PITTSBURGH — A nationally known coroner pleaded not guilty to charges he used his government staff for private gain.

Cyril Wecht, who consulted on deaths ranging from Elvis Presley to Laci Peterson and JonBenet Ramsey, was arraigned Friday on 84 counts, including mail fraud, wire fraud, theft of honest services and theft from the Allegheny County coroner's office.

The indictment handed up Jan. 20 by a federal grand jury accuses Wecht of using government employees to run private errands, such as buying tennis balls, and doing laboratory and other work for his private company. Wecht's private clients were also bilked, according to prosecutors, when he overcharged them and used fake travel agency bills to cover his tracks.

Wecht has denied doing private work on county time during the decades he worked for the government. He immediately resigned from his government job after the indictment.

Wecht, 74, answered "not guilty" to the charges in court Friday and did not speak after the brief hearing in U.S. District Court.

His attorneys said little afterward.

"We're going to try this case in the courtroom," said attorney Mark Rush.

Wecht and another attorney, former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" earlier this week.

On the show, Thornburgh said he couldn't guarantee Wecht entirely separated his private pathology business from his government job, but said, "bringing these draconian federal criminal charges to solve that kind of bookkeeping and accounting problem is overkill."

Prosecutors have declined to estimate how much Wecht might have gained from the alleged abuse. He earned $4.65 million from his private practice from 1997 to 2004.

Wecht is free on $100,000 unsecured bond. Prosecutors had sought $200,000 and Wecht attorney J. Alan Johnson argued for recognizance bail, saying there was no evidence Wecht was a flight risk.

Wecht will likely face trial in the fall, though a date has not been set.

The trial would likely be long. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Stallings said prosecutors would need five or six weeks to present their case and Johnson said the defense would need at least a month.