Former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown will stand alone and defiant this week when she faces fraud and tax charges that could put her in prison, effectively for the rest of her life.

The aide who watched her back for a quarter-century will be a witness for the prosecution that accuses the flamboyant Democratic power broker of cashing in on donations she steered to a bogus charity, One Door for Education.

Her indictment with ex-chief of staff Ronnie Simmons helped end Brown’s 12-term reign in Congress last year.

But Wednesday’s opening statements will be the first time the public will hear, and judge for itself, whether there’s proof of Brown’s guilt.

"A public corruption indictment is one side of the story — the government’s. A criminal defense lawyer’s job is to tell the other side," said Dane Ball, a Houston lawyer who this year defended another ex-member of Congress charged with wire fraud, Steve Stockman, R-Texas.

Regardless of how good the evidence is, Ball said, there’s always room for "pure argument and advocacy at trial."

Brown insists she’s innocent, unshaken by Simmons’ guilty plea in February or the plea deal struck last year by One Door president Carla Wiley.

The stack of charges Brown faces boils down to two claims: that she lined her pockets with money people gave to a fake charity, then lied when it was time to pay her taxes.

Prosecutors split those broad accusations into 22 counts describing specific crimes involving conspiracy, mail or wire fraud and assorted false statements on taxes, like lying about donating to charities.

The 53-page indictment filed last July recited individual examples of each crime prosecutors said Brown committed, but it hid the identities of the people and companies who were allegedly involved.

Related: Meet the potential key witnesses for the prosecution

For example, the indictment talked about checks from One Door going into Entity A’s bank account, where Person A withdrew cash and deposited it into the accounts of Brown and Person B.

When the indictment described money coming from donors like J.H., M.B.J. and R.L., and Brown claimed tax write-offs from gifts to Entity B, Entity D, Entity E and Churches A and B, the government’s case seemed impossible to read without a decoder.

But witness lists that both sides filed in court this month go a long way to decipher the prosecutors’ alphabet soup and give people an idea of whom to watch as the case unfolds.

Still, it’s easy to lose track. Between them, the lists include three members of Congress, about a dozen business executives, plus college presidents, local politicians, assorted Jacksonville movers and shakers, and the son of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.

Attorneys don’t have to call everyone on their witness lists — they usually don’t — and there’s no guarantee what a witness will be asked during a trial.

But information in public records and earlier court filings make it easier to guess what some witnesses could tell Brown’s jury, and why their testimony could be important.

In the beginning

For example, a Washington lobbyist with big Florida connections might describe the first time One Door made some real money and whether Brown had anything to do with that.

The prosecution’s witness list includes Tandy Bondi, the granddaughter of former Gov. Lawton Chiles and sister-in-law of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Until this year, Tandy Bondi was a cruise industry lobbyist and a partner at Alcalde & Fay, the Beltway powerhouse where Brown’s daughter, Shantrel, is also a partner.

Simmons’ plea agreement said One Door’s first significant contribution — $25,000 from a cruise industry PAC — arrived in August 2012 "after Brown had conversations with a representative of the lobbying firm in Washington, D.C. where Person B works."

Shantrel Brown appears to be Person B, described in the indictment as "a close relative of Brown and a lobbyist in the Washington, D.C. area." She’s also on the prosecution’s witness list.

Other PACs gave money to One Door in Brown’s honor and Simmons’ plea agreement said that either he or Brown, or people working on her behalf, made almost all of One Door’s fundraising pitches.

As part of his plea deal, Simmons agreed to testify if prosecutors subpoenaed him.

But having clear testimony from people who aren’t awaiting sentencing will be important for assuring jurors they’re hearing the real story.

Testimony like that could come from Von Alexander, whom the indictment called Person A. She’s also on the prosecutors’ witness list.

Alexander, a public relations consultant who owns a company called the Alexander Agency (Entity A in the indictment), was also on Brown’s staff for 15 years before retiring last year.

The indictment described her and Simmons depositing tens of thousands of dollars in cash into Brown’s personal bank accounts. It said checks from One Door were sent to a bank account belonging to the Alexander Agency, then cash was withdrawn from there and deposited in Brown’s bank account, and sometimes one account belonging to Person B.

Simmons’ plea agreement said he often made ATM withdrawals from One Door’s bank account and deposited cash into Brown’s.

Brown has said she trusted Simmons, who worked for her for a quarter-century, with access to her accounts.

Brown has stressed she never had a formal role in One Door or authority over its finances, making it exponentially harder to blame her for the conspiracy Simmons and Wiley have already admitted.

"I have serious doubts as to whether she committed a crime," said Curtis Fallgatter, a defense attorney and former federal prosecutor, during an interview late last year. Fallgatter represents the Community Rehabilitation Center, a Jacksonville nonprofit prosecutors subpoenaed about Brown’s charitable donations, but never charged with a crime.

On the list

To convince jurors Brown was in on the deal, prosecutors will probably have One Door donors describe the contributions and connections to Brown the indictment masks with initials and legalisms.

Car dealer Jack Hanania is on the witness list, likely to talk about the $7,000 check the indictment said "J.H." shipped using a FedEx label Simmons emailed him.

