UPDATE : Lawmaker’s Trial Rivets Politically Jaded Chicago : Rep. Reynolds is accused of sexual misconduct. Graphic taped phone calls are key evidence.

To a political culture jaded by the everyday routine of government corruption, the week-old sexual misconduct trial of U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds is playing out like a breath of foul air, riveting public fascination here like few other court cases in recent years.

A two-term Democratic congressman who was once the darling of Chicago’s “lakefront liberal” political Establishment, Reynolds, 43, has sat stoically for the last six days inside a dimly lit Cook County courtroom as his reputation has been shredded.

Prosectors depict him as a predator who used the prestige of his office to seduce an underage campaign worker. Even his defense attorneys have tarnished his image, constructing a novel defense on his behalf by claiming that Reynolds is guilty only of a weakness for legal “phone sex.”

In dizzying testimony, jurors have listened--some snickering, others eyes agog--to conversations so raw that a police witness stammered as she tried to describe them.

Lawyers on both sides have themselves been left baffled by the behavior of Beverly Heard, 19, Reynolds’ alleged victim, who brought the case against the congressman a year ago, then recanted her testimony. Heard was called to the stand three times last week to testify for the prosecution, but refused, invoking her constitutional rights against self-incrimination. Heard has spent the last five days in the county jail, imprisoned for contempt by an annoyed Judge Fred G. Suria Jr., who insists there is no legal grounds for Heard to plead the Fifth Amendment.

Whatever the verdict, the transcripts of Reynolds’ ribald conversations have taken on a life of their own. Recited word-for-word by talk radio hosts and printed in exhaustive detail by the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times, the tapes all but ensure that Reynolds’ once-promising political career is in full meltdown--even if he manages to survive his legal woes.

“It’s not exactly the kind of thing you want voters to remember next time they go to the voting booth,” said Alton Miller, a veteran Democratic Party activist and consultant.

Outside the courtroom, Reynolds portrays the case against him as a politically motivated grudge initiated by Cook County State’s Atty. Jack O’Malley, a media-conscious Republican. Reynolds accused O’Malley of “overzealousness,” using “all [his] resources to get me--and for what?”

Defense attorney Sam Adam has suggested that Reynolds also was being targeted because of his prominence as a black lawmaker, a charge denied by O’Malley’s spokesman, Andy Knott. Prosecutors say Heard came to them first, launching a case that was too strong not to prosecute.

Reynolds, married with three children, is accused on 12 counts, including criminal sexual assault on a minor, soliciting child pornography and obstructing justice by trying to dissuade Heard from testifying.

A poor Mississippi bayou child smart enough to win a Rhodes scholarship, Reynolds became a political player here in 1992 by defeating Rep. Gus Savage, a black congressman who alienated white and Jewish voters with an inflammatory campaign that some decried as anti-Semitic.

Perceived as an independent mind in a congressional delegation obsessed with patronage, Reynolds won over influential leaders of the city’s political Establishment by criticizing Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and former gang members who tried to win City Council seats.

But his high moral perch swayed last year with news that he was under investigation for sexual trysts with Heard. With the public release of their explicit phone conversations last week, Reynolds has fast become a target for local comedians and pundits.

“This isn’t what Alexander Graham Bell had in mind for his invention,” said Tribune columnist Mike Royko, who was sympathetic enough to Reynolds to note: “But if everybody who talks dirty on the phone was in jail, we’d be free of rush-hour traffic.”

Reynolds’ ordeal began when prosecutor Andrea Zopp read excerpts of his conversations with Heard in an attempt to show that the two had relations dating back three years, when Heard was 16. “I apologize,” Zopp said to the jury. “It’s the language Congressman Reynolds chose to use.”

What followed were passages in which Reynolds talked graphically about sexual acts with Heard and about her peach-colored underwear. Trying to look as dignified as possible, Reynolds listened to his own voice--sometimes chortling, sometimes lowered to a husky whisper--talk obsessively about sex.

All week, the congressman’s lawyers have bluntly acknowledged Reynolds’ phone contacts with Heard, yet adamantly insisted that they never acted on their words.

“What he likes is phone sex,” said defense lawyer Adam. “Loves it. Loves to talk on the phone.” Adam added: “Yes, he did say those things. So what? It’s not a crime.”

So far, in a trial expected to last three weeks, Reynolds has found a crucial ally in Heard, whose silence has bolstered his contention that he only talked a good game. Wide-eyed in fright, Heard has pleaded her constitutional rights against self-incrimination, refusing to testify.

“The state is entitled to know the truth,” said Suria during one fruitless exchange. “And you’re holding both [sides] in great peril.”

Complaining that Heard is trying to shield Reynolds, prosecutors are relying this week on former congressional staffers and other witnesses who claim Heard may have been funneled hush money to avoid testifying. Still, without her cooperation, the state’s case rests mostly on Reynolds’ breathless words.

“Obviously, it is quite embarrassing,” Reynolds told Royko in a brief interview. He added: “But did you see the jury? They were laughing. Apparently, they don’t think it’s so serious.”