Stevens Gets Nods In Two Alaska TrialsSen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) is well connected in the state’s scandal circuit. He came up twice yesterday in two separate Alaska cases, one criminal and one civil, that both hinge on the financial ties between public officials and company leaders.
In the favors-for-votes corruption trial of former state legislator Pete Kott (who dreams of a topless beaches and a Barbados prison gig), the FBI played a videotape of a secret meeting between Veco executives discussing Stevens’ arrival, just in time to support legislation they wanted pushed through the state legislature.
In the grainy video, VECO Corp. executives Bill Allen and Rick Smith can be heard talking about how to ensure passage of an oil tax bill. If approved, the bill would increase chances that a natural gas pipeline would be built, a deal that could mean huge profits for VECO.
Allen and Smith said they wanted to ensure Stevens was asked “good questions” that would steer him toward discussing the bill and the pipeline. The senator, Allen said, would make clear that “we need oil.”
Meanwhile, Stevens’ name came up again at a civil trial where a former contractor for Cook Inlet Region Inc., John Ellsworth, has been accused of illegally taking $40 million from the Native corporation. Federal prosecutors working on the investigation into Alaska political corrution subpoenaed some of the evidence collected against Ellsworth last year.
The company’s former CEO testified yesterday and Monday defending Ellsworth’s lavish spending on corporate jet rides for Stevens and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and trips to a Bristol Bay fishing lodge for politicians and their families. Stevens reimbursed the company for the stays in 2001 and 2003 after the Anchorage Daily News questioned the vacations.
“You’ve got to have those relationships to deal in business. It’s not just about going out and bidding on contracts. … You do have to wine and dine people,” [the former CEO] said.
