Money Is the Focus as Honig Trial Opens : Education: Prosecution says the state schools chief profited from contracts he approved with his wife’s consulting firm. The defense says it was schools that gained.

Opening arguments in the felony conflict-of-interest trial of state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig were presented Monday, with prosecutors showing the jury a large chart depicting Honig sitting at a green desk allegedly awarding tainted contracts.

“Mr. Honig had a financial interest in the contracts,” Chief Assistant Atty. Gen. George Williamson told the seven women and five men on the Superior Court jury. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

In contrast, defense attorney Patrick Hallinan pictured Honig as a dedicated educator who attempted to help school children with a parent involvement program designed by his wife’s nonprofit consulting firm.

“He came to the state (government) with a program of school reform,” Hallinan said.

Honig is accused of four counts of conflict of interest in approving more than $337,000 in state Department of Education contracts with local educators who worked as consultants in setting up parent involvement programs in various schools. The programs were established in connection with the Quality Education Project, a nonprofit organization operated by Honig’s wife, Nancy.

The prosecution contends that the work of the publicly paid consultants resulted in the growth of QEP, which enabled Nancy Honig, who was president of the company, to gradually increase her salary from zero in 1984 to more than $100,000 in 1991.

“That’s how QEP grew,” Williamson told jurors. “When QEP incorporated (in 1982) they didn’t have diddly.” The growth of the organization, which had offices in the Honigs’ home, also allowed the couple to charge the company $1,000 per month rent, according to documents presented by the prosecution.

But Hallinan told the jury that QEP grew into a million-dollar organization because of Nancy Honig’s fund-raising efforts, not because of the contracts that led to the indictment.

Hallinan advised the jury to “follow the money,” and presented his own chart showing that $600,000 in private contributions were made to QEP, which in turn contributed the money to the public schools at the same time the $337,000 in contracts were in effect.

The consultants under contract, he said, were working for the Department of Education, not QEP, in setting up parent involvement programs in the schools.

“QEP was a charitable, nonprofit organization,” Hallinan told the jury, “and never received one nickel, not one penny from the Department of Education and not one penny from the local school districts. It was all done for nothing.”

Honig’s defense is also based on his contention that QEP was effective and that is why the contracts were approved. But every time Hallinan brought up the subject, Williamson objected and Judge James L. Long stopped Hallinan.

Even so, between objections Hallinan managed to say of QEP, in front of the jury, “It’s extremely effective. I won’t say it’s the best, but it’s effective.”

Hallinan’s references to the quality of the program were in apparent defiance of a ruling by Long that such assertions were irrelevant, and resulted in the judge repeatedly ordering the jury from the courtroom.

After sending the jury out of the courtroom for the third time in less than half an hour, Long’s voice rose as he told Hallinan, “I’m going to ask you nice. Don’t do that again.”

Honig has repeatedly been at odds with conservatives over issues such as school finances and the teaching of evolution and has maintained that his prosecution is politically motivated. But the one time that Hallinan mentioned politics in his opening statement, he was quickly cut off by an objection.