Nov. 18, 2010, 3:48PM

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7300944.html

AUSTIN – Testimony has ended in the political money laundering trial of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

"That, ladies and gentlemen, is the evidence in the case," visiting state district Judge Pat Priest told the jury.

Closing statements are scheduled for Monday.

DeLay's defense team on Thursday sought to distance him from a meeting on his calendar that was attended by a political aide involved in an alleged political money laundering scheme in 2002.

Two former House aides testified that they did not believe DeLay attended a Sept. 11, 2002, meeting and that it was only on his schedule for informational purposes.

DeLay's defense has been trying to contend that he did not learn about a Sept. 13, 2002, corporate money swap of $190,000 until political aide Jim Ellis told him about it on Oct. 2.

Defense lawyer Dick DeGuerin on Wednesday introduced DeLay's personal schedules to show he did not meet with Ellis during the crucial time period.

But Travis County prosecutors seized on a Sept. 11 meeting on the schedule that showed Ellis in attendance. The meeting was set for 1-2:30 p.m. Documents showed that at 11:58 a.m. Ellis' office received a Federal Express package that contained the blank check used in the transaction.

DeGuerin on Thursday tried to undo any damage from the missed entry by eliciting testimony from two former DeLay legislative aides that he was unlikely to have attended the meeting.

Former scheduler Mary Ellen Bos, of Houston, and former Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Flynn said the meeting probably was on DeLay's schedule so he would know it was going on, not so he could attend.

"That would not necessarily have been a meeting for Tom," Flynn said.

The meeting was set up so Ellis, the director of DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority, could coordinate political scheduling with DeLay's congressional staff, Flynn said.

Two of the key issues in the case have been whether DeLay knew about the corporate money swap before it occurred and whether he had any control over the transaction.

In a statement DeLay gave to prosecutors in 2005, he said he knew about it before it happened, but believed it was legal.

DeLay told reporters last week that he probably could have stopped the transaction, but did not because it was the kind of thing both Republicans and Democrats did at the time.

DeLay, Ellis and Texans for a Republican Majority Executive Director John Colyandro are accused of scheming to circumvent a Texas ban on corporate money in candidate campaigns in 2002 by swapping $190,000 in corporate money with the Republican National Committee for a like amount of eligible money for seven state House candidates.