An FBI informant will continue testifying Friday in the case in which two councilmen are accused of taking bribes in return for help in repealing San Diego's "no-touch'' law.

COUNCIL CORRUPTION Images:Timeline Read: Archive Video: Listen To FBI Wire Tap Discuss: San Diego Politics

Councilmen Ralph Inzunza and Michael Zucchet claim any money they got from strip club owner Michael Galardi was in the form of legal campaign contributions.

Galardi lobbyist Lance Malone and David Cowan, a former aide to the late Councilman Charles Lewis, are also on trial at the federal courthouse.

In a secretly recorded May 1, 2003, conversation, Inzunza asked Malone and FBI informant Tony Montagna if he needed to meet with a vice officer about relaxing the city's "no-touch'' ordinance.

"I don't want to make it like I'm trying to strong-arm him,'' Inzunza says on the recording.

The councilman expressed concern about threatening the vice officer with possible lack of promotions if he didn't appear before a City Council committee and talk about the supposed feelings of rank-and-file officers that "no-touch'' wasn't working.

"If it looks like that at all, we're all going to be toast,'' Inzunza is heard telling Malone and Montagna.

Malone told Inzunza that he had a vice officer who would tell the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee that "no-touch'' was a waste of time and most officers felt they should be out on the streets fighting crime.

"If you're going to have an officer that's going to say that, then it will happen,'' Inzunza said of getting the committee to consider repealing the ordinance. "If you don't, it won't happen.''

In a May 16, 2003, secretly recorded conversation, Malone told Montagna that a plan to put more distance between adult businesses was a "smoking gun'' to get San Diego's :no-touch'' law before the council.

In the conversation, Malone told Montagna that the idea of extending the distance from 1,000 feet to 1,500 feet between strip clubs was not the real issue that Galardi was interested in.

Once the distance issue was raised, a corrupt vice officer could go before a City Council committee and suggest that "no-touch'' was not working, Montagna testified.

At a downtown luncheon attended by Inzunza, Zucchet, Malone and Montagna, Zucchet is heard telling the lobbyist that he doubts the police will go along with changing "no-touch.''

In a March 17, 2003, recording, Malone tells Montagna that he's worried about Zucchet talking to a "real'' vice lieutenant instead of the officer playing the role of a corrupt cop.

Inzunza, Zucchet and Lewis, along with Malone, were charged last year with extortion, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud that could result in prison terms of three to four years.

Lewis subsequently died of complications from liver disease.

Cowan is charged with lying to the FBI.

Galardi and John D'Intino, the manager of the Kearny Mesa Cheetah's, both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The club's Las Vegas-based owner is expected to be a key prosecution witness.