Judge denies Stevens’s bid to move trial to Alaska

A federal judge dealt a blow Wednesday to Sen. Ted Stevens's reelection bid by keeping his criminal trial in Washington in the run-up to the November elections.

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied the senator's motion to move the trial to Alaska, despite pleas from the senior Republican's attorneys that conducting the proceedings in Washington would prevent Stevens from campaigning in October.

{mosads}Moving the trial to his home state would have allowed the longest-serving Senate Republican to campaign in October ahead of the toughest reelection bid of his four-decade career. But now his campaign activities would be significantly limited as he spends October in Washington, rather than with Alaskan voters who will decide whether to send him back to the Senate for a seventh full term.

"He lives there, works there, breathes there, morning, day and night to get the public to vote," said Brendan Sullivan, Stevens's attorney. "If he is in the District of Columbia, he cannot campaign."

Stevens, 84, is charged with concealing more than $250,000 in gifts and home renovations from an oil-services company. Stevens has pleaded not guilty to all seven counts and has won an expedited trial in the hopes that he will be acquitted before the November elections. He missed Wednesday's court hearing.

Judge Sullivan said Stevens’s team did not show that keeping the trial in Washington would result in a financial hardship on him or that it would affect his attorney's ability to call and cross-examine witnesses. He said that witnesses who could not make the 3,500-mile journey from Alaska to Washington could be interviewed via satellite connection.

"There has been no showing that Sen. Stevens will not be able to call his witnesses if the trial is here," Sullivan said.

Nicholas Marsh, an attorney at the Justice Department, questioned whether Stevens would even be able to campaign in Alaska since the trial is expected to take eight hours a day for four weeks.

Brendan Sullivan also argued that most of the witnesses live in Alaska. At one point, Steven's attorney pulled out a United States map to show the distance that "90 percent" of the witnesses would have to travel to testify in Washington.

"This will be the only case in the history of our republic" where most witnesses have to travel 7,000 miles roundtrip to testify, Brendan Sullivan said.

The defense is expected to call 40 witnesses, and the government has signaled that it has 40 witnesses to call as well. It's not clear how many of those overlap.

Judge Sullivan also sided with the Justice Department that a pre-election trial in Alaska would result in an enormous amount of publicity, making it difficult to keep a jury from being influenced by the media coverage. He also said that traveling to Alaska would "adversely" affect his court's schedule.

Judge Sullivan said that he would be willing to hold the trial, which is scheduled to start at the end of September, four days a week in order to allow Stevens to travel and campaign. But that could make it harder for a jury to reach a decision before the November elections. Both sides said a total of four weeks would be needed to make their cases.

Stevens boasts near-universal name recognition in Alaska, having funneled billions of dollars’ worth of projects and programs to his home state during his legendary career. But the corruption scandal has dogged his chances for reelection in November ever since the FBI raided his Girdwood, Alaska home last summer.

Stevens's first electoral test will be the Aug. 26 primary against six GOP challengers, including two well-funded ones. If Stevens prevails, he will face the 46-year-old Democratic mayor of Anchorage, Mark Begich, who is leading in most state polls.