Soccer promoter Moises Hernandez described former Minneapolis park worker Hashim Yonis as someone who wanted no bills smaller than $20 when paid in cash for renting public soccer fields, but who issued no receipts.

Hernandez said he preferred to pay in cash because he collected $4 apiece from the players in his mostly Latino leagues. He rented fields at three south Minnepaolis parks. But only Yonis, who rented fields at Currie Park in the Cedar Riverside area, refused to give the receipts Hernandez wanted so that he could chase pickup players off the turf if needed.

Hernandez testified as a key prosecution witness in the second day of the trial of Yonis on a felony theft charge. The Hennepin County attorney's office alleges Yonis pocketed money for field rentals at Currie that Hernandez gave him in 2013.

The charge is a stunning reversal for the young onetime park and school worker who lost those jobs after the allegations surfaced last year. He once was taken to the White House by Mayor R.T. Rybak to tout the city's jobs program for teens in which he participated. He was running for a Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board seat when the accusations emerged.

Hernandez denied that the Park Board forgave him a past due obligation of more than $13,000 in exchange for his statement fingering Yonis. "I never have debt," Hernandez said through an interpreter. "I paid every week."

Ira Whitlock, attorney for Yonis, asserted the debt forgiveness in his opening argument, but so far no evidence has been presented to document that. Whitlock sought to undermine the credibility of Hernandez by highlighting inconsistencies in his testimony.

Hernandez admitted he lied when first questioned by a park police investigator, but he said that was only because Yonis urged him to conceal any field rentals before a certain date. Prosecutor Susan Crumb asserted that was part of an effort by Yonis to conceal taking cash and not remitting it to park authorities.