When the news broke about how former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo had secretly pressured Peco Energy Co. for a $17 million charitable donation, Mr. Fumo stated that he hadn't personally enriched himself through the deal.

"I don't get any benefits from it," Mr. Fumo once said of the nonprofit that got the Peco millions.

Yesterday, a federal prosecutor played Mr. Fumo a tape of his own voice saying that back in 2004. He accused Mr. Fumo of lying and demanded that he explain his remarks.

Mr. Fumo said his meaning was this: He took no salary out of the Peco money raised for Citizens' Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, the nonprofit he called "my baby," though he did take thousands of dollars in tools and other consumer goods.

He acknowledged that he didn't want to answer the question back then "in a way that let people know I got perks and gifts."

Still, he insisted he hadn't lied. Rather, he said, "I chose my words carefully."

On the witness stand for the fourth day in his federal corruption trial, Mr. Fumo also said he didn't report the gifts on his state ethics forms, or on his tax returns. And he said he wasn't required to do so.

What Mr. Fumo disclosed -- or didn't disclose -- was the subject of intense cross-examination as Assistant U.S. Attorney John J. Pease questioned Mr. Fumo about a slew of gifts from the nonprofit: power tools, farm equipment and other items worth more than $60,000.

The day-long questioning grew so fierce that at one point, Mr. Fumo made a stunning admission.

"In retrospect," he testified, "I wish I never got elected to the Senate."

Mr. Fumo, who had been one of most powerful Democrats in Harrisburg, served in the Senate for 30 years until his retirement last Nov. 30.

But the sharpest jousting took place in connection with the 2004 WHYY-FM radio interview during which Mr. Fumo said he didn't get "any benefit" from Citizens' Alliance.

Confronted with an FBI analysis of store receipts and credit-card bills, Mr. Fumo has now acknowledged that he did in fact get a slew of goods from the nonprofit.

Mr. Pease bored in on Mr. Fumo's answers in the radio interview.

"You didn't want anybody to know," the prosecutor challenged him.

"I didn't want people outside Citizens' knowing anything except what they had to know," replied Mr. Fumo.

Mr. Fumo's lawyers have suggested he deserved compensation for serving as the group's de facto executive director.

But yesterday, Mr. Fumo said the money wasn't compensation. It was a gift, he said.

Since the items were gifts, Mr. Fumo said, he wasn't required to file a report on his state ethics forms because the legislative code of ethics trumps the state ethics law, and the legislative code does not require that gifts be reported.

Mr. Fumo cited a similar rationale in explaining why he had never reported the value of the gifts on this income tax forms.

"I am required under the tax laws to report income, but not gifts," he said.

Mr. Fumo remained somber and calm, his voice husky as he responded to hours of questions. He is due back on the stand when the trial resumes Tuesday.

Mr. Fumo, 65, is charged with 139 counts of conspiracy, tax violations, defrauding the Senate by having taxpayer-paid staff and consultants do personal tasks for him or work on his campaigns, getting free yacht cruises from the Independence Seaport Museum and obstructing justice.

During yesterday's session, Mr. Fumo admitted that he had his Senate staff ship him -- at Senate expense -- hair spray, Earl Grey tea and hazelnut coffee, as well as medication, magazines and other personal items to his Florida vacation home.

Pease also got Mr. Fumo to concede that his Senate staff fixed the home entertainment center at his house, installed a stereo in his power boats, paid his bills, banked his rents as landlord and worked on his campaigns.

Mr. Fumo kept insisting that his aides volunteered for all this duty and that at the time he thought none of the work was "a big deal."