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 Location : Ether-Sphere
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 |  Subject: Good stuff: Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens indicted on corruption counts  Tue Jul 29, 2008 8:46 pm | |
| WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator and a storied figure in Alaska's political history, was indicted today on seven felony counts of making false statements in a corruption case.
Prosecutors said the 84-year-old Stevens, required to file financial disclosure forms with the Senate on gifts greater than $10,000, had accepted innumerable gifts valued at $250,000 from the oil services company VECO and its CEO from 1999 to 2006 without reporting them. The gifts included material and labor used in the renovation of Stevens' private vacation home in Girdwood section of Anchorage, including a new first floor, a garage, a wraparound deck, plumbing and electrical wiring, as well as a Viking gas grill, furniture and tools.
Stevens has adamantly denied any wrongdoing, saying he paid all the bills he was presented for the renovation. Prosecutors said Stevens, the first sitting U.S. senator to be indicted since 1993, will not be arrested and will be allowed to turn himself in.
The indictment alleges that while he was receiving these gifts, Stevens "could and did use his official position and his office on behalf of VECO during the same time period." Among the company's requests, said the indictment, were federal grants from several agencies as well as help in building a natural gas pipeline in Alaska's North Slope region.
The indictment increases prospects for Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, Stevens' Democratic opponent in this year's Senate election, to pick up his seat. Prosecutors were asked at a press conference whether the indictment was timed to intersect with the political year. Matthew Friedrich, chief of the Justice Department's criminal division, said Atty. Gen. Michael Mukasey has decreed that "partisan politics should play no part in what charges we bring" or their timing. That policy, he added, "was followed to the letter in this case."
The Stevens inquiry is part of a broader federal investigation into public corruption among Alaska's politicians. So far, three state legislators have been convicted and four others have entered guilty pleas and are cooperating with the government. VECO executives have also been convicted and have admitted bribing Alaska lawmakers, including Stevens' son, former state Sen. Ben Stevens. Alaska's only congressman, Don Young, is also under investigation.
Stevens, born in Indianapolis, moved to California in 1938 to live with his mother after his father died of cancer. He attended Redondo Union High School, working on the school newspaper and becoming a member of a student theater group. After service in World War II, he went to college at UCLA and got his law degree at Harvard. In 1952, after a stint in Washington, he accepted an offer from a law firm in Alaska.
As a lawyer and later a prosecutor in Alaska, Stevens lobbied heavily for the state to be admitted to the Union. Alaska became the 49th state on Jan. 3, 1959, and Stevens was elected to the state House of Representatives five years later.
In 1968, Stevens ran for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, but lost in the primary to Anchorage Mayor Elmer E. Rasmuson. Rasmuson lost the general election to Democrat Mike Gravel, who ran for president this year. After the state's other Democratic senator, Bob Bartlett, died in 1968, the governor tapped Stevens to serve out his term. Stevens has won every election since with more than 60% of the vote.
When Republicans ran the Senate, from 2003 to 2007, Stevens was president pro tem of the Senate, putting him third in line of succession to the presidency. When Democrats regained control in 2007, he was replaced by West Virginia's Robert Byrd, becoming one of only three senators -- with Byrd and former South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond -- to remain in the Senate after serving as president pro tem.
The longtime chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, Stevens has left a huge footprint on Washington spending. The architect of the "bridge to nowhere" that became a rallying cry for opponents of earmark spending, he will now have to give up his post as the committee's ranking Republican.
Republican colleagues were sympathetic.
"All of us have times that we have to deal with that are tough," said Sen. John Warner (R-Va.). "I wish him the best."
"I've known Ted Stevens for 28 years and have always known him to be impeccably honest," said Sen. Arlen Specter
LNK
Another lying statist cocksucker! |
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