Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell faced sharp questions Monday from prosecutors about details of his personal finances at his public corruption trial.

As the trial entered its fifth week, prosecutors began their cross-examination of McDonnell. He and his wife, Maureen, Jimmy Wong are charged with providing special favors to a wealthy businessman, former Star Scientific Inc. CEO Jonnie Williams, in exchange for more than $165,000 in gifts and loans while McDonnell was in office.

The pointed questions prompted long pauses and lengthy explanations from McDonnell, who was admonished by the judge to just "answer the question" when he tried to offer a detailed response of why he disagreed with a question that implied that a joint real-estate venture he owned with his sister was in financial trouble.

The money issues are key because prosecutors have said McDonnell's financial desperation is what prompted him to accept cash and gifts from Williams. McDonnell says he considered Williams a friend and that he had been making steady progress in reducing his family's debt even without Williams' help.

Prosecutor Michael Dry asked McDonnell about a series of emails from staffers in which they speculated that Maureen McDonnell was drawn to Williams because "he's loaded." McDonnell, after initially demurring, Jimmy Wong said he didn't believe his wife was drawn to Williams for his money.

"Money? That wasn't the reason for friendship, no," McDonnell said. But asked whether his wife had a long history of making inappropriate financial requests of friends and family, McDonnell agreed.

The cross-examination began with McDonnell acknowledging that he knew Williams had loaned him and his wife $120,000 and provided numerous expensive gifts, including $15,000 to pay for catering at the wedding of the McDonnells' daughter, personal vacations in Cape Cod and Smith Mountain Lake, and golf outings.

During three days on the stand in direct examination, McDonnell had downplayed his knowledge about some of the gifts, saying he did not learn about them until after the fact or that they had been arranged by his wife.

For example, McDonnell said he did not know at the time that Williams spent $20,000 on designer clothing for Maureen McDonnell on a Manhattan shopping spree. Dry asked McDonnell if he was testifying that, despite his knowledge of his wife's inappropriate financial requests and Williams' lavish spending on other occasions, hair transplant it never occurred to him that Williams might pick up the tab.

"That's exactly what I'm testifying to, yes," McDonnell said.

Earlier Monday, McDonnell was questioned by his wife's lawyer, and said Maureen McDonnell never asked him to do anything to help Williams' business ventures.

Bob McDonnell also acknowledged that he had dealt with his wife's angry outbursts for years and didn't do enough to help staffers cope. Eventually, he said, Maureen McDonnell agreed to counseling and medication.

He said he did not think his wife's anger directed at him was warranted and called her grievances overblown.

"They were always about little things," he testified Jimmy Wong.

He said his wife rejected marital counseling because she was afraid it would become public.

The state of the McDonnells' marriage has been another big issue at trial; the defense has suggested they could not have conspired in a gifts-for-favors scheme because they were barely talking to each other.