SAN DIEGO – Nearly 150 prospective jurors showed up Tuesday for the estimated 10-week trial of two San Diego councilmen accused of taking bribes from a strip club owner in return for repealing the city’s no-touch ordinance.

Michael Zucchet and Ralph Inzunza were indicted on Aug, 28, 2003, in the so-called “stripper-gate” case, more than three months after FBI agents raided San Diego City Hall and the three clubs owned by Michael Galardi of Las Vegas.

“I think the first day of a major trial for everybody is a nerve-racking experience. It wouldn’t be normal if it wasn’t,” Zucchet’s attorney, Jerry Coughlan, said before entering the federal courthouse.

Coughlan and Inzunza’s attorney, Michael Pancer, criticized prosecutors for refusing to go along with a request to have U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller hear the case against the councilmen, a lobbyist and a council aide without a jury. After that issue was decided, a group of 107 potential jurors received an overview of the case from the judge, then filled out questionnaires. Another group of 40 followed the same routine.

“This is a challenging time for the city of San Diego,” Miller told the prospective jurors, citing a shortfall in the municipal pension fund, Mayor Dick Murphy’s resignation and other issues.

To ensure that the councilmen and two other defendants get a fair trial, jurors on the case cannot be influenced by the problems the city is facing, nor should they be swayed by public polls and media reports, the judge said.

“They are entitled to no less,” Miller told the potential panelists. “This is the only way to ensure fairness and justice for all parties.”

Miller then sat down with the attorneys to review the questionnaires in advance of further jury selection. That process was to continue tomorrow.

The judge read a note from a potential juror explaining that his employer would only pay for five days of jury duty. “And besides,” the man wrote, “I have a life.”

A woman who was excused said she was concerned about how the trial might affect her upcoming retirement.

“We’re not going to hold up your retirement,” the judge told her.

Another woman said she thought it was her civic duty to serve but was afraid of what her boss might say.

“There’s no way he can fire me for doing this?” she asked the judge.

Miller told prospective panelists that the trial would be in session Tuesday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. or 1:30 p.m.

Inzunza and Zucchet, both 35, are expected to attend regularly scheduled 2 p.m. council meetings when the trial ends each day.

Jury selection may continue through Friday, with opening statements possibly by next Tuesday.

Zucchet, Inzunza and the late Councilman Charles Lewis, along with Galardi, lobbyist Lance Malone and John D’Intino, a night manager at the Kearny Mesa Cheetah’s club, were indicted on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

An extortion charge was later added against Zucchet, Inzunza and Malone, while former Lewis aide David Cowan is charged with lying to the FBI.

A second indictment, issued last October, alleges that public officials in the case took in more than $70,000, and that Inzunza was the leader of the alleged conspiracy.

The councilmen have said any monies received were in the form of legal campaign contributions.

“The campaign contributions they accepted were properly documented in accordance with state and local law and properly reported,” Pancer and Coughlan said in a trial brief.

“However, the prosecutors apparently believe there is some unspecified rule of additional disclosure – like a natural law of honesty – and combine the federal conspiracy statute with the federal ‘intangible right of honest services’ doctrine in an attempt to impose their personal moral values on a local election system which functions quite differently,”‘ their brief states.

D’Intino and Galardi pleaded guilty in September 2003 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and the club owner is expected to be key witness for the prosecution.

Miller has ruled that secretly recorded conversations involving Lewis – who was 37 when he died last Aug. 8 of gastrointestinal bleeding brought on by cirrhosis of the liver – can be used at trial.