Both Sides Set for Long Honig Trial : Court: The state schools chief calls the conflict-of-interest charges against him a ‘right-wing conspiracy.’ Prosecutors argue that he and his wife misused public funds.

After a year of legal maneuvering and bitter accusations of political persecution, the felony conflict-of-interest trial of state schools chief Bill Honig is to begin Monday in Superior Court.

In a rare criminal action against an elected statewide official, the superintendent of public instruction is charged with four counts of conflict of interest in alleged misuse of state funds in connection with the operation of his wife’s nonprofit educational consulting firm.

It promises to be a lengthy and complicated case. Attorneys for both sides estimate that the proceedings will take four to six weeks and they plan to call 40 to 45 witnesses, some of whom will testify on arcane matters of accounting and auditing. The fine points of state conflict-of-interest laws and the question of criminal intent are also expected to be key issues.

The California attorney general’s office alleges that more than $337,OOO in state and federal money was used to pay consultants for Nancy Honig’s Quality Education Project, which provided parent-involvement programs in various school districts.

As evidence of personal gain by the Honigs, prosecutors point to the $108,000 salary paid to Nancy Honig in 1990 as program president of QEP and to $30,000 in rent paid by the organization for use of rooms in the couple’s Pacific Heights residence in San Francisco.

Honig’s defense team, even though it failed on a number of occasions to get the charges thrown out of court, continues to scoff at the prosecution’s case.

“It’s so squishy it’s like something out of ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ ” said chief defense attorney Patrick Hallinan, a member of a well-known and colorful San Francisco family of lawyers, who will be pitted against Deputy Atty. Gen. Cynthia Besemer, a veteran prosecutor. “You say to yourself, ‘Why are we here?’ ”

“I think that’s an insult to the grand jury process,” responded Dave Puglia, press secretary for Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren. “Those (defense) attorneys have brought a number of challenges to the indictment. None of those were successful. So clearly, the court has found that this is a serious matter.”

Honig’s attorneys will argue that Nancy Honig worked for QEP for more than three years before she was paid and that when she was finally given a year’s salary, the money came from private donations, not public funds.

She resigned as program president of the organization last January. The Honigs have also stated that the rent money they received for use of their home went for the cost of remodeling rooms so that QEP could use them as offices.

Bill Honig, a Democrat who has been at odds with conservatives over school finances and the teaching of evolution, termed the grand jury indictment against him last March the result of a “right-wing conspiracy.”

But Lungren, a conservative Republican, has stated that the inquiry into QEP began with his predecessor, John K. Van de Kamp, a liberal Democrat.

If convicted on all counts, Honig would be forced out of office and face a prison sentence of up to 12 years. Whatever the outcome of the jury trial, Honig has said he will not seek reelection to the post he has held since 1983.

At the heart of the case is the 10-year-old Quality Education Program. QEP contracts with school districts in California and Mississippi to help local schools, mainly in low-income areas, improve parent involvement in the educational process.

Critics say the program does little more than encourage parents to get involved in their children’s education. But defenders say the organization offers local educators valuable techniques for increasing the participation of low-income and minority parents.

QEP became one of the most successful programs of its kind in the country and by early last year was working in more than 300 schools in 54 school districts, most of them in California.

Prosecutors maintain that the program gained success illegally because local school district officials would be intimidated into contracting with any program run by the wife of the state’s superintendent of public education.

Moreover, prosecutors say that $337,509 in public funds was in effect laundered to pay four QEP employees in three school districts--Fremont Unified in Alameda County, Sweetwater Union High School in San Diego County and Pasadena Unified in Los Angeles County. Prosecutors contend that the four school employees worked directly for QEP but received their salaries through the state Department of Education.

The Honigs reply that all the work contracted for was provided by QEP and that the programs were highly successful. The Honigs also argue that the program did not cost taxpayers money; Nancy Honig herself raised $8 million in private donations that has been used to run the programs.