LEGISLATOR ACCUSES MAYOR LYONS OF DEMANDING SHARE OF CONTRACTS

Cambridge's pudgy Mayor John W. Lyons and his pal and co-defendant Paul Mannos, a Brookline contractor, served their first day under fire yesterday in the Middlesex Superior Court under indictment on 66 charges of general conspiracy and bribery.

Before a packed gallery of quiet court hangers-on and ragged Lyon supporters, District Attorney Robert F. Bradford '23 and Francis T. Leahy, Lyons' counsel, came out into the trial's second day with both fists flying. Throughout the session, presiding Judge Harold P. Williams had to call for order and compromise between the antagonistic lawyers.

Lyons, Old Guard leader of the prolonged war against city-streamlining Plan E and well-known to Harvard men for his anti-snow policies, has been indicted by the crew-cut, crusading prosecutor on charges of corrupt practices.

Bradford accused the mayor and Mannos of undertaking a two million dollar building program when the former entered office in 1938 as "a means of setting up a method to collect" from each engineer and architect "one-third of the fees received." These fees totaled about $120,000, giving Lyons $40,000.

With two days behind them, the contestants expect the trial to drag out approximately two weeks. Bradford's tactics can not be hurried as they try to present the involved and highly statistical evidence carefully and systematically.

Leahy, one of Boston's most capable trial lawyers, at present confines himself to tearing down the prosecution's testimony. In cross-examining John V. Kimball, Bradford's star witness, of a mechanical engineering firm involved in the case, and former mayor of Malden, Leahy attempted to destroy his damaging evidence by forcing him to admit his own criminal involvement through paying any bribe.

Leahy dramatically drew Kimball out with leading questions until he struck home by asking Kimball if he did not consider himself criminally guilty. Bradford sprang to his feet in a second with a violent objection after his witness denied the charge.

When architect James W. McLaughlin in the afternoon session involved the court in a maze of contradictory figures and dates, Judge Williams was forced to recess the case until this morning.