Sen. Stevens’s fate now rests in jury’s hands

The corruption case against Sen. Ted Stevens may turn on a single question of who was telling the truth: the Alaska Republican or his former friend, now the government’s key witness.

When they begin their deliberations Wednesday, jurors will weigh the credibility of Alaska’s political icon versus that of Bill Allen, the former head of the Veco Corp. oil-services firm who has admitted to bribing Alaska state lawmakers.

{mosads}In closing arguments on Tuesday, each man’s credibility came under a sustained attack from opposing lawyers.

About a dozen times, prosecutor Joseph Bottini called Stevens’s explanation about why he failed to disclose gifts “nonsense,” and went as far as to call part of the powerful senator’s sworn testimony “ridiculous.”

Brendan Sullivan, Stevens’s defense attorney, dismissed one statement by Allen as “an outright lie,” even calling the former oil-industry executive a “bum” at one point.

Stevens, 84, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, has pleaded not guilty to charges of lying on his financial disclosure forms about more than $250,000 in gifts and home renovations, largely from Allen.

Stevens says Allen was an overzealous contractor who concealed costs for renovations the senator and his wife, Catherine, didn’t request while they were 3,300 miles away in Washington. The couple testified that the $160,000 they paid another contractor was intended to cover all costs, and the senator says his wife was in charge of the project.

The case will be sent to the jury just 13 days before the senator faces the toughest reelection of his career on Nov. 4 against Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D).

Senior GOP strategists say Stevens’s political career rests on the verdict.

“It’s all about what happens in the trial,” Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said Wednesday. “If he is found innocent, he’ll win. If not, it doesn’t matter what happens in the election.”

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 before playing a phone call secretly taped by the FBI in 2006 in which a friend says Stevens “gets hysterical” when he spends his money.

Allen said he gave Stevens the gifts because he “liked Ted.”

Bottini tried to show that if Allen were manufacturing his story to please the government, then “why did he say he wasn’t trying to bribe the defendant?”

{mospagebreak}Brenda Morris, giving the second part of the government’s closing argument Tuesday, said Stevens was “sputtering and stuttering” when he tried to explain the renovations paid for by Allen, including the construction of two brand-new decks, a balcony, new electrical wiring, a Viking gas grill and expensive Christmas lights. She said: “Anyone and everyone is to blame but Ted Stevens.”

Stevens “did not want to be known as the senator with the house that Veco built,” Morris said.

The government tried to poke holes in Stevens’s defense by saying that, if he wanted Allen to stop giving him gifts, he should have taken away his key to the couple’s home.

{mosads}“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?”

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

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

In response, Sullivan pointed to Persons’s testimony that he wanted to give the chair to Stevens as a gift, but the senator said he could not accept gifts.

He also spent much of his argument disputing Allen’s testimony that Persons said the senator was “just covering his ass” when he asked for a bill in a 2002 note. In that note, the senator asked Allen for bills because, he said, he wanted to comply with the Senate’s strict ethics rules, which Sullivan said spoke to Stevens’s intention to pay for all bills.

“We’re trying to convict an innocent man in this courtroom on an interpretation of evidence that is so far from real life that it should make you sick,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said Allen had a “motive to lie” so he could curry favor with the government in exchange for a lighter jail sentence and for immunity for his company and family.

“We’re looking at Bill Allen as though he’s the bum that he turned out to be,” Sullivan said, pacing across the courtroom and waving his arms.

Sullivan asked the jurors to strongly consider the testimony of five character witnesses, including retired Gen. Colin Powell and Sens. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who vouched for Stevens’s honesty.

“Do you want to believe them, or do you want to believe Bill Allen?” Sullivan said.

“I would submit to you that the defendant is not going to commit crime with the likes of Colin Powell,” Morris later argued, in telling the jury to “stand up” to the “growling” Stevens.

“Those witnesses see the public Ted Stevens, not the private Ted Stevens. … I would submit to you, ladies and gentleman, you have been submitted to the real Ted Stevens,” Morris said.

Emily Goodin contributed to this article.