On the day the prosecution rested, a forensic accountant testified that the Sacramento library's costs for maintenance upgrades didn't "pass the smell test," while one of the defendants took the stand to say he didn't know anything shady was going on.

Deputy District Attorney Mike Blazina concluded his monthlong case Wednesday by calling a former state Department of Justice financial crimes auditor, who detailed alleged overpayments in 1,400 library maintenance projects from April 2004 through July 2007.

The auditor, Edward Hudson, told a Sacramento Superior Court jury that two maintenance firms controlled by one defendant received payments of $1,343,896 – first from from the city, then from the Sacramento Library Authority. In turn, the firms paid their contractors $562,500.89, Hudson said.

He called the 139 percent markup excessive compared with the 7 percent to 10 percent profit margins that he said he would expect companies to generate.

"It doesn't pass the smell test," Hudson testified.

The head of the two companies that presented the bills to the library, Janie Rankins-Mayle, 62, is charged with two counts of grand theft and one count of bribery.

Her husband, James E. Mayle, 66, the former security director for the 27-branch city-county library system, is named in those same counts, plus a fourth count of conflict of interest. Dennis Nilsson, 65, the library's ex-facilities director, is named in 16 counts on charges of grand theft, conflict of interest, bribery and embezzlement.

Rankins-Mayle's attorney, Robert J. Saria, pressed Hudson on what he meant with his "smell test" remark.

"Just look at the numbers, sir," Hudson replied. He said the margins "seemed excessive," were "out of line with the amount of work done by the contractors," and appeared fairly high "for just writing bills."

"I don't see where the library got value for what they were being charged," Hudson said. Rankins-Mayle's two companies, All Cities Maintenance and Hagginwood Services Inc., were only "acting as a billing service," according to Hudson.

Hudson said he based his assumption of the excessive charges on information provided to him by a district attorney's investigator that all Rankins-Mayle's companies did was bill the vendors. Saria suggested the companies also lent supervision to the projects.

Still, the auditor, who retired from the state Department of Justice after 18 years with that agency's financial crimes unit, told the jury later that there was "no consistency" to the markups, that "each bill seemed to stand on its own."

Saria produced records showing Rankins-Mayle had paid tens of thousands of dollars in taxes and "other" costs. Hudson said the taxes shouldn't be included as a cost because they're supposed to be paid off the net income.

Even with the added expenses that reduced the spread to 25 percent in some of billings, the figure "still seems high," Hudson said.

As for other costs, Hudson testified under questioning from Blazina that they included expenditures for Direct TV, Chinese food, a Mercedes-Benz dealership and something called "Gold Beach Resort."

With the prosecution case rested, James Mayle took the stand as the first defense witness. He testified that he had no idea that the billing costs had been marked up to such an extent.

"No, sir," Mayle told his lawyer, Stan Kubochi.

Mayle said none of the allegations came to his attention until he was interviewed in June 2007 by investigators from a San Francisco law firm retained by the Sacramento library to audit the billings.

A former chief of the Grant Joint Union High School District police, Mayle became the security director of the library in 2001. Among his first tasks was to visit the 27 library branches and assess them for security and safety upgrades, such as installing new lights or replacing broken shelves.

Mayle testified that his wife, a former police official for the Sacramento Port Authority, first discussed starting a maintenance company in 2000. He said she formed the company in 2004 and approached the library on her own about contracting.

He said he had nothing to do with her first business and that he never spoke to vendors or other library officials on her behalf.

He did become the vice president of her second company but said he never specifically knew about any of the invoices that were submitted for maintenance work.

Mayle is scheduled to resume his testimony today.

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