BOISE - Federal prosecutors on Thursday called to the witness stand Cyndi Steele, the reported target of a money for murder plot allegedly ordered by her husband and former Aryan Nations attorney Edgar J. Steele.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Traci J. Whelan asked the Sagle woman about her husband's long-distance liaisons with Ukrainian women. Prosecutors have said he had turned to the "dalliances" because his wife wasn't paying attention to him and he believed she might have a boyfriend around Portland, where she had been spending time taking care of her mother and teaching dancing.

Whelan asked if she knew her husband of 26 years was professing his love for the foreign women, expressing a desire to have children with them, and giving them gifts. Cyndi Steele said she knew about it, and her husband was researching the topic of "Russian brides," and called it a "case" he was investigating.

Prosecutors have promised one of the Ukrainian women would be called to testify during the trial in U.S. District Court in Boise, which started Tuesday with jury selection.

Cyndi Steele told the court, "He wanted to write a book about it. I gave him the go-ahead, because I trusted him."

Whelan said Edgar Steele, 65, started the exchanges in August 2009, and continued until he was arrested in June 2010, for allegedly hiring his handyman, 50-year-old Sagle resident Larry Fairfax, to kill Cyndi Steele. Cyndi Steele has said she believes her husband is innocent, and has been attending the trial every day with daughter Kelsey Steele, of Oregon City, Ore.

Whelan asked Cyndi Steele if she knew her husband had planned to travel to Kiev to see the women, and was constantly exchanging e-mails with them. Cyndi Steele said her husband kept her in the loop as he continued his research, but she didn't see everything he did.

But, "He let me read anything I wanted," Cyndi Steele said.

She said, "They were all just pretty girls."

Whelan asked, "Very young?"

"Yes," Cyndi Steele said.

Cyndi Steele said her husband never asked for a divorce, except for one time when he was hallucinating while under the influence of drugs when he was very sick.

Whelan also confronted Cyndi Steele with the recorded phone call between her and her husband, who was being held in the Kootenai County jail after he had been arrested.

In the phone call, played for the jury Thursday, Edgar Steele appears to instruct her how to speak with federal authorities investigating the alleged murder-for-hire plot.

He brings up a recording from days earlier in which he and Fairfax allegedly had discussed his desire to have her killed. That recording was captured when Fairfax carried a hidden recording device in his pocket as he cooperated as an FBI informant.

In the jail recording, from June 13, Edgar Steele said, "After you hear this tape tomorrow, no matter what you hear, no matter what you think, no matter what you feel, you have to say the following: 'No, that is not my husband's voice.'"

He told his wife federal authorities would be trying to use her to authenticate the recording by confirming that it was in fact her husband's voice.

"He was trying to tell me he's innocent," Cyndi Steele told the court. He was "not asking me to lie."

Later in her testimony, she said, "I don't know what he wanted" when he called.

During the jail call, she corrected her husband, "They (federal investigators and prosecutors) weren't the ones insisting that I listen to the tape. I asked to hear the tape, it is my choice whether I wanna hear 'em or not."

Edgar Steele told her, "Please do not be the one that puts me in prison."

About halfway through the call, after Cyndi Steele said that "there's things that I need to talk to you about that I can't talk to you about," her husband broke in.

"Well, you can talk, the husband-wife privilege is absolute and anything you say to me on this phone call, even though it's being recorded, cannot be used in court," he said as jurors listened in.

The trial continues today at 8:30 a.m. with more testimony from Cyndi Steele.