A nursing assistant at the defunct Atrium I Nursing and Rehabilitation Center told a federal grand jury that the center's former administrator and former treasurer urged him to lie in court about a resident's death, according to evidence presented yesterday in U.S. District Court.

Harold Whipkey also told the grand jury that Warren Mason, the former treasurer, coached him last year on explaining contradictions between investigators' findings and his statement about the death of resident Mabel Taylor in 2001, according to a grand jury transcript read during a trial for the nursing home and its former administrator, Martha Bell.

"If I was to come to court, I was to say I was a pathological liar," Whipkey told the grand jury last year. "That would clear Martha."

Bell, 59, of West Mifflin, and the nursing home are on trial on charges of defrauding Medicare and Medicaid and making false statements to hide fraud and poor care of patients, many of whom had Alzheimer's disease.

Bell and the nursing home's parent corporation also face trial in November on manslaughter, neglect and other state charges in the death of Taylor on Oct. 26, 2001, after she was trapped in a locked courtyard on a 40-degree night.

Whipkey testified yesterday that he'd written a false statement for investigators, saying he'd seen Taylor sitting indoors on a love seat about three hours before her body was found in the courtyard. He also said he didn't know if Bell, who asked him to write it, knew the statement wasn't true.

That prompted Assistant U.S. Attorney Leo Dillon to read Whipkey's previous testimony to the grand jury that Bell knew the statement was false but told him to write it anyway. Whipkey also told the grand jury that Bell and Mason later came to his home and asked him to stand by the statement, even though Whipkey had been at a karaoke bar on the night Taylor died.

Whipkey attributed the conflicts in his testimony to memory loss resulting from a mugging in 1993. He told defense attorneys he no longer could clearly recall events surrounding Taylor's death and said his grand jury testimony was spurred by fear he'd be jailed if he didn't say what investigators wanted to hear.

He also acknowledged taking two expense-paid gambling trips to the Trump Taj Mahal Hotel, Casino and Resort in Atlantic City with Bell and Mason after his grand jury appearance. He said Bell's court proceedings weren't discussed on those trips.