WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Stevens, the nation’s longest-serving Republican senator and a storied figure in Alaska’s political history, asserted his innocence Tuesday after he was indicted on seven felony counts of filing false financial disclosures.
The indictment accuses Stevens, former chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, of concealing payments of more than $250,000 in goods and services he received from an oil company. The items include substantial improvements to Stevens’ Alaska home in Girdwood, automobile exchanges and household goods.
The indictment charges Stevens, 84, with violating the Ethics in Government Act between 2001 and 2006 by hiding payments from the Alaska oil firm Veco Corp., its former chairman Bill Allen, and two other people. The law requires elected officials to disclose gifts and debts that exceed $10,000 during any point in the year.
Veco and Allen asked for help in return, charges say. Allen and another former Veco official pleaded guilty in May 2007 in connection with their role in the bribery of Alaskan public officials.
Matthew Friedrich, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s criminal division, said Stevens would not be arrested and would be allowed to turn himself in.
Stevens issued a statement saying he was innocent of the charges.
“It saddens me to learn that these charges have been brought against me. I have never knowingly submitted a false disclosure form required by law,” Stevens said. “I am innocent of these charges and intend to prove that.”
Tuesday’s allegations tarnish one of the most powerful and savvy of the GOP lions in the Senate. Stevens has coasted to re-election six times, but this year is in what has been viewed as the toughest race of his career against Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, a Democrat.
Stevens is beloved in Alaska for steering money to his remote and sparsely populated state. He often drew criticism from outside Alaska for going around the traditional appropriations process to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars for pet projects.
The charges
The seven-count indictment charges that Stevens “knowingly and willfully engaged in a scheme to conceal a material fact, that is, his continuing receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of things of value” he received from Veco and Allen.
The total value of the improvements to Stevens’ home in Girdwood was more than $250,000, according to the indictment. Stevens has said he paid all the bills that he was presented for the Girdwood addition, leaving open the question of whether he was billed the entire amount.
The home remodeling, which took place in 2000, involved putting the senator’s one-story house on stilts and building a new ground floor, making it two stories. He allegedly received a new wraparound deck and new plumbing and electrical wiring. Allen testified in court last year that his employees worked on an expansive reconstruction of Stevens’ home.
He also received a professional Viking gas grill and a tool cabinet, prosecutors said.
A 1999 vehicle exchange concerned a new car for his dependent child, the indictment says, not naming who specifically the vehicle was for. Allen transferred a new 1999 Land Rover Discovery, which Allen had bought for $44,000, to Stevens. In exchange, Stevens gave Allen a 1964 Ford Mustang and $5,000. But the Mustang was worth less than $20,000, according to the indictment.
The alleged payoffs
Friedrich said the case involved false disclosures, not bribery, and no specific actions by Stevens in return for the gifts were alleged. But the indictment also says that Veco had requests for Stevens, and that Stevens and his staff responded.
The investigation has centered on Allen’s efforts to bribe lawmakers by handing out wads of hundred-dollar bills in an effort to win favorable tax legislation for a natural gas pipeline.
Veco has received more than $30 million in federal contracts since 2000, according to the database of FedSpending.org, which tracks contracts given to private companies. The largest contracts were for logistical services provided to the National Science Foundation for work in Alaska.
Some of the solicitations also included requests for help on international projects in Pakistan and Russia, the indictment says.
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