Paul Kiel
I tell you, corruption doesn’t get any uglier than Alaskan corruption.
The investigation surrounding VECO, an Alaskan oil company, has finally borne fruit. Two Republican members of the state legislature were indicted today, one of them the former speaker of the house. There’s still no word on the fate of former state Sen. Ben Stevens, son of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), who is also under investigation.
Oh, and it’s ugly. Pete Kott and Bruce Weyhrauch are on the hook for trading votes for cash and sweet jobs, plain and simple. From The Anchorage Daily News:
The indictment says Kott asked executives of the unnamed company for money and a job after he left the Legislature. Weyhrauch, an attorney, asked for a job and legal work, the indictment says.
On about Sept. 26, 2005, the indictment says, Kott called an unnamed company vice president and said, “I need a job.”
The vice president replied, “You’ve got a job; get us a pipeline,” the indictment says….
In a meeting on April 18, 2006, Kott told the company executives, “You’ll get your pipeline, the governor gets his bill, and I’ll get my job in Barbados.”…
Kott met with the company executives in their hotel suite on May 7, the indictment says, and told them he had tried to defeat an amendment to the oil tax the company didn’t like.
“I had to cheat, steal, beg, borrow and lie,” Kott said, according to the indictment.
The company’s chief executive responded, “I own your ass,” the indictment says.