Prosecutors Detail Sen. Stevens’ Involvement in Unpaid Renovations

CQ Politics.com | October 8, 2008

By Kathleen Hunter, CQ StaffWed Oct 8, 6:43 PM ET

Federal prosecutors Wednesday attempted to show that Sen. Ted Stevens kept close tabs on the renovation to his Girdwood, Alaska, home — a key point if they expect a jury to find him guilty of concealing $250,000 worth of free construction and other gifts.

The government introduced into evidence dozens of e-mails and other correspondence, highlighting items in which Stevens discusses the progress of a massive addition that added a new first floor, two porches and a balcony to his once-modest A-frame cabin.

Prosecutors also showed the jury e-mails in which Stevens discussed other gifts, such as a $2,700 vibrating massage chair, that prosecutors contend should have been declared on mandatory forms designed to highlight potential conflicts of interest.

That evidence capped the government’s case against Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate.

It was meant to help jurors connect the dots of evidence and testimony presented over the past two weeks.

On Thursday, the defense is likely to begin presenting its case, which may begin with high-ranking character witnesses: Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

How Involved? Prosecutors sought to establish that Stevens was intimately involved in managing both his finances and the construction of the addition to his home, in the hope of dispelling any doubt that failing to declare the gifts was an honest mistake.

In an Aug. 7, 2000, e-mail, the friend Stevens had entrusted to oversee the renovation, Bob Persons, detailed work at the job site and told Stevens the cost to him would only be the food that Persons helped himself to.

“We’re on schedule, and I’ll pound these guys until it gets done,” said Persons, who in many of the e-mails discussed in detail his efforts to keep the project moving and to keep costs down.

Prosecutors have entered into the court record evidence that Stevens and Persons spoke at least every few weeks about the house project, sometimes exchanging several e-mails in a 24-hour period.

In one series of e-mails, Stevens discussed plans for installing a whirlpool spa at the house, which Stevens often refers to as the “chalet.”

Several of the e-mails are messages that Stevens forwarded to his wife, Catherine. Defense attorneys argue that she was the chief family overseer of the addition — a claim those forwarded e-mails may erode.

The Form Jurors meanwhile saw what a Senate disclosure form looks like, when they were shown Stevens’ 1999-2006 reports.

Prosecutors sought to stress the difference between the gifts, construction materials and free labor Stevens received and the absence of any reference to those items in his disclosure report.

They put FBI agent Michelle Pluta on the stand to read portions of an Oct. 19, 1999 e-mail in which Stevens wrote that he had asked businessman Bill Allen “to hook up a generator to our chalet for Y2K - just in case.”

On Stevens’ 1999 disclosure form, he reported a number of gifts — including a $3,800 commemorative Japanese sword — but not the generator.

The only gift Stevens reported on his 2002 form — a year in which another round of improvements was made to his house — was an $1,100 gold Olympic commemorative coin.

Prosecutors contend Stevens also ran afoul of disclosure laws when he failed to disclose as a gift a Brookstone chair that Persons and his wife had delivered to Stevens’ home in 2001. Stevens refers to the chair as a loan in one of the e-mails read in open court, but the government claims it was a gift that should have been reported.

In a May 2004 e-mail exchange, Stevens discussed how he should report a sled dog he received as a gift in 2003. And he did report it on his form.

Dismissal Motions

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan refused again to throw out all the charges, as the defense had asked, but did strike down two aspects of the government’s case because of prosecutors’ failure to turn over in a timely fashion some evidence that would have helped the defense.

The judge threw out evidence related to a 1999 car swap as well as timesheet records of two employees of Allen’s company, VECO Corp., who worked on the Stevens’ house.

Sullivan’s ire with the prosecutors was clear after learning that a worker appeared to have artificially inflated his time sheet by billing extra hours to the project at Stevens’ home.

“The government knew the documents were lies,” the judge said.