The Associated Press

CLEVELAND - The lawyer for a private detective will try to get him out of facing grand jury questions about why he is investigating the forewoman of another grand jury.

The forewoman is part of a secret panel looking into allegations that an imprisoned former stockbroker paid a bribe to a state official for state business.

After a judge ruled Wednesday that private detective Thomas Pavlish must go before a grand jury, his lawyer, Richard Lillie, said that he is still negotiating to get Pavlish out of a subpoena.

Cuyahoga County prosecutors want to know whether Pavlish, of Enterprise Investigations, is investigating more than one grand juror and if so, why and who hired him.

"We're working to come up with some sort of resolution," Lillie said. "There was no intent to intimidate or harass."

The grand jury is investigating connections between state Treasurer Joseph Deters' office and former stockbroker Frank Gruttadauria.

A week before Deters testified before the grand jury, Pavlish asked to see the personnel file of the jury forewoman, Rosemarie DeJohn, who works for the Cuyahoga County commissioners.

"She had a concern, or an apprehension, that the only reason there would be an interest in her personnel file was because of her participation in an investigation concerning alleged public corruption that involves a state officeholder," said Steven Dever, a Cuyahoga County assistant prosecutor.

Pavlish was issued a subpoena, and his attorneys filed a motion to stop the demand that he appear for grand jury questions. Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Thomas Pokorny denied the motion.

Gruttadauria is serving seven years on federal and state charges. Gruttadauria has said he bribed a public official close to Deters' office, but prosecutors have refused to name the recipient of his bribe.

Deters, a Cincinnati Republican and former Hamilton County prosecutor, is a candidate for Ohio attorney general in 2006.

Gruttadauria has said that a $50,000 check he directed to the Hamilton County Republican Party was a disguised contribution to Deters. From the time Gruttadauria met Deters in 1999, the broker's then-employers, SG Cowen and later Lehman Brothers, handled more than $5.9 billion in trades for the state treasury.

Deters testified before the grand jury but declined to say what prosecutors asked him.