The indictment said the donated money was spent on an event One Door held four days later in a luxury suite at FedEx Field in suburban Washington when the Jaguars faced the Washington Redskins.

The indictment said no money was raised for scholarships or helping young people at the game, but Brown attorney James W. Smith III said events the indictment described as extravagant were part of building relationships with people who helped One Door.

Another $10,000 donation might be explained if prosecutors call Marva Brown Johnson, a Central Florida executive at Bright House Networks and the business that took over that company, Charter Communications.

Johnson, chairwoman of the state Board of Education, is on the witness list.

The indictment described a September 2015 note Simmons emailed "M.B.J., an employee of One Door for Education donor B.H." that included the line "you made today ‘a good day.’" An attached $10,000 invoice was labeled "for annual student scholarships."

Prosecutors might also call "R.L., an owner of private medical facilities in or around New Jersey," who at a glance resembles Richard Lipsky, the head of Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center in Secaucus, N.J.

The indictment said in September 2014, Brown asked R.L. for a $10,000 check for One Door and told him to leave the line saying who the check was for blank. The indictment said Brown told R.L. the money was needed for production costs for a magazine and R.L. wrote "printing" on the check’s memo line.

A magazine was being printed then – the next month, Onyx magazine in Orlando circulated a commemorative issue with a cover photo of Brown headlined "Corrine Delivers!" – but the indictment said Brown’s claim the money was needed for that was false. It said Simmons wrote Entity A’s name on the check and sent it to Brown’s Jacksonville office, where Alexander deposited the check and moved the money into accounts belonging to Brown and Person B.

That might not have been all the help R.L. gave Brown.

Federal campaign reports from that same week say that Lipsky, a brother in Miami Beach, and four people working at hospitals Lipsky controlled in New Jersey each gave $2,500 ($15,000 total) to Friends of Corrine Brown, the congresswoman’s campaign committee. Lipsky, whose name is on the witness list, didn’t return messages asking about his contact with Brown.

A separate count in the indictment, vaguely labeled "scheme to conceal material facts," said Brown received payments from Friends of Corrine Brown as well as Entity A and One Door, and committed another crime by not reporting that money on financial disclosure forms members of Congress fill out each year.

It’s not clear why some people were named witnesses, but the answers could be interesting.

Stephen Bittel, chairman of the Florida Democratic Party, is presumably the same Bittel prosecutors put on their list, but the indictment doesn’t seem to connect him to One Door.

His clearest, recent connection to Brown was that his Terranova Corp. was Gateway Shopping Center’s landlord when Brown fought in 2013 to stop Duval County elections officials from moving out, but there’s no sign that has any bearing on the indictment.

Another undefined witness is Susie Wiles, a political/communications consultant involved with enough influential people that her links to Brown’s trial are hard to isolate.

Tax trouble

Some of the most recognizable witnesses will probably talk about Brown’s charity donations, but it remains to be seen whether that will help or hurt her.

City Councilman Reginald Gaffney, who runs the nonprofit Community Rehabilitation Center, was on the government’s witness list even though he told a reporter that investigators didn’t believe him when they asked him about donations Brown reported and about a personal check he wrote her.

A foundation for the center, which works with people who have mental health or substance abuse issues, was called Entity B in the indictment. In daily life, it’s usually called the CRC foundation.

Gaffney said Brown really did donate to his nonprofit every year, that CRC staff would vouch for the donation value and that he gave her money because she was like a mother to him.

The indictment said Brown’s tax returns didn’t show that she received money "originating in, or passing through," bank accounts of Entity B and three other organizations.

According to the indictment, one of those, called Entity C, "promoted itself as providing training and offering various other services" for nonprofits and was run by an employee of Entity B.

That could be worth remembering if prosecutors call up Stanley Twiggs, CRC’s operations director, who is on their witness list. State records say Twiggs created an organization called LaPool Training and Education more than a decade ago, but lists the company as inactive.

Asked by a reporter about the witness list, Twiggs said he didn’t know he was named there and that he should talk to a lawyer.

Edward Waters College President Nat Glover is a potential witness, too, maybe to testify about donations the indictment said Brown reported making to a college it called Entity D.

The indictment said Brown’s taxes were being audited in July 2010 and she needed documentation, so she got Entity D to vouch she donated conference room furniture worth $12,000, then got paperwork affirming another $8,000 in furniture donations the next year.

Glover, formerly Jacksonville’s sheriff, had just become Edward Waters’ interim president in May 2010. That summer, he was trying to get the college’s financial accounts out of disarray and raise an abysmally low graduation rate.

Asked last year whether Edward Waters was Entity D, Glover said Brown had been a great friend to the college, but wouldn’t directly answer the question.

Probably the most interesting person who could testify is Brown, who at a hearing this month didn’t tell U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan whether she intends to testify.

If Brown is convicted on all 22 counts, she could theoretically be sentenced to 357 years in prison. Her trial is expected to run through the first two weeks of May.

Jury selection starts Monday.

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Times-Union writer Christopher Hong contributed to this report.

Steve Patterson: (904) 359-4263