Sen. Murkowski wants probe of Justice’s case against Ted Stevens

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is planning to ask the inspector general to investigate whether the Justice Department stopped pursuing child-molestation charges against a former oil executive in exchange for his cooperation in the case against the late Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).

Murkowski grilled Attorney General Eric Holder about the issue at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing earlier this week, asking him if the Justice Department had halted its pursuit of Bill Allen’s alleged relationship with a 15-year old girl in exchange for his testimony against Stevens.

The government dropped the sex charges against Allen last August, sparking an outcry from police and witnesses involved in building the case. Allen, the former chairman of the Veco oil corporation, also was the chief witness in the government’s case against Stevens.

Holder said the decision to decline prosecution  was “made strictly on that basis, not with regard to political persuasion or the role somebody has played.”

He explained that the charges against Allen were weighed and the evidence for the case was not sound.

“We take into consideration a number of factors, among them being … the ability to say we have a better-than-50-percent chance of winning the case,” Holder said.

Murkowski asked Holder if it would be out of line to ask the inspector general to examine the DOJ’s handling of the case and wondered if the “failure to prosecute was based on cooperation.”

On Friday, Murkowski’s office told The Hill it was moving ahead with the IG request, but did not yet have a timeframe for when the request would officially be made.

Allen donated $4,000 to Murkowski’s campaign in 2003 and 2004, according to Federal Election Commission records. And in 1998, he donated $2,000 to Murkowski’s father, the late Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), who previously held the Senate seat.

In 2007 Allen pleaded guilty to multiple federal offenses, including bribery and extortion. He is currently serving his three-year sentence in a California state penitentiary.

Allen allegedly began a relationship with the 15-year-old that carried on as the woman entered adulthood. The woman eventually moved to Seattle, where Allen allegedly continued the relationship and even paid for her flights back and forth, according to the Anchorage Daily News.