E-mails show Stevens aware of home improvements

The Justice Department on Wednesday prepared to rest its case against Sen. Ted Stevens, after it released a flurry of e-mails to undercut the Alaska Republican's defense that he was unaware of the elaborate renovations that transformed his home in Girdwood, Alaska. 

Stevens did not list the unpaid renovations as gifts on his annual financial disclosure forms, which require that senators disclose all gifts worth more than $250, according to sworn testimony by FBI agent Michelle Pluta. 

{mosads}Pluta, the government’s final witness, is helping the prosecution connect the pieces of its case that Stevens was kept apprised of the renovations his friends were spearheading, while he failed to disclose them to avoid the appearance of impropriety. She is expected to conclude her testimony Wednesday afternoon.

Stevens, 84, has pleaded not guilty to seven felony charges of failing to report on his Senate financial disclosure forms more than $250,000 in gifts and home renovations from his ex-friend Bill Allen, head of the now-defunct oil-services firm Veco Corp. 

The senator paid some $160,000 for the renovations, which he believes was a fair tab. His defense team plans to argue that the contractors overcharged Stevens for many unwanted renovations, and will try to portray the senator as unaware of the changes as his wife took a lead role in the project.

In several messages released Wednesday, Stevens asked for bills to pay for the renovations. 
“The fact that you have done this project so well and so quickly has helped us more than you know,” Stevens said in an August 2000 handwritten note to John Hess, a former Veco employee and the architect of the remodeling project. “As Bob [Persons] and I have told you, under Senate rules, I must pay you for what you have done.”

But the case will turn on whether the jurors believe he intended to pay for the renovations, or if he only asked for bills in a deliberate attempt to cover his tracks.

Allen, Stevens’s former friend of more than a quarter-century, testified last week that Persons told him that the senator was “just covering his ass” in asking for bills.  In an August 2000 e-mail, Persons, a local restaurant owner in Girdwood who monitored the renovations while Stevens was 3,500 miles away in Washington, told the senator that his only expense for some of the renovations was workers eating some leftover cookies, chocolate truffles and cake.

“You still have cookies and some of the cake,” Persons wrote in an e-mail, which was admitted as evidence Wednesday.

In addition to the installation of two decks, a new staircase, a brand-new power generator, new plumbing and electrical wiring, reworked rooftops and the addition of an entire floor, Stevens also failed to report a $2,000 Jacuzzi and a $2,965.50 massage chair as gifts.

“For a lot of reasons I can’t wait until I get home, the house will be the frosting on the cake,” Stevens told Persons in a September 2000 e-mail.

After learning of the work status from Persons, Stevens sent Allen a note lavishing him with praise. 

“You continue to amaze me the way you keep so many balls in the air at one time,” Stevens said in an August 2000 thank-you note to Allen for arranging the renovations.

The defense will make the case that Stevens’s friends went to lengths to keep the senator from seeing bills, even though he wanted to pay for all costs. Taped phone calls played for jurors this week showed Allen and Persons discussing a scheme to conceal bills for the remodeling project.

Before the case proceeds, however, the court will hear a procedural dispute Wednesday afternoon.

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan plans to hold a hearing on the defense’s motion to dismiss the case over allegations that the government suppressed key evidence before the trial began. If he denies the motion, as he has two previous dismissal requests, the defense will likely rest its case by the end of the next week, giving the jury two full weeks to reach a verdict. Stevens faces reelection Nov. 4.