Illinois Congressman Faces Trial in Sexual Assault Case : Courts: Mel Reynolds is accused of having relations with a teen-age worker. She has recanted, but prosecutors hope to introduce taped calls.

Rep. Mel Reynolds (D-Ill.) faces trial today by prosecutors who say they have testimony, explicit phone calls and financial records to prove he had sex with an underage campaign worker and tried to cover it up.

However, much of that evidence could be barred from the trial.

Meanwhile, the prosecutors’ biggest headache may be the worker herself, 19-year-old Beverly Heard, who claimed a year ago that she had sex with Reynolds when she was 16 and 17.

For the last six months, Heard has denied her accusations and has said she won’t testify.

Prosecutors are still expected to call her as a witness, but if she refuses to talk, that could endanger some of the state’s key evidence, including sexually detailed telephone conversations between the two that were recorded by police.

Defense attorneys say most of the evidence proves nothing illegal, that without Heard’s testimony much of it is inadmissible, and that it is the poisoned fruit of an overzealous investigation by a politically motivated Republican prosecutor.

Reynolds goes further, claiming he was unfairly targeted by white authorities because he is black.

Cook County Circuit Judge Fred G. Suria won’t decide whether any of the state’s evidence is admissible until the trial is under way, but prosecutors still want to refer to it in opening statements to the jury.

The congressman is charged with criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual abuse, child pornography and obstruction of justice. He is accused of having a sexual affair with Heard, asking her to get him lewd photos of a younger girl, then arranging false affidavits and encouraging her to avoid authorities when he learned of the investigation.

Prosecutors say Reynolds was behind Heard’s surprise recantation and want to introduce evidence of that, along with evidence that he had a similar affair with another young woman and tried to block that investigation.

The prosecution of Reynolds is remarkable, even in a city accustomed to headlines about bribe-taking lawmakers and judges. And it has marked the unraveling of what seemed to be a promising career.

Reynolds, 43, is married with three children. He was born poor in rural Mississippi but studied at Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. He won his seat in Congress in 1992 after three bitter races against Rep. Gus Savage, who became a symbol of racial antagonism for his tirades against whites and Jews.