The government’s chief target in a $1.9 billion corporate fraud case on Monday repeatedly denied trying to bribe a key witness to give favorable testimony.

Former health care executive Lance Poulsen said the witness, former employee Sherry Gibson, misunderstood his attempts to help her.

“I never asked Sherry to lie,” Poulsen said during testimony that stretched over several hours in federal court. “I never asked her to forget anything.”

Poulsen testified for the first time in a case that dates to National Century Financial Enterprises’ 2002 bankruptcy, a stunning downfall for a corporation that once boasted it was the country’s largest health care financing company. Poulsen founded National Century and was its chief executive officer.

The company’s demise led to a host of civil lawsuits, including one by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and to criminal convictions of at least nine former employees, including Gibson, a former executive vice president.

Prosecutors allege Poulsen and other former executives of National Century moved money to cover up shortfalls, fabricated data and lied to investors.

Poulsen said Monday he was innocent of any crime related to the fraud allegations.

“I had not done anything wrong,” Poulsen said. “It was bogus all the way.”

He faces an August trial on multiple counts of wire and securities fraud and money laundering. Before that trial, he and longtime acquaintance Karl Demmler, a Columbus bar and restaurant owner, are defending themselves against a witness tampering charge involving attempts to change Gibson’s testimony during the upcoming trial.

Poulsen was the last witness to testify in the witness tampering trial. Both sides were scheduled to give closing arguments Tuesday.

Poulsen’s attorney, William Terpening, said his client was trying to make the point that he felt comfortable about the case and so wouldn’t have had any reason to try to influence Gibson.

Poulsen said despite her cooperation with the government, he wanted to try to help Gibson recoup money she had lost as a result of the company’s problems.

“I felt she had been shafted royally,” Poulsen said. “I wanted to make her whole.”

Poulsen’s use of the phrase “make her whole” was significant. Prosecutors have quoted the same phrase, but allege that it was a reference to bribing Gibson.

Gibson testified last week that that was how she understood the phrase.

Poulsen testified he never offered to pay Gibson money. He said offers of monthly installments of $5,000 were meant to pay for a new attorney for Gibson because Poulsen felt she had had poor legal representation.

Poulsen’s defense suffered a blow late in the afternoon when U.S. Judge Algenon Marbley refused his attorney’s request to instruct the jury they could consider whether the government entrapped Poulsen.

Marbley said there was enough evidence that the offers to pay Gibson originated with Poulsen and Demmler, not Gibson.

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On the Net:

U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Ohio: http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/ohs/index.html