement of a prosecution, it's perceived by some defense counsel as something that needs to be counteracted," said Philadelphia attorney Thomas Wilkinson Jr., editor of the Pennsylvania Bar Association's ethics handbook.

New York trial attorney Jack Hoffinger, a former ethics professor at Columbia Law School and an expert on trial tactics, said such a strategy must be pursued with care.

"You do your best not to get the prosecutor's nose out of joint," he said. "If you make an ad hominem attack on a prosecutor, that could come back to haunt you."

Wecht first gained fame in 1964 when he was asked by a forensic scientists' group to review the Warren Commission report on Kennedy's assassination.

He dismissed the single-bullet theory as "nonsense."