KTUU.com | Alaska's news and information source | Jury finds Sen. Ted Stevens guilty on all counts

Jury finds Sen. Ted Stevens guilty on all counts

by Jill Burke
Monday, October 27, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted on all seven counts in his federal corruption trial Monday, forever staining the political career of the longest-serving Republican senator in history.

The jury of eight women and four men agreed with U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors' accusations that Stevens knowingly made false statements on Senate disclosure forms and schemed to conceal hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts he received regarding the renovation of his Girdwood home.

The jury -- which proceeded with an alternate after one juror was excused due to the death of her father -- deliberated for about four and a half hours Monday morning before handing down its stinging guilty verdict.

Stevens was visibly shaken as the verdicts came in -- he had vowed to clear his name and failed. Afterward, the senator and his attorneys said nothing, and hurriedly pushed their way into a waiting vehicle.

But late Monday, a defiant Stevens said he will continue his re-election campaign and the fight to clear his name isn't over -- he wants a new trial.

Stevens and his attorneys had several issues throughout the trial with actions of the prosecution, asking for four separate mistrials along the way.

Prosecutors did have some missteps during the trial. They introduced bad accounting evidence, which was later stricken, and kept information that could have been helpful to Stevens under wraps in violation of court rules.

"I am obviously disappointed in the verdict but not surprised given the repeated instances of prosecutorial misconduct in this case ..." Stevens said in a statement released by his office. "I will fight this unjust verdict with every ounce of energy I have. I am innocent ... I ask that Alaskans and my Senate colleagues stand with me as I pursue my rights. I remain a candidate for the United States Senate. I will come home on Wednesday and ask for your vote."

Still, the fact remains that Stevens is a convicted felon, and he has a short window to convince Alaskan voters to send a criminal back to Congress with Election Day looming Nov. 4.

Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, Stevens' Democratic challenger in the election, issued the following statement through his campaign office:

"This past year has been a difficult time for Alaskans, but our people are strong and resilient and I believe that we will be able to move forward together to address the critical challenges that face Alaska."

Whether or not he's re-elected, Stevens will likely face a tremendous amount of pressure to resign, and could be expelled by the Senate.

Stevens' conviction is the ninth the Department of Justice has won on 11 indictments. Stevens is the fourth of six current or former lawmakers indicted in the probe to lose to the government at trial.

And the team of prosecutors he went up against hasn't lost one of the cases yet.

"This investigation continues, as does our commitment to holding elected officials accountable when they violate our laws," said Matthew Friedrich, acting Assistant Attorney General.

After his indictment in July, facing re-election and a tenacious challenger, Stevens asked for and received a speedy trial. He also unsuccessfully pushed for the case to be tried in Alaska.

And so last month a judge delivered him into the hands of 12 citizens from the nation's capitol, who then delivered his fate.

"By their verdict, the jury found that the prosecution had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Senator Stevens knowing filed false financial disclosure forms over the course of some six years," Friedrich said.

The trial began Sept. 22 with jury selection and opening arguments Sept. 25. Attorneys presented closing arguments Oct. 21. The jury received the case and went into deliberation the following day.

Prosecutors accused Stevens of covering up a close, but corrupt relationship with a powerful businessman who built his wealth on big oil.

For years, they argued, Stevens never disclosed, as required, hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts and free home remodeling, most of it coming from one man -- Stevens' friend and fishing buddy, Bill Allen, the former VECO executive who been a key element in the Justice Department's corruption cases.

"This company, the evidence showed, was not a charity and in fact solicited Senator Stevens for assistance in numerous areas during the same time frame that it provided Senator Stevens with these gifts and things of value," Friedrich said.

Stevens' defense team portrayed their client as an absentee homeowner -- a man who had left his wife in charge of their Girdwood home, who had been taken in by a misguided and deceitful friend, and who was too busy with his Senate duties to keep tabs on it all.

At trial prosecutors played an intercepted call between Stevens and Allen in which the two men discuss their legal woes.  In trying to give a depressed Allen resolve to tough out what may come of the investigation, Stevens was heard in the audio recordings to say that "they can't kill us, it's not Iraq."   He went on to tell Allen the worst that could happen was that the men might face steep legal bills and possibly do a little jail time.

While prosecutors focused on painting Stevens as a crook full of indignation who bullied people, the defense strategy was to show an honorable man victimized by a former friend, Allen.

A parade of character witnesses -- including fellow Sens. Daniel Inouye and Orrin Hatch and former Secretary of State Colin Powell -- took the stand in support of their friend.

Stevens took the stand in his own defense, saying he took no gifts, never lied, and that everything he signed his name to, he believed, was truthful.

But jurors didn't believe him.

"The evidence at trial showed that Senator Stevens committed this crime to hide from the public and from his constituents the fact that he had received hundreds of thousands of dollars of freebies from an Alaska corporation and its chief executive officer," said Friedrich said.

Stevens was indicted for violations of the Ethics in Government Act on July 29 on seven counts -- six of them related to false statements made on disclosure forms from 2001-06. The seventh charged Stevens with scheming to cover up the receipt of gifts he failed to disclose.

He pleaded not guilty on July 31.

His conviction is just the sixth of an indicted sitting senator in United States history and the first since David Durenberger, R-Minn., pleaded guilty to five misdemeanors in 1995. One of the previous five convictions was overturned on appeal.

The indictment was only the 11th of a sitting senator and the first since Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, in 1993.

Stevens began his Senate career in 1968 when he was appointed by then-Alaska Gov. Wally Hickel on Dec. 24 to fill E.L. Bartlett's seat after Bartlett died.

He was elected for the first time in 1970, defeating Wendell Kay in a special election to fill out Bartlett's term. Since then Stevens has risen through the ranks of the Senate, eventually earning chairmanship of powerful committees like Appropriations and Commerce, Science and Transportation.

Stevens was once even chair of the Senate Ethics Committee.

When Republicans controlled the Senate from 2003-07, Stevens was the president pro tempore -- a largely honorary title, but nevertheless third in line to the White House behind the vice president and speaker of the House of Representatives.

Stevens faces up to five years in prison for each of the seven counts, but he is unlikely to serve a lengthy prison term under federal sentencing guidelines. Normally, sentencing would be 90 days from Monday, but Judge Emmet Sullivan deferred sentencing until after a status hearing in February to give the defense time to respond to the guilty verdicts.

Contact Jill Burke at jburke@ktuu.com