RALEIGH - Was Harold Ray Estes a trusting man who left his financial affairs to his future wife, or was he the fiscal agent in an elaborate four-year scheme that stole millions from taxpayers?

That is the question jurors seated Tuesday in his trial will have to decide.

Estes, 61, is the lone person who pleaded not guilty in the Wake County school transportation fraud scandal. He also is the only one who didn't work for the school district or Barnes Motor & Parts Co.

His wife, Connie Reid Capps, the former Raleigh manager for Barnes, has pleaded guilty to obtaining property by false pretenses and conspiracy -- the same felonies that Estes denies committing. The two married late last year.

Capps is among six former employees of either the school transportation department or Barnes who have admitted their role in the fake-invoice scheme.

In his opening statement, Wake District Attorney Colon Willoughby told jurors that his case will show "what I believe was a massive fraud that was perpetrated on the school system."

Willoughby said that a Barnes regional manager wrote checks totaling $535,000 to Estes that went into his bank account. In turn, Estes and Capps wrote checks and bought merchandise for themselves and others. The district attorney also contends that Estes kept between $140,000 and $200,000.

Defense attorney David Long called his client "the outsider" who rarely wrote personal checks.

"Harold's involvement is that the woman he lived with ... was a Barnes Motor & Parts employee," Long said.

Willoughby said school employees conspired with Barnes managers to pocket money by creating nearly $4 million in phony invoices. When those invoices were paid, the money ran up a credit with Barnes used to buy campers, automobiles, Jet Skis, motorcycles, big-screen TVs and other luxury items.

"Everybody was benefiting. Everybody got greedy," Willoughby told the jury of eight women and four men. Both alternate jurors are men.

The two witnesses Tuesday revealed new details about how the fraud came to light, though neither woman said anything that directly connected Estes to the scheme.

Employees making modest salaries in the school transportation department started wearing new jewelry or had fresh hairdos and sculptured nails, said Matrissia Jones, a 22-year department veteran. During work days, groups that include those who have pleaded guilty would take shopping trips and return with merchandise that went inside their personal cars, Regina Denton said.

Denton, who left the department this summer, got suspicious enough to contact one of the district's internal auditors when she was asked to deliver a thick stack of invoices. She said the invoices included item numbers and amounts, but not descriptions, and added up to "a gracious amount of money" that was being paid only to Barnes.

In March, Barnes pleaded guilty to obtaining property by false pretenses and agreed to turn over $3 million. In all, the company will repay $4.4 million to the district.

Vern Hatley, the school system's former transportation director, was sentenced in February to between seven and 10 years in prison. He is appealing on the grounds that he was not allowed to withdraw his guilty plea.

Five others have returned items they received through the scam and await sentencing.

Former transportation department budget analyst Carol Dail Finch pleaded guilty in December to obtaining property by false pretenses and conspiracy. Capps and former Barnes regional manager Bobby Joe Browder Jr. have pleaded guilty to the same charges. Two other transportation employees, Pamela Allen Stewart and Angela Malloy-Sanders, also admitted to helping cover up the fraud.

Since the State Bureau of Investigation began its probe in 2004, the school district has recovered $4.8 million from those who admitted operating the scheme.

The district attorney said Browder, Finch and Stewart will be "cooperating witnesses" in the trial, as will Capps, who will testify against her husband.

During jury selection, Long hinted at what might be the heart of his defense. He asked jurors how finances were handled in their households, whether the married jurors had joint bank accounts with their spouses and whether those spouses could sign checks drawn on those accounts.

The trial resumes at 9:30 a.m. today at the Wake County Courthouse.

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