Retired Fisherman Spoke With FBI About StevensesWhile former state Senate President Ben Stevens (R-AK) headed a seafood grant board that his father, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) funded with millions in federal dollars, the younger Stevens took in thousands of dollars in consulting fees from the very companies that won the allocations. At least some of those fees, one retired Alaska fisherman has said under oath, were veiled bribes.
The fisherman, Victor Smith, spoke with the FBI in Seattle last year, just before a grand jury in Alaska issued at least three fisheries subpoenas. Smith said the agents wanted information on how the Stevenses were connected to the fishery scandal that he and others have complained and written about for years. “They were mainly interested in payments to Ben Stevens and anything I had related to Ted Stevens,” Smith told me.
In a signed affidavit (available here), Smith recounts a meeting between two affiliated fishery associations where the head of one group fielded a question from a member. The member wanted to know how Ben Stevens would be paid $500,000 now that his father had gotten $53 million for a project that would benefit the industry. According to Smith’s affidavit:
* The reply from Zuanich was âIâm confident that, with a little convoluted accounting, we can keep the payments to Ben Stevens off of PSVOAâs books.â
Since 2001, the younger Stevens has pulled in upwards of $775,435 in consulting fees, according to the Anchorage Daily News. Though, the Alaska Public Offices Commission recently fined Stevens $5,630 for failing to disclose $480,000 in payments he received from various companies. The complaint against Stevens was filed by former Alaska state representative Ray Metcalfe who has followed Stevens’ relationship with the fisheries for years. Metcalfe estimates that Stevens has been paid at least $904,000 in fees by fisheries between 2000 and 2005. Smith’s affidavit was included in the complaint.
Stevens was already roped into the ongoing federal investigation in Alaska when an executive at oil services company Veco Corp. pled guilty in May to bribing him with $240,000. His father is also under investigation for his dealings with Veco as well, including for having his home remodeled under the company’s oversight.
