RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — To Daniel Pelosi, a Long Island electrician who had trouble holding jobs and his liquor, it must have seemed like Robert Theodore Ammon had it all.

A tall, handsome financier with a net worth of more than $100 million, "Ted" Ammon drove expensive sports cars, traveled frequently to Europe, dressed to the nines and lived in multimillion-dollar homes in Manhattan, the Hamptons and the English countryside.

But Ammon's fortune, charm and good looks had long stopped being enough for his wife, Generosa, who was a difficult and moody woman by all accounts, even before the couple separated in 2000 after 10 years of marriage.

Ted wanted Generosa and the couple's twins, a boy and girl they adopted from the Ukraine, to continue living in style. He purchased a $10 million townhouse on East 87th Street in New York and embarked on a multimillion-dollar renovation, a total interior reconstruction that soon brought a toolbelt-wearing tough named Danny Pelosi into the Ammons' lives.

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This week, a prosecutor on Long Island told a jury that Pelosi quickly sized up the situation: Ted and Generosa Ammon were fighting bitterly, and Ted was pulling the plug on the renovation.

Pelosi viewed himself as a ladies' man, but according to prosecutor Janet Albertson, Pelosi was no more than "a drinker, and a gambler, and a womanizer" who regarded Ted Ammon's estranged and emotionally volatile wife as the key to Ammon's treasure.

Albertson said Pelosi hatched his plot to kill Ted, marry Generosa and control the inheritance a full year before Ted's naked, severely battered body was discovered on the floor of his East Hampton, N.Y., beach house. Pelosi, who had been drinking, paced the parking lot of a bar just off the Long Island Expressway as he told contractor James Nicolino about his plan.

"He told him, 'I have a plan,'" Albertson said. "I'll get the money through Generosa ... I'll just take care of him. I'll just go out to his house in East Hampton. I'll just bash his brains while he sleeps.'"

That alleged conversation, which Pelosi's lawyers claim was fabricated by Nicolino because Pelosi was having "a relationship" with Nicolino's wife, occurred sometime in October 2000, according to Albertson. On Oct. 20, 2001, Ted Ammon, 52, was murdered in his East Hampton home while he slept, on the very day he had reclaimed the beach house for himself.

Three months after the killing, Daniel Pelosi and Generosa Ammon wed. She paid him $2 million in a divorce settlement in 2003 and died a short time later of breast cancer at age 46.

The defense claims Nicolino and others who will testify about incriminating comments Pelosi supposedly made to them all "have axes to grind" or, in the case of jailhouse informants, are looking to better their lot with law enforcement.

"Danny Pelosi is boastful. Danny Pelosi talks a lot. There's no question about it. But Danny Pelosi didn't commit this crime," lead defense attorney Gerald Shargel told the jury.

Family affair

Strangers, acquaintances and cellblock snitches won't be the only witnesses for the prosecution. Pelosi's own father, Robert, is expected to testify that his son asked him the day after the killing for advice on how to "get rid of something." The elder Pelosi didn't probe for details, but suggested he burn it, bury it or dispose of it at sea, prosecutors say.

A former girlfriend, identified in court only as "Tracy," is expected to testify that Pelosi told her shortly after he married Generosa in early 2000 that a friend used a boat to dispose of crime-scene evidence in the cold waters that surround Long Island.

Tracy will also say that Pelosi asked her to supply him with a false alibi after admitting that he had unleashed "the monster" within him on Ted Ammon and that Ammon "begged for his life and cried like a bitch" while fending off 30 to 40 blows that fractured his skull, hands and ribs.

Pelosi's own sister, Barbara Lukert, is also on the prosecution's witness list, though reluctantly. Lukert told investigators that, on the night of the killing, Pelosi asked her to monitor Ted Ammon's movements using a laptop computer which communicated remotely with a hidden security camera system in the Ammon beach house.

When Pelosi finally arrived at her home in the wee hours of Oct. 20, 2001, Lukert found his behavior disconcerting. She said she felt a dense object beneath his leather jacket when they hugged goodbye.

Pelosi's lawyers say police convinced family members to doubt Pelosi's innocence and help build what they call a weak and flawed circumstantial case. The defense insists cellphone records will prove he was in western Suffolk County at about the time other phone records will show that Ammon's killer entered his home on the East End and pulled an electrical plug delivering power to the surveillance system's well-concealed hard drive.

Ammon's final day

Prosecutors opened their case with a collection of witnesses who interacted with Ted Ammon on the final day of his life.

Ammon's sister, Sandy Williams, testified that she spoke with her brother, and he was looking forward to reclaiming the beach house and finalizing his divorce from Generosa, who stood to get $25 million plus $50,000 per month.

Investigators used receipts, alarm and phone company records, and employees of area restaurants, hardware and clothing stores to fill in the rest of Ammon's last day.

After arriving at his East Hampton home, he spent time with his girlfriend, Lori Finkel, and they ended up in his bedroom. He remarked at one point that he wanted to go shopping for new sheets to replace the ones Generosa and Danny Pelosi had slept on that summer while she had possession of the residence.

"He hated them. He wanted to get rid of those sheets," prosecutor Albertson said.

After Finkel left, Ammon headed alone into East Hampton's commercial district and purchased Italian designer sheets costing $800 at an antiques store. He told a clerk the sheets were "a treat" for him.

Later that evening, he ventured, again alone, to the Farmhouse Restaurant for a dinner of tuna steak with asparagus and wild rice. Having consumed three glasses of chardonnay, Ammon seemed upbeat when he left the restaurant, according to restaurant workers who testified.

Finkel received a voice-mail message at 9:44 p.m., in which Ammon reported that he had stopped at what he thought was a "gay beach," had become concerned about men there, and was heading home.

With the mysterious voice-mail message, the murder victim's presence at a beach widely known as a gay hangout, and the removal of bed coverings and Ammon's underwear from his room, the defense has ample fodder for a theory put forth for the first time publicly during opening statements: that a gay lover killed him.

At the end of the case, the mostly middle-aged, mostly female jury will have to tackle several questions:

Was Ted Ammon bisexual?

Did police deem Danny Pelosi an "easy solution," as his lawyer charged?

Was Pelosi spying on Ammon electronically, and, if so, why?

Could Pelosi be stupid enough to admit the murder to other inmates on the eve of opening statements?

And, most importantly, can the prosecution prove the charge of second-degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt without a murder weapon, eyewitness account or direct evidence placing him near East Hampton?

The trial, being held in Riverhead, N.Y., is expected to last eight weeks or longer.