HARRISBURG -- Dan Raynak is a fast-talking Arizona lawyer who makes witnesses stammer and fills courtrooms with his overpowering presence and volume.

Joel Sansone, an intense Pittsburgh attorney, is his cross-country mirror image.

One a high-profile criminal lawyer, the other an outspoken civil-rights attorney, they have been best friends for 40 years. And together they are a former state representative's best chance of avoiding conviction in a high-profile government-corruption case that has become known as Bonusgate.

Mr. Raynak and Mr. Sansone, both 52, are leading the criminal defense team for their client, former Beaver County state Rep. Mike Veon, who is being tried with three former legislative aides for their alleged roles in a scheme to use tax dollars to run political campaigns of House Democratic incumbents. Seven others already have pleaded guilty and are expected to testify against Mr. Veon and former staffers Brett Cott, Stephen Keefer and Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink.

Jury selection begins today, and testimony is to begin Feb. 1.

With aggressive courtroom styles that sway juries and unnerve witnesses, Mr. Raynak and Mr. Sansone argue points of law, shoot rapid-fire questions and bark objections. It's not unusual that they have similar styles: They have been inseparable since seventh grade, when they lived next door to each other in New Castle, were altar boys together at St. Camillus Catholic Church and attended law school at Duquesne at the same time.

Although they now live 2,066 miles apart -- Mr. Raynak in Phoenix and Mr. Sansone in Pittsburgh -- they see each other often on family vacations and visits to each others' homes.

Mr. Raynak first learned of the charges against Mr. Veon from an administrator at Allegheny College, where he and Mr. Veon had once been football teammates. He asked Mr. Veon if he needed legal help, and looped in Mr. Sansone, who had never met Mr. Veon.

Because Mr. Raynak doesn't have a Pennsylvania law license, he needed court permission to represent Mr. Veon as well as co-counsel licensed to practice in the state.

Since then, Mr. Raynak has been traveling from Phoenix to Harrisburg for motion hearings and strategy sessions.

"This isn't a case I'd do for anyone else," Mr. Raynak said. "This is a client that Joel and I fervently believe is innocent."

Mr. Raynak is known for being a tough litigator who is, at times, abrasive with opposing counsel and witnesses.

"I've seen people go from very smug and confident on the witness stand, but once they realize I'm going to go into painstaking detail to discredit them, that changes," Mr. Raynak said in a telephone interview from his home in Arizona.

"Dishonesty ticks me off. My goal is to get to the truth. If you know what people said previously [in depositions and grand-jury testimony] you can catch them when they say something different."

On the stand, "If you're strong-willed and you shoot from the hip and you're honest, you have nothing to worry about. But if you're lying, he'll know it, and he's good at trying to intimidate you if you're lying," said Susan Leong, a longtime judicial assistant to Arizona Superior Court Judge John R. Ditsworth, who has presided over numerous cases where Mr. Raynak defended.

Mr. Sansone, meanwhile, has a reputation as a fearless and outspoken defender of human rights who once publicly lambasted city police for failing to prevent a 2004 kidnapping.

Recently, he was a part of a team of lawyers who persuaded a federal jury to award more than $28 million to the father of Michael Ellerbe, a 12-year-old boy who was shot and killed as he ran from state troopers in Uniontown in 2002.

Mr. Sansone billed $400 an hour for his work on that case. Overall, the defense team -- which included $1,000-an-hour Michigan attorney Geoffrey Fieger -- charged the state more than $1 million.

Mr. Raynak and Mr. Sansone would not say how much they are charging Mr. Veon but did confirm that they are not working pro bono.

Neither is an expert on white-collar crime, but both promise to provide a defense as vigorous as any of their careers.

The pair would not discuss their strategies in Mr. Veon's corruption case, but court motions show they may build their case around accusations of misconduct by lawyers for the attorney general's office, which is prosecuting the case. They have claimed that the attorneys are selectively prosecuting political rivals and failing to disclose evidence that could clear Mr. Veon.

Mr. Raynak has been successful with previous claims of prosecutorial misconduct in Arizona, including in a 2006 death-penalty case.

Outside of court, Mr. Raynak and Mr. Sansone are buddies who find joy in bathroom humor, family vacations and memories of law school antics, including the time they arrived for a major exam at Duquesne University dressed as the Blues Brothers in $10 thrift-store suits, dusty pork-pie hats and sunglasses.

When they're together, they're in a perpetual game of one-upsmanship.

When Mr. Sansone starts to tell how he worked his way through law school washing dishes, Mr. Raynak interrupts to offer his own tale of pulling truck axles out of hot ovens at Rockwell International in New Castle.

"How does that beat your dish-washing story, Joel?" he asks.

"That's amazing. I'll bet your hands are still blistered," Mr. Sansone interjects with more than a hint of sarcasm.

Their banter never stops. Neither, it seems, do their ties to each over.

"He's my best friend and I can barely stand him," Mr. Raynak said. He's joking, but only about the second part.

They know all of each other's secrets, but they prefer to talk about each other's strengths.

"The thing most on the edge about Dan is he will fight to the very, very, very bitter end, and sometimes it's hard to watch. Even when he knows he's going to lose, he fights anyway," Mr. Sansone said.

Those losses are few and far between.

A search of news reports turn up example after example of acquittals and dismissals, including in three consecutive death-penalty cases he defended.

"I don't know that that's ever happened before in Arizona, having three straight death-penalty cases dismissed or acquitted," Mr. Raynak said.

In another case, 10 boys had been charged in a reported gang rape. Nine of them either pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial. Mr. Raynak's client was the only one whose case was dismissed.

Most of Mr. Sansone's cases, meanwhile, have been in the civil arena and with mixed results.

In 2007 he represented an Indiana County nonprofit group in an unsuccessful fight to block a school consolidation plan. He represented former Deputy Superintendent Lynn Spampinato in a spat over the terms of her abrupt departure from Pittsburgh Public Schools in 2006. He also has fought for numerous plaintiffs in age-discrimination and race-discrimination cases.

Mr. Raynak's clientele, meanwhile, has included defendants in some of Arizona's most violent sex-crime and capital-murder cases.

"Most of the people I've met who've been charged with crimes are not bad human beings. They are sometimes uneducated, they get messed up with drugs, they have mental health problems or they've made mistakes in their lives. There's a small percentage of individuals who have no real conscience and are truly bad people, but that number is much smaller than what the public perceives," he said. "I believe in doing the best I can, even for a client I might not like or that might not even be very nice to me."

He said his success comes from his insistence on preparing all his motions and conducting all his pre-trial interviews himself. Other attorneys typically rely on law clerks and hired investigators for such things. Their way may be more efficient, Mr. Raynak conceded, but his way ensures he is better prepared for trial.

He is approaching Mr. Veon's case the same way, but for one thing -- reliance on Mr. Sansone as co-counsel.

First Published: January 19, 2010, 10:00 a.m.