Alaska Corruption Trial Winds Down

By DAN JOLING

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A former state lawmaker made drunken boasts about his legislative maneuvers on behalf of an oil field services company but did not swap official acts for bribes, his attorney said in closing arguments Monday.

Secret recordings made by the FBI show former Rep. Pete Kott bragging about his influence on a proposed crude oil tax, but Kott’s voting record contradicts his bluster, defense attorney Jim Wendt said.

“It’s not in the record,” Wendt said. “He may have puffed about it to his friends.”

Kott is charged with conspiracy to solicit financial benefits, extortion, bribery and wire fraud in his dealings with VECO Corp., which stood to make millions if a more than $20 billion natural gas pipeline were built.

The two-week trial has carried wider implications, including testimony from VECO chief Bill Allen that he doled out more than $400,000 in bribes to various officials and had company workers remodel the home of Sen. Ted Stevens.

The FBI is investigating whether Stevens, the Senate’s longest-tenured Republican, received illegal gifts from VECO. He has not been charged and has denied wrongdoing, and claims he paid all the remodeling bills.

The state still hopes to see the pipeline built.

Kott is accused of taking $7,993 from Allen and VECO vice president Rick Smith that Kott used to hire his own son as campaign manager for his re-election effort in 2006. Prosecutors say Kott took another $1,000 from Allen, while Kott’s attorney contends that was a reimbursement for a campaign donation to former Gov. Frank Murkowski.

Allen and Smith have pleaded guilty to bribing Kott and other elected officials.

Authorities also say Kott let VECO pay for a $2,750 poll taken during his campaign, and that Kott wanted a job with the company after he left office.

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Goeke referred jurors to nearly a year of surveillance through wiretaps and a video camera planted in a Juneau hotel room rented by VECO.

“You’ve been able to watch as Pete Kott, along with Bill Allen and Rick Smith, commit the crimes charged in the indictment,” Goeke said.

The recordings show Kott, Allen and Smith speaking in off-color language, often while drinking, tracking votes on the proposed oil tax and plotting strategy.

Wendt told jurors the tapes reinforced the notion that no one should ever watch the making of sausage or legislation.

“You saw it being made here,” he said. “It maybe isn’t pretty. But that’s how it is made.”

Prosecutors scoffed at Wendt’s insistence that Kott received nothing of value from Allen and Smith, noting that the promise of future employment for Kott was the ultimate prize.

“There was a pot at the end of the rainbow,” prosecutor Nicholas Marsh said.

If convicted of all charges, Kott could face up to 55 years in prison and a $1 million fine. Jury deliberations were to resume Tuesday.