Government calls Stevens’s statements ‘ridiculous’

Sen. Ted Stevens offered “ridiculous” statements and could not justify why he failed to publicly disclose lavish gifts from an Alaska oil executive, a government prosecutor alleged Tuesday. 

During closing arguments in the Alaska Republican’s corruption trial, Joseph Bottini of the Justice Department said Stevens made errors and offered convoluted explanations when he said some gifts were loans and that executive Bill Allen showered him with gifts without Stevens’s knowledge.

{mosads}Stevens testified that he believed that Allen’s company, Veco Corp., was not responsible for widespread renovations that transformed his once-modest cabin in Alaska, an assertion that Bottini chalked up as "nonsense."

"Does anyone believe that the defendant can't really get Bill Allen to remove this stuff from his house?" Bottini said. "Does anyone believe he can’t keep this guy from giving him free stuff?"

"Again, if you really wanted Allen to stop — take his key away," Bottini told the jury.

Stevens, 84, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, will soon see his legal and political fate in the hands of the jury, which will start deliberations Wednesday. Stevens, who has served for nearly four decades in the Senate, faces the toughest reelection of his career on Nov. 4 against Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D).

He has pleaded not guilty to seven felony charges of not reporting more than $250,000 in gifts, mainly from Allen. Defense attorney Brendan Sullivan will make his closing argument Tuesday.

The case will almost certainly turn on whether the jury believes Stevens and his wife Catherine, who testified last week, or Allen, the senator's former friend of 25 years and now the government's star witness, who testified that he gave gifts because "I like Ted." The senator says he meant to pay all bills, and says the $160,000 he paid another contractor and other workers covered all costs to renovate his chalet.

In his closing argument, Bottini sought to bolster Allen's credibility. He acknowledged that Allen, 71, who pleaded guilty to bribing state legislators and is now cooperating with the government, is "a little rough around the edges."

But he added: "What you see is what you get with this guy."

"Allen was rich, Bill Allen was wealthy, Bill Allen was generous. … And Sen. Stevens knew that," Bottini said.

He added that Stevens "knew his good friend would help him with hundreds of thousands of dollars of free benefits."

Bottini sought to establish Stevens's motive for keeping the gifts off his disclosure forms, saying the news media "would have been all over him" if he reported that one of the biggest corporations in his state was renovating his house and giving him gifts, like a $6,000 backup power generator in 1999.

Bottini went through the laundry list of gifts Stevens received, including a $2,700 Brookstone massage chair purchased by a friend, Bob Persons, for his Washington home in 2001. Stevens testified that the chair was a loan, even though it still remains at his Washington home.

"What was the term of that loan?” Bottini said. “Zero percent interest for seven years."

Bottini also sought to poke holes in Stevens's argument that he believed he was unaware that he had not paid the Veco employees who worked on his home.

For instance, he chided Stevens for a "bizarre explanation" in discussing the renovation plans for an architect at Veco, John Hess, who drew up the plans. Stevens said he believed he hired Hess directly, but his secretary sent him a hand-written thank-you note from Stevens to his Veco address in Anchorage. Stevens and his wife, both lawyers, never got a contract for the man's work, which the senator said was normal practice in Alaska.

"Does that make any sense?" Bottini said Tuesday.