Indicted FBI agent W. Joseph Astarita listened Monday to government experts testify how they identified him as the one who fired twice at the truck of Oregon occupation spokesman Robert "LaVoy" Finicum and then tried to cover it up.

Astarita, dressed in a gray suit, white shirt and dark tie, sat between his defense lawyers, including Washington, D.C.-based lawyer Robert Cary, well-known for having represented the late U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who was acquitted in a corruption case. It marked Astarita's second court appearance in the case.

Cary argued that the FBI's fuzzy aerial video proves nothing and that the government is using a faulty synchronization of videos created by someone who lacks expertise.

And so, the battle of the experts began in what's expected to be a multi-day hearing before U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones in Portland.

Cary noted that Astarita has exhausted his personal savings to pay for his own forensic experts and has sought some federal funds to cover additional expenses.

Federal prosecutor Gary Sussman said the testimony of the government's experts is key to the case because the indictment largely rests on circumstantial and forensic evidence.

The government specialists synchronized two videos from the scene, and analyzed the impact of the bullet that went through the roof of Finicum's truck, the bullet's angle and trajectory and placement of FBI agents and troopers in the area.

The evidence is crucial, Sussman said, because to this day no one has admitted to firing the two shots heard on one video as Finicum emerged from his truck after plowing into a snowbank along U.S. 395 to avoid a police roadblock on Jan. 26, 2016. FBI agents and state police had set up the roadblock to arrest leaders of the takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

Astarita, who was a member of the FBI's elite Hostage Rescue Team, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of making a false statement and two counts of obstruction of justice.

The government alleges that Astarita fired at Finicum as he emerged from his pickup, but then denied doing so. One bullet went through the truck's roof and the other went astray, investigators said. Trial is set for July 24.

Frank Piazza, president of Legal Audio Video, testified that he used Final Cut Pro to synchronize audio and video taken from inside Finicum's truck by backseat passenger Shawna Cox with aerial video from an FBI plane about two miles away. He was hired by the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General.

The FBI video, which was shaky, had to be stabilized, he said. Piazza said he was able to identify eight shots fired at the truck, with shots No. 4 and No. 5 fired immediately when Finicum got out of his truck.

Piazza testified that he used visual cues to help synchronize the videos, including the piercing of the roof fabric on Finicum's truck, the shattering of the driver's side passenger window and the audio of the screams from the truck's passengers.

The prosecution played the synchronized videos in court, with the 4th and 5th gunshots heard in rapid succession immediately after Finicum emerged from his driver's seat with his hands up, yelling, "Go ahead shoot me!'' Piazza estimated two-tenths of a second elapsed between the fourth and fifth shots and that the shots were taken from about 20 to 30 feet away.

He acknowledged there was a syncing "glitch'' or a delay in Cox's video by 10 frames, but that occurred after all gunshots were captured on her recording.

Defense lawyers and a defense expert tried to discredit Piazza's analysis, pointing out that he didn't keep notes or write a report about how he synced the video frames. They also said his analysis wasn't based on any prior published work.

Under cross examination, Piazza said he never got a college degree, began his career as a songwriter and started his video-audio forensic company after first opening a music recording studio.

Cary argued that the video from the FBI plane is of such poor quality that it doesn't show anything conclusive. Further, its enhancement distorts the image, with loss of detail, he said.

He argued that the government experts can't take a blurry image and sharpen it without altering its pixels and changing "what you see in the photograph.''

Defense expert Bruce Koenig criticized Piazza for not keeping "work notes'' on his frame analysis and said Piazza lacked expertise in gunshots to make his work reliable. He said Piazza failed to consider the "reverberation'' effect, or echo effect of a gunshot or the acoustic shock wave from the bullets.

Koenig retired from the FBI in 1995 as a senior audio examiner and started his own consulting company. He has a master's degree from George Washington University in forensic science and a bachelor's degree in physics and math from the University of Maryland.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian