Sixteen years after tearfully testifying in his Operation Court Broom bribery case, former Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Phillip Davis on Monday took the stand again, this time to deny charges that he pilfered grant money intended to help the poor.

But unlike his dramatic and contrite 1993 admission that he had snorted cocaine in his chambers -- a confession widely seen as helping him win an acquittal -- Davis, 55, delivered a primarily staid, professorial performance, complete with wooden pointer.

Wearing glasses and a black suit, he used the pointer to detail a dense PowerPoint presentation on a big screen TV. Davis was arrested in October 2005 and accused of looting county and state grants to the Miami-Dade Resident College. He faces a slew of felonies, including money laundering and grand theft. Prosecutors say he stole more than $80,000.

Davis helped found the nonprofit Miami-Dade Resident College in the late 1990s to teach impoverished inner-city residents parenting, life and vocational skills. Davis, the college's executive director, also created a ``pretrial intervention'' program for young defendants to complete classes in lieu of jail.

According to investigators, Davis and administrative assistant Joan Headley inflated employee salaries by submitting bogus invoices to get extra grant money, which they pocketed for themselves.

The money was laundered, prosecutors said, through a sham corporation, Workforce Management Inc., created by Davis to hire and pay workers whom he labeled ``independent contractors.''

But Davis, on the stand Monday, repeatedly insisted that employee invoices -- while not a true reflection of billable hours -- were correct and reflected a normal and long-standing billing agreement between the county and the program.

``The county helped prepare the contract,'' he said.

Broward assistant state attorneys Don Tenbrook and Al Guttmann are prosecuting Davis. Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle, to avoid a conflict, opted out of the case because she once supported his pretrial program.

Davis knows both sides of the bench at Miami-Dade's criminal courthouse. First elected to a circuit court judgeship in 1988, he was arrested three years later as part of a corruption sweep dubbed Operation Court Broom.

The FBI tape recorded Davis arranging a $20,000 payoff to lawyer-turned-informant Ray Takiff to fix a case.

At his federal trial, Davis stunned observers by admitting that he had snorted cocaine in his courtroom chambers, and that he kept the drug in his pocket at all times. Acknowledging a cocaine and booze habit, he said: ``I'm sorry, I apologize! I let you down, I let myself down! I could have been somebody!''

Jurors acquitted Davis of bribery and extortion charges, saying that his addiction clouded his judgment.

Current jurors were not told about his criminal past, or his disbarment, but did learn about his law degree.

While testifying, he suddenly asked for a ``sidebar'' -- a private huddle with the judge and prosecutors.

His request was denied. Davis said later he wanted to explain why he wasn't speaking into the microphone -- his voice, he felt, was coming across too strong. At the conclusion of an intense cross-examination, he choked up.

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