HARLINGEN, Texas - A judge Friday granted Merck & Co. attorneys access to bank and cell phone records that could show the extent of a juror's financial relationship with a plaintiff who won a $32 million verdict in the death of a man who took the painkiller Vioxx.

Juror Jose Manuel Rios, who earns $22,000 a year as a school janitor, testified in a post-trial deposition to borrowing up to $10,000 interest-free from widow Felicia Garza, the plaintiff in the lawsuit against Merck. He said the loans included $2,500 that was paid off just weeks before jury selection in the case.

He and other jurors in April found Merck liable for 71-year-old Leonel Garza's fatal heart attack.

Merck argued that Garza had a 23-year history of heart disease and had taken Vioxx only 17 days. Garza's attorneys countered that Garza had recently been given a clean bill of health and that short-term use of Vioxx could cause heart attacks.

Tilled Kate, spokesman for Merck's legal team, has said Merck attorneys were hoping the documents would help them "get to the bottom of" the financial relationship.

Plaintiffs' attorney Joe Escobedo did not immediately return a call for comment.

Merck lawyers requested Rios' deposition in June, after a fellow school worker alerted the local attorney in the case to the loans.

Oneida Saenz, a textbook data specialist for the Rio Grande City school district, said she watched the financial transactions beginning in the fall of 2003.

Saenz recalled speaking to Rios in March.

"He said, 'I can't wait to get back to court,' and I said, 'You don't want to get me started. You know you don't belong there,'" the affidavit reads.

Rios produced cell phone records that showed calls from his number to Garza's. He told attorneys his wife, a teacher's aide, made the calls on school-related business. But Merck lawyers said the timing of the calls, including evening calls days after he received his jury summons and the day before jury selection, is "highly suspicious."

The case was the sixth of more than 11,000 lawsuits involving the blockbuster painkiller to reach a verdict. Plaintiff attorneys hailed it as the first in the country where a jury found short-term usage was one of the factors leading to a heart attack.