Former County Commissioner Erin Kenny's court testimony Thursday in the federal corruption trial of two of her fellow former commissioners was riveting.

Kenny's itemized list of how much she says she took in bribes from a variety of operators with business before the Commission was enough to tempt anyone to pull out pad and pencil and try to estimate whether her monthly take "on the side" exceeded her official $4,500-a-month salary. (It did.)

When the case first broke, County Manager Thom Reilly voiced the opinion that the relationships revealed by federal wiretaps might lead constituents to have a reduced level of confidence in how straight county government really is.

Is there a record book for understatements? After an hour of Kenny's shameless testimony, constituents might wonder if it was really fair to make each favor-seeker negotiate his or her own level of illicit payment: Wouldn't it have been more orderly and considerate for Kenny to simply post a written price list, like a Pahrump bordello?

"Re-zoning prime parcel for a CVS or other similar store: $200,000 in untraceable cash. Making sure county ordinances allow lap dances in strip clubs? $30,000. Approving a neighborhood casino? $3,000 per month, for years."

But the key word, above, is "shameless." Kenny has admitted to crimes that could have netted her decades in federal prison. Yet -- to gain her testimony against her two former associates now in the dock, former Commissioners Mary Kincaid-Chauncey and Dario Herrera -- federal officials offered her a deal in which she could serve 46 months, or less.

Kenny, who looked rested and fit Thursday in expensive clothes and a stylish new hairdo, offered the opinion that even a few years in prison would be too much. Asked whether she has adequately paid for her crimes, she said, "I believe that I have. I've served three years in public jail. It's been very difficult. I felt terrible and ashamed and immediately apologized to the FBI."

Kenny has not been in jail, of course. She uses "public jail" as a metaphor for the supposed public ignominy she has suffered.

Yet she bought and furnished a $869,000 residence for her family, even after her crimes were revealed. If she has donned sackcloth and ashes and tried to make penance by washing floors at a local soup kitchen, she's certainly kept it a good secret. And why on earth would she apologize to FBI agents, who are kept in gainful employment exposing voracious leeches like Kenny? Where is her apology to the constituents of Commission District F, whose interests and trust she sold out at every opportunity?

What shouldn't be lost sight of, though, is that (however oddly) it's not Kenny who's on trial. Jurors must weigh the credibility of this witness as it bears on the guilt or innocence of the actual defendants, Mrs. Kincaid-Chauncey and Mr. Herrera.

In that light, prosecutors have a couple of problems. First, Kenny claims to have selective memory loss, caused by the fact that she has vertigo. This is a novel medical diagnosis and an odd claim from a person whose plea bargain presumably rests on telling "the whole truth."

Just as significantly, it appears Kenny can't actually testify to any "smoking gun" conversations in which the defendants admitted to her that they were also on the take. Instead, she testifies this was merely "understood."

Finally, the jurors would not be human if they didn't wonder whether prosecutors have the right person on trial. Even if Mr. Herrera and Mrs. Kincaid-Chauncey did everything that's alleged, they come up pikers next to the rapaciousness of the government's star witness.

While the assertion that "someone else did worse" should never justify acquittal, it won't be good for prosecutors if someone in the jury room asks: "Isn't this like cutting a plea bargain with a crime boss to bag the poor sap who drove his getaway car?"

Some further measure of justice may yet await Kenny. Although her plea deal guarantees that federal prosecutors in the district of Southern Nevada will not further prosecute her for prior crimes, she has now testified under oath to accepting hundreds of thousands in bribes that she did not declare as taxable income. Is a tax evasion indictment forthcoming?

Jurors were riveted to Kenny's testimony. It certainly reveals a shameless culture of corruption. But has the prosecutors' net yet roped in the two defendants? Have they shown votes promised and cast in direct return for payments? For that, much now depends on the promised testimony of confessed crook Michael Galardi.