HARRISBURG -- A former assistant to Mike Veon told jurors today that an investigator screamed at her and drove her to tears during an interview that was part of a government corruption investigation.

Nancy Thompson, who worked for the former state representative, said prosecutor James Reeder tried to get her to say she saw stacks of election petitions in Mr. Veon's Capitol office by asking her the same question again and again.

"I said, no I don't remember the stacks on the table, and he just screamed at me," Ms. Thompson told a jury. "He would get very upset with me and he would make me cry when I could not remember. . . . It got ridiculous."

She said Mr. Reeder told her during the interview that she must have been the only person in Mr. Veon's office doing legislative work because others had already indicated that they spent the majority of their time on political work.

Ms. Thompson is the second witness in the Bonusgate corruption case to accuse Mr. Reeder of such conduct.

Former state Rep. Dan Surra testified Monday that Mr. Reeder cursed at him and called him a liar during a separate investigative interview two years ago.

Senior Deputy Attorney General E. Marc Costanzo said later there was "vulgarity on both sides" during the Surra interview and the meeting was "not a happy event."

Mr. Reeder was not in court today, but Mr. Costanzo responded on his behalf. He said Mr. Reeder acted properly during his interview of Ms. Thompson. He indicated that the repetitive questioning was aimed at getting to the truth in the interview.

"She was clearly trying to slant what she was remembering, and it is a normal investigative technique when questions aren't being answered directly to ask again in a number of ways to elicit a complete response," Mr. Costanzo said in an interview outside the courtroom.

"There was an extravaganza of campaign work going all around her, and what she said in the [interview] was that she saw none of it," he said.

During the interview, and initially on the stand today, Ms. Thompson said she never saw nominating petitions in Mr. Veon's office. On further questioning today, though, she said she saw staffers going in and out of the office with copies of petitions related to the Ralph Nader presidential campaign.

According to other witnesses' testimony, dozens of caucus staffers spent a week scrutinizing the petitions for errors that would get Mr. Nader knocked off the 2004 presidential ballot because Democrats feared he would siphon votes from John Kerry.

In other testimony, Ms. Thompson said she often worked on political campaigns, but never on state time or in the Capitol.

She said there is a "culture of campaign work in the entire Capitol" and that many employees took legislative jobs because they cared about politics.

On trial with Mr. Veon are former legislative aides Brett Cott, Stephen Keefer and Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink. All are charged with theft, conflict of interest and conspiracy for allegedly scheming to use public resources to run political campaigns.

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