RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — When prosecutors finished presenting evidence against a Long Island electrician accused of killing a wealthy financier to get the man's wife and fortune, it was not looking good for Daniel Pelosi, at least by most accounts in the press.

But after the defense called its second witness Wednesday — a homosexual who says he performed oral sex on murder victim Robert Theodore Ammon the morning they met — lawyers for Pelosi reminded reporters that they and jurors have yet to hear the whole story.

"This is the beginning of our defense case. I told you all along not to rush to judgment, to wait until you hear the whole case," lead defense lawyer Gerald Shargel told reporters who have been drawn to a trial full of sex, greed, betrayal and violence. "This is our opportunity. We're going to be taking advantage of it."

The defense is trying to establish that Ammon, a 52-year-old financier murdered in his East Hampton, Long Island, beach house three years ago, could have been killed by one of the men he met while pursuing a secret gay lifestyle apparently unknown to his estranged wife and children.

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At the time of Ammon's brutal bludgeoning, his wife, Generosa, was living with the man now on trial for the murder.

Prosecutors have cast doubt on the defense theory that Ammon was a closet bisexual.

By calling self-described "pop artist" Sam Wagner to the stand, the defense is trying to show that Ammon picked up a man for a sexual tryst — which would support their claim that Pelosi was far from East Hampton when Ammon was attacked while he slept.

Romp in the woods

Dressed in black, Wagner's Andy Warhol-esque mop of hair hung down over his eyes as he told jurors that he encountered a man he now believes was Ammon several times while Ammon was jogging and Wagner was walking.

On a morning in 1998, the jogger stopped to talk to him, and it was obvious from a protrusion masked by sweatpants that he was sexually aroused, Wagner testified.

"I noticed that he had an erection," Wagner said. "I, being an all-American gay human being, whatever, I started to respond to him. I don't know what I said exactly, but it was probably on the order of, 'Do you want to get busy?' or 'I know a place to go.'"

According to Wagner, Ammon accompanied him to a secluded spot and Wagner performed fellatio.

"I had no idea who this person was," Wagner said.

Wagner said he learned the man was Ammon when he was shown a newspaper photo by the man he was living with, millionaire antiques dealer Barton Kaplan — who was found dead in his swimming pool the summer after Ammon was murdered.

Shargel asked Wagner about his published remarks that he was only 75 percent sure the man he had a tryst with was Ammon.

Wagner said that even if he knew he was having sex with Brad Pitt, he would not say he was 100 percent certain unless the actor either introduced himself or someone else did.

"To the best of my knowledge, beyond a reasonable doubt, it was Ted Ammon," Wagner testified.

On cross-examination, Wagner admitted the tryst lasted only about 15 minutes.

"I guess during the boom boom in the woods you weren't concentrating on the man's face?" prosecutor Janet Albertson asked.

Wagner agreed that his focus was elsewhere, but again insisted the man was Ammon and that he had nothing to gain by testifying to that.

Albertson, however, noted that Wagner got his picture in the New York Post alongside an interview and appeared on network television. Moreover, between the 1998 encounter and Ammon's 2001 death, Wagner estimates he had sexual liaisons with 10 other anonymous men and 30 others he did know.

Gay beach

Though prosecutors called witnesses who said Pelosi confided or bragged about the killing, they have no physical evidence linking him to the crime scene.

The defense is using that fact and previous testimony about Ammon's visit to a gay beach to support their theory that someone else killed him after sex.

Lori Finkel, Ammon's girlfriend, previously told jurors about a voice mail message Ammon left hours before the murder in which he said he had been to a beach, discovered it was a gay beach, and became frightened by the behavior of some men there.

The defense contends Ammon was frightened, but that he already knew the beach was a gay hangout.

"The prosecution has been dismissive. The theory has been ridiculed," Shargel told reporters. "Isn't it conceivable that an incident like that occurred and Mr. Ammon was murdered that same night?"

The defense's first witness, private investigator James Thompson, testified about a test drive he and a partner made from the Center Moriches home of Pelosi's sister to the East Hampton crime scene.

The purpose of the test, which police also conducted, was to see how long it would take Pelosi to get from his sister's home to East Hampton. Thompson testified it took 43 minutes, even at speeds approaching 80 mph.

As the case proceeds, the defense will try to use that information, the case chronology, cellphone records and expert testimony about the extent of food digestion before Ammon died to narrow the time of death to a point where Pelosi could not have been the killer.

His lawyers will try to counter testimony from several witnesses who claim Pelosi targeted Ammon's fortune by concocting and carrying out a plan to kill him, marry his wife and manipulate her.