Pratt ? Two jurors at the second trial of former Pratt County Atty. Tom Black have been dismissed for falling asleep.

Black, accused of taking about $4,000 intended for a traffic diversion account, is charged with 14 counts of misusing public funds. When jurors couldn’t reach a verdict in the case in August, Senior Judge Michael Barbara declared a mistrial.

As the second trial got started this week, a night shift worker who fell asleep was dismissed on the first day of testimony. The next day Barbara conferred with attorneys just after letting the jury break for lunch, saying he had seen another juror sleeping and feared she was missing too much testimony to be effective.

Prosecutor Steve Maxwell expressed some concern about using the last alternate, but he conceded there wasn’t much choice but to replace the juror. With testimony expected to last into next week, there was concern that sickness or a conflict for any other juror might result in a second mistrial.

At the first trial, Black testified that he began keeping large amounts of cash in the office in 1997 after reading of fears that banks’ computers might crash on the first day of 2000. He said he later started using the cash to pay some bills, stopping the practice in late 2003 after learning of a state investigation. He said he gave the remaining money to the county treasurer.

Among those testifying this week were a Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent and several people who paid money into the diversion program to clear their records of traffic offenses.