After Fumo realized he was under FBI scrutiny, prosecutors say, Marcus gave $35,000 to an old Fumo friend and ally, Michael Palermo. The plan was to have Palermo buy a bulldozer, a truck, and an ATV that Fumo allegedly was already using at no charge on his farm near Harrisburg, courtesy of Citizens' Alliance for Better Neighborhoods.

The indictment, among other charges, says Fumo defrauded Citizens' Alliance, a nonprofit organization in South Philadelphia.

Prosecutors introduced an e-mail in which Fumo and Marcus talked about the money going to Palermo.

On the stand, Fumo said that the $35,000 had been a loan and that there had been nothing improper about it.

Marcus, Fumo testified, was like a "father figure" to him. He said he'd had a similar relationship with famed Philadelphia lawyer Richard A. Sprague. Fumo, now 65, and Sprague, now 83, had a falling out in 2007, and the lawyer testified against his former friend last week as a key prosecution witness.

Fumo is an only child. His parents are dead. His father, Vincent E. Fumo, died in 1995 at age 85.

Fumo told jurors that he and Marcus had struck up their friendship after meeting on a plane. This apparently happened in the late 1990s. Both men had million-dollar summer homes in Florida - Fumo's on Jupiter Island and Marcus' in Boca Raton.

By then, Marcus was a wealthy man.

After graduating from what is now Drexel University with a business degree, Marcus founded Mars Graphic Services Inc. in 1973.

Marcus took it public in 1986. Three years after that, he merged it with DiMark Inc. In 1996, the new company was sold to Harte Hanks Inc. for $170 million.

In a few short years, Marcus became a satellite circling what one Fumo aide once called "the realm of Fumo-world":

Marcus became Fumo's biggest campaign contributor, giving the Democrat more than $400,000.

After Fumo introduced him to fellow Democrat Bob Casey, Marcus gave $250,000 to Casey's unsuccessful 2002 bid to win the Democratic nomination for governor. He was also Casey's largest contributor.

By 2000, Marcus was a board member of the bank founded by Fumo's grandfather. He was on the compensation committee that critics say gave Fumo huge paychecks, lavish stock options, and a multimillion-dollar golden parachute.

In 2002, Marcus joined Fumo as a board member of the Independence Seaport Museum. Prosecutors allege that Fumo defrauded the museum by taking $115,000 in free cruises on museum yachts.

In his defense, Fumo brought up the fact that he had gotten Marcus to join the museum's board.

According to people who knew both men, Marcus was an unpretentious man who came to enjoy basking in Fumo's fame.

At a major Fumo fund-raiser - Fumo's annual Harry Truman Dinner (he and Truman share a birth date) - the senator told the gathering that Marcus was "my long lost brother."

In 2001, the two friends took ownership of a $4 million jet - a nine-seat Cessna Citation Ultra 560.

According to a trial exhibit, Fumo and Marcus argued in January 2004 about the cost of the jet. Marcus was trying to economize, but his friend was insistent that he needed to use the Citation.