Did Dr. Cyril H. Wecht abuse his position as Allegheny County coroner to strike an illegal body-trading deal with Carlow University and profit from free lab space in exchange for corpses?

Or did Dr. Wecht properly use his authority as coroner to legally provide cadavers to advance education at no personal benefit?

Those conflicting interpretations were presented yesterday to jurors as the prosecution and defense see-sawed back and forth in their last day questioning Sister Grace Ann Geibel, Carlow's former president and architect of the school's autopsy technician program run by Dr. Wecht.

How Dr. Wecht procured bodies for the program has become a key point of contention as the government tries to prove its 41-count indictment alleging that Dr. Wecht used his public office for private gain.

As the seventh week of the trial commenced yesterday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen S. Stallings did not provide jurors with any overt evidence of a quid-pro-quo agreement, nor did he show any documents or elicit testimony about a straight bodies-for-lab-space deal.

What he did do was have Sister Geibel acknowledge key points that helped build his case to jurors.

She testified that Dr. Wecht did indeed receive free lab space at Carlow for his private autopsy practice beginning in 2003.

She also said cadavers were regularly sent from the morgue to the school, that Dr. Wecht was responsible for getting the bodies, that she relied on him to comply with the law and that the issue of bodies and lab space was the subject of internal discussions.

But defense attorney Jerry McDevitt had Sister Geibel reiterate earlier testimony -- that she and Dr. Wecht never discussed or agreed to free lab space in return for unclaimed bodies from the morgue. Mr. McDevitt complained that the government had made his client out to be a "body snatcher."

Mr. McDevitt noted that bodies were not sent to Carlow from the morgue until September 2004, and that Dr. Wecht had enjoyed free lab space prior to those transfers and continues to enjoy it to this day.

"Carlow apparently doesn't care because they got what they bargained for?" Mr. McDevitt asked.

"Yes, essentially Dr. Wecht's expertise," Sister Geibel said.

Mr. Stallings asked Sister Geibel whether Dr. Wecht had ever discussed with her how much he was paying for lab space at the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science, where he was conducting autopsies before moving to Carlow, or how his rent at the East Liberty facility was going to increase as high as $60,000 a year from $12,000. She said no.

Mr. Stallings then asked whether Dr. Wecht told her "how financially valuable his ability to use Carlow's lab space was to him?"

"I don't recall that," Sister Geibel answered, "but I sure do recall thinking about how incredibly valuable it was for him to do the autopsies as the basis of our academic program."