Opening statements and testimony in the corruption trial of ex-El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa will begin Thursday following two days of jury selection.

Proceedings are scheduled to get under way at 8:30 a.m.

A panel of seven men and seven women, including two alternates, was seated late Wednesday afternoon, winnowed from a pool of 90 people.

After roughly an hour of opening remarks by both sides, prosecutors will begin calling witnesses for what’s expected to be two weeks of testimony. The witness list involves a who’s who of El Paso County sheriff’s brass, including Sheriff Bill Elder.

Initially charged with nine counts, Maketa will face a pared-down case.

Fourth Judicial District Judge Larry E. Schwartz on Wednesday said he granted a request by prosecutors to dismiss two felony counts against the former lawman – second-degree kidnapping and false imprisonment, both felonies – after authorities reassessed their case before trial.

“We have two witnesses who are very certain that two very different things happened,” special prosecutor Mark Hurlbert told the court Wednesday during a discussion held outside the presence of the jury.

Although prosecutors had probable cause to file the counts, they would be unlikely to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.

The abandoned counts stemmed from allegations that Maketa pressured a then-jail nurse, Kelli McMahan, to drop a domestic violence case against her boyfriend, a former deputy. When she agreed, authorities said she was arrested for making a false report and jailed for a night. Maketa still is accused of witness tampering in the episode.

The former three-term sheriff stands accused of a range of crimes, all involving allegations he abused his authority for personal and political benefit. He remains charged with extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion, witness tampering and conspiracy to commit witness tampering – all felonies – as well as three misdemeanor counts of official misconduct.

The extortion charges allege that Maketa threatened to terminate a $5.3 million jail health care contract unless the contractor agreed to fire a woman who had crossed him.

The official misconduct alleges that he maneuvered to impose sanctions against three deputies as part of the search for a missing file said to contain a record of misdeeds by Elder, then a candidate for sheriff running against Maketa’s pick, former Undersheriff Paula Presley.

Presley, 52, and former sheriff’s Cmdr. Juan “John” San Agustin, 47, are also charged in the case. They will be tried separately.

Elder is expected to testify that he was never the subject of a disciplinary file.

That could put him at odds with the prosecution, which alleges that Maketa and Presley concocted a story about the file going missing from a locked room at the Sheriff’s Office in a bid to damage Elder’s political prospects and to punish his supporters inside the office.

The case is being tried by special prosecutors from the 18th Judicial District Attorneys Office. El Paso County District Attorney Dan May recused his office from handling the grand jury investigation that led to charges, saying he wanted to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

Maketa has maintained his innocence, and his attorneys have attacked his indictment as baseless.