PITTSBURGH -- The accusation that the former Allegheny County coroner bartered human bodies is under attack by the defense at his trial.

Dr. Cyril Wecht, who has led inquiries into the deaths of Elvis Presley, JonBenet Ramsey and Vincent Foster among others, is accused of using his government staff as bookkeepers, secretaries, couriers and gofers for his family and his private pathology practice.

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Prosecutors said Wecht, 76, illegally used the county workers to cut costs in his private practice, which grossed nearly $9 million from 1997 through 2004. He never made more than $64,000 a year as county coroner.

Wecht's team is trying to show the former coroner did nothing wrong in supplying unclaimed bodies to Carlow University for educational autopsies. The prosecution charges those bodies were payback for free lab space.

Joe Dominick, Wecht's former coroner's second in command, testified on Wednesday most of the bodies were unclaimed and that as coroner, Wecht had the power to provide them.

One body that was sent to Carlow for autopsy is generating a behind-the-scenes legal battle. A relative said she didn't give permission for the body of Amy Gray to be autopsied by Carlow students.

Prosecutors want Gray's aunt, Barbara Whitehouse, to take the stand, arguing in writing, "such testimony goes to the heart of the defendant's abuse of his office and breach of his duties for his private benefit."

Wecht's lawyers' argument is that aunts don't have legal standing as next of kin, so the coroner's authority applied.

Their brief said "her testimony is, by law, irrelevant and inadmissible. Highly prejudicial to the defendant and confusing to the jury."

Wecht's team wants the aunt barred from taking the stand to describe the autopsy at Carlow as "a desecration of a human body."

Wecht's trial is set to continue on Thursday.

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