Ted Stevens’ “Trial By Ambush”The back and forth in the case against indicted Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), continues with the defense filing a rancorous motion charging the prosecution with “trial by ambush.”
In a hearing today, the two groups battled over documents and photos, specifically of the Stevens’ residence in Girdwood, whose renovation lies at the heart of the indictment, and at one point conducted a length debate over the terminology best used to describe the property.
From the AP:
Defense lawyers indicated they will likely challenge some of the thousands of pictures the Justice Department took of Stevens’ house in Girdwood, Alaska, a ski resort town outside Anchorage, which the indictment said the senator often referred as “the chalet.”“We think some were taken with wide angle lenses that distort the size of the home,” said Stevens’ lawyer Robert Cary, who noted that real estate agents often do the same thing to sell houses.
“It’s a modest cabin in Alaska,” Cary added.
“A modest chalet?” U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said.
Prosecutor Brenda Morris pointed out that the government didn’t call it a chalet; Stevens did. “It was a modest cabin,” but the work expanded it into a ski chalet, Morris said. “We didn’t take any pictures to make it look more than what it is,” she said.