Prosecutor says Sen. Ted Stevens 'decided' to break law
She says he took thousands of dollars in gifts and services and knowingly hid evidence. Ted Stevens' lawyer counters that the senator paid for work on his home and did not make false statements.
WASHINGTON -- Lawyers offered sharply divergent portraits of Sen. Ted Stevens as the corruption trial of the long-serving Alaska Republican began Thursday in federal court.
"This is a simple case about a public official who took hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free financial benefits, and then took away the public right to know that information," Brenda Morris, the lead Justice Department prosecutor, said in the government's opening statement.
Stevens is accused of knowingly and repeatedly filing false financial reports with the Senate between 2000 and 2006 that understated or omitted gifts or other benefits that he got from an oil executive and others.
Addressing jurors, Morris ticked off examples of the largess, including what the government alleges were more than $240,000 in improvements to Stevens' residence in Alaska.
Stevens hid an array of other things of value, she said, including an Alaskan sled dog, a $2,700 massage chair and a "sweetheart trade" in which he got a $44,000 Land Rover in exchange for a 34-year-old Mustang and $5,000.
"The government will prove to you that over a seven-year period, the defendant received a lot of things," Morris said. "The public had a right to know this, but the defendant said 'No," and instead he decided to violate the law."
Morris said Stevens' experience in government and familiarity with Senate rules and procedures foreclosed the possibility that the omissions were innocent mistakes.
"The defendant is a career politician. He has been a member of the United States Senate for over 30 years," Morris said. "You do not survive as a politician in this town for very long without being very, very smart, very, very deliberate, very, very forceful, and at the same time knowing how to fly under the radar."
Morris also described the relationship between Stevens and a now-defunct Alaska-based oilfield services concern, VECO Corp., which oversaw the home renovations, and whose former chief executive, Bill J. Allen, is alleged to have showered Stevens with gifts. Allen is expected to be a key government witness in the case.
"VECO acted as his own personal handyman service," Morris said. "If the defendant needed an electrician, he would contact VECO. If he needed a plumber, he would contact VECO."
"We reach for the Yellow Pages," Morris told the jury. "He reached for VECO."
