Lawyers for two former Cook County assistant state’s attorneys on Tuesday attacked the credibility of special prosecutors who handled Jackie Wilson’s third trial, launching into contentious exchanges about whether the prosecutors did their due diligence in the case that racked up a roughly $494,000 bill.

The ex-assistant state’s attorneys are standing trial accused of wrongdoing in connection with the 2020 trial for Wilson, whose wrongful conviction case helped expose longstanding practices of torture by notorious ex-Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge and detectives working under him.

Nicholas Trutenko, 68, is charged with perjury, official misconduct, obstruction of justice and violating a local records act in relation to his testimony at Wilson’s third trial, in 2020. Andrew Horvat, 48, represented Trutenko in that proceeding and is accused of official misconduct.

The trial entered its second day on Tuesday at the Rolling Meadows branch court in northwest suburban Cook County, with Lawrence Rosen re-taking the stand after giving several hours of testimony on Monday. Rosen and his special prosecution team dropped charges against Wilson after learning about Trutenko’s longtime friendship with a witness.

Judge Daniel Shanes, a Lake County judge hearing the case due to conflicts with Cook County judges, appeared at times to grow exasperated with the tenor of the questions, at one point calling a break during a heated exchange.

“This is a court room, not a debate stage, not a press conference, not a bar room,” he said.

The case centers around testimony Trutenko gave as a defense witness in Wilson’s third trial in 2020, where he disclosed he had developed a close friendship with a key witness against Wilson in his second trial in 1989. The witness, William Coleman, was alleged to be an international con man.

Rosen testified that because his team was unable to locate Coleman and believed him dead, transcripts of his previous testimony against Wilson were read into the record at the trial.

But Rosen told the court that he was stunned to hear Trutenko divulge the friendship, as well as recent contact between the two men. Rosen said he spoke to Trutenko before he testified, and made note of the fact that Coleman’s testimony would be read into the record because he couldn’t be located. Rosen alleged that Trutenko untruthfully testified that Coleman did not come up in prior conversations with Rosen.

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Defense attorneys, though, questioned whether Rosen and other special prosecutors dropped the ball when searching for Coleman and other witnesses and asked why they did not question Trutenko on the stand to correct what attorneys have argued was his misunderstanding of the question.

“Sir, when you found out Mr. Coleman was alive, it exposed your failure to locate him, correct?” asked Jim McKay, who represents Trutenko.

“If there was a failure here, it was your client not telling us he was alive,” Rosen shot back.

McKay also suggested during questioning that Rosen has been inconsistent in his accounts of what happened leading up to and during the 2020 trial. He furnished a report prepared by the special prosecution team handling the case against Trutenko and Horvat in place of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office that said Rosen traveled to the United Kingdom to attempt to locate Coleman. Rosen countered that he didn’t claim to have traveled there.

“Perhaps a mistake was made by a lawyer in reporting something,” McKay said.

Wilson and his brother Andrew, was arrested and charged with murder in the fatal shootings of Chicago police Officers William Fahey and Richard O’Brien in 1982.

Special prosecutors were attempting to try Wilson for a third time when they dropped charges after hearing Trutenko’s testimony.