« previous | MUCK HOME | next »
Retired Fisherman Spoke With FBI About Stevenses
While former state Senate President Ben Stevens (R-AK) headed a seafood grant board that his father, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) funded with millions in federal dollars, the younger Stevens took in thousands of dollars in consulting fees from the very companies that won the allocations. At least some of those fees, one retired Alaska fisherman has said under oath, were veiled bribes.
The fisherman, Victor Smith, spoke with the FBI in Seattle last year, just before a grand jury in Alaska issued at least three fisheries subpoenas. Smith said the agents wanted information on how the Stevenses were connected to the fishery scandal that he and others have complained and written about for years. "They were mainly interested in payments to Ben Stevens and anything I had related to Ted Stevens," Smith told me.
In a signed affidavit (available here), Smith recounts a meeting between two affiliated fishery associations where the head of one group fielded a question from a member. The member wanted to know how Ben Stevens would be paid $500,000 now that his father had gotten $53 million for a project that would benefit the industry. According to Smith's affidavit:
* The reply from Zuanich was “I’m confident that, with a little convoluted accounting, we can keep the payments to Ben Stevens off of PSVOA’s books.”
Since 2001, the younger Stevens has pulled in upwards of $775,435 in consulting fees, according to the Anchorage Daily News. Though, the Alaska Public Offices Commission recently fined Stevens $5,630 for failing to disclose $480,000 in payments he received from various companies. The complaint against Stevens was filed by former Alaska state representative Ray Metcalfe who has followed Stevens' relationship with the fisheries for years. Metcalfe estimates that Stevens has been paid at least $904,000 in fees by fisheries between 2000 and 2005. Smith's affidavit was included in the complaint.
Stevens was already roped into the ongoing federal investigation in Alaska when an executive at oil services company Veco Corp. pled guilty in May to bribing him with $240,000. His father is also under investigation for his dealings with Veco as well, including for having his home remodeled under the company's oversight.
Comments (22)
Justus wrote on June 26, 2007 7:29 PM:It's about time that these bully's and other tyrannical cronies with their cloak of secrecy are becoming unveiled. They've been disguising their ownership interests in both LLC's and LP's for too long. Of course, they've have crafted these arrangements with either assistance from the legal profession and/or the accounting profession. Let's see how they do when other investigations are opened. Justice will prevail, however, at a deep cost to Alaskan residents. I smell RICO.....
FRP wrote on June 26, 2007 7:59 PM:I hate to say it but I hate these 'lil buddies to pieces .
vox clamantis in red state wrote on June 26, 2007 8:24 PM:Lying, stealing, cheating, must all be done under the cover of secrecy. Otherwise, they are legal and transparent ploys, like preemptive war.
bill bittner wrote on June 26, 2007 9:22 PM:so must suprise attacks, stealth bombings, suicide bombings be done under cover.
Stevens has no monopoly on these techniques. Just getting all the gold he can grab for him and his boy by using his position of power.
Hi, my name is Bill Bittner, let me introduce myself.
My sister is married to Ted Stevens.
The good folks at TPMuckracker should look into the deals that I've helped cook up over the years.
If things weren't messy enough...........
http://www.birchhorton.com/
SeeDee wrote on June 26, 2007 9:23 PM:The old refrain: Money is 'power'...power corrupts...Absolute power corrupts absolutely...
All these public officials (Cunningham, Safavian, DeLay, Jeferson, Ney, Doolittle, Lewis, ad nauseatum..)and, now, the Stevens father/son duo must surely exude a skunk-like odor everywhere they circulate. How do people stand to be around them...hmmm..oh, right...money...and the same old refrain.
Stephen Taufen wrote on June 27, 2007 12:22 AM:Hey 'Bill' - you got the firm right (Birch Horton Bittner and Cherot) but the name wrong. You're Tom Albert the BHB&C lobbyist who helped then governor Frank Murkowski in early 2002 sanitize US Senate Energy/Public Lands committee records of 2 Adak City councilmen letters and electrical privatizer Larry Davison's letter about Aleut Enterprise Corp. (where Ben Stevens and GOP-AK's poli-hack, Art Hackney) price gouge schools, citizens and others for diesel used in fuel generation. That's right, your the accomplice the FBI really ought to be looking atm when they go after Frank's office (likely F himself) for caling Adak's mayor office to tell the City electrical admin/privatizer (me) to get off the island. Justice will never be served until the FBI gets into Adak fully, and the private profiteering by the Stevens' family there, at taxpayer expense. And citizens thought they were getting a missile defense system - yeah sure, minus