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Crime, Drugs & Enforcement

WIKIPEDIA

Alaska Senator Ted Stevens

A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia charged Mr. Stevens, who is 84 and the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, with failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts, including extensive renovations to his house in Alaska, a Land Rover and home furnishings on financial disclosure forms that he filed from 1999 to 2006.

The indictment said that Mr. Stevens “knowingly and willfully engaged in a scheme to conceal” the gifts he received from the VECO Corporation, once one of Alaska’s largest oil field contractors, and its former chief executive, William J. Allen, who last year pleaded guilty in the case. And it comes nearly a year to the day after F.B.I. agents raided the senator’s home as part of a long-running and expansive public corruption investigation in Alaska.

Mr. Stevens was informed of the indictment through a telephone call to his lawyer on Tuesday morning and was allowed to surrender instead of being arrested. He was expected to make an initial appearance in Washington before a federal judge, Emmet G. Sullivan, once a hearing is scheduled.

Mr. Stevens declared his innocence and his intention to fight the charges against him in a statement posted on his Web site. “I am innocent of these charges and intend to prove that,” he said.

But the indictment dealt a sharp blow to Mr. Stevens’s effort to win re-election in November, and raised the hopes of Democrats who have not won a Senate race in Alaska since 1974. Democrats were already relishing the chance to unseat Mr. Stevens, having recruited Mark Begich, the popular mayor of Anchorage, to challenge him. Mr. Stevens first must face six Republican challengers in the state’s Aug. 26 primary.

In his statement, Mr. Stevens also noted that he had served the nation and Alaska for more than half a century, beginning in World War II. “I have never knowingly submitted a false disclosure form required by law as a U.S. senator,” he said in the statement.

He also said that, in accordance with Senate Republican rules, he had relinquished, temporarily, his leadership positions, as senior Republican on the Commerce Committee and on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. He had served as chairman of the full Appropriations Committee for nearly a dozen years, and also as president pro tem of the Senate from 2003 to 2007, which put him third in line for the presidency.

Mr. Stevens is regarded as a nearly heroic figure in Alaska, where he is often called Uncle Ted, and played a crucial role in its achievement of statehood, which became official in 1959.

Mr. Stevens, a short, square-shouldered man who shuffles through the Capitol these days in shoes with thick-cushioned soles, has long been a powerful force in the Senate, directing hundreds of millions of dollars to Alaska each year. Hardened by decades of legislative battles, he can be soft-spoken but also one of the most cantankerous lawmakers.

Mr. Stevens was not charged with performing improper favors for VECO, the company that gave him the unreported gifts, although the indictment said Mr. Stevens “could and did use his official position and his office on behalf of VECO.” At a news conference on Tuesday, prosecutors said they would not explain why the exchange of favors did not itself result in a charge.

The indictment said that Mr. Stevens met with the company to discuss its projects in Pakistan and Russia, its requests for “multiple federal grants and contracts to benefit VECO” and federal and state assistance in an effort to construct a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope of Alaska.

The indictment of a sitting senator, particularly one of Mr. Stevens’s seniority and stature, reverberated swiftly and ominously through the Capitol, in no small part because of the political implications.

Mr. Stevens, in his committee positions, has helped funnel billions of federal dollars to Alaska. Since 1999, he has directed more than $3 billion in earmarks — pet projects sought by lawmakers outside the usual budget process — for Alaska, according to Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington advocacy group.

Senator Stevens is by far the most prominent figure to be charged in a four-year-old political corruption investigation in Alaska, which has resulted in seven convictions, among them three state lawmakers and the chief of staff of former Gov. Frank H. Murkowski.

The case, which began as an inquiry into VECO’s relationship with Alaska lawmakers, is still under way and several well-known figures in the state are said to remain under scrutiny, among them Representative Don Young, a Republican, and Mr. Stevens’s son, Ben, former president of the State Senate. Both have denied any wrong doing.

The indictment was announced by Matthew Friedrich, the acting head of the Justice Department’s criminal division. He said at a news conference that politics played no role in the decision to bring the case or the timing of the charges.

WASHINGTON - The lawyer for U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens entered a plea of not guilty this morning to charges he failed to disclose gifts from a former Veco Corp. executive. The lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, asked for the trial to be moved to Alaska and heard well in advance of the Nov. 4 general election.

The judge, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, set a tentative trial date of Sept. 24. He set a hearing on Stevens' change-of-venue motion for Aug. 19. "I can appreciate why the senator would like to have this matter commence and concluded before the election," the judge said.   Stevens was not required to post bond, only to surrender his passport.

"He'd like to clear his name before the election," Sullivan told the judge. "This is not a complex case. It should be one that moves quickly." Prosecutors said they would be quick to turn over discovery materials in the case.

Those materials include video and audio tapes and "consensual monitoring." Prosecutors said as soon as Stevens' lawyers could give them a 500-gigabyte hard drive, they would copy those materials.

Stevens faces seven counts of failing to disclose that he accepted more than $250,000 in gifts from former Veco Corp. chief Bill Allen. Most of the allegations concern remodeling to Stevens' home in Girdwood.

The 84-year-old Alaska Republican, a former U.S. attorney, has filed briefs with the Supreme Court and prosecuted wrongdoers, but in his career as a lawyer. Today's court appearance was his first as a defendant in a federal criminal case.

A quick trial in time for a Bush pardon?