A state prosecutor stressed this morning that former state Senate aide Alan Berlin is not on trial in Dauphin County Court because he is a "furry," someone who likes to take on an animal persona to role play in a fantasy world.

Berlin, 43, of Carlisle, is on trial, Senior Deputy Attorney General Michael Sprow said, because while he was role-playing as a panda bear on the Internet in mid-2009 he tried to convince a 15-year-old Lower Paxton Township boy to meet him for a real sexual encounter.

Sprow said in his opening statement that Berlin also asked the boy in a series of Instant Messaging chats to provide nude photos of himself and tried to arrange a sexual encounter between the teen and a 20-year-old man, another furry who role-plays as a fox.

Berlin, a former assistant to Sen. Jane Orie, R-Allegheny County, and former Sen. Hal Mowery, R-Cumberland County, could face a state prison term if convicted in the case. This is his second trial on the charges. His first trial last year ended with the jury unable to reach a verdict.

Although Sprow called Berlin's activities as a furry "irrelevant" to the criminal case, defense attorney William T. Tully said his client's role in the furry world is crucial to proving his innocence.

The furry community is "an imagination world where everybody pretends to be something they're not," Tully told the jury. "It is a world of role-playing and pretend...That is the world Mr. Berlin participated in."

He said Berlin was only pretending as he messaged the boy on a furry web site, and he thought he was dealing with another adult furry. When the messages got too graphic, Berlin backed off, Tully said, and he never intended to meet the other person for actual sex.

Tully said Berlin was "devastated" when investigators told him he had been chatting with a teenager.

"He didn't hide what he was doing because he thought it was legal. A little different, but legal," Tully said.

The teen's visibly distraught mother testified that she went to authorities after viewing the IM chats between Berlin and her son, a home-schooled special needs student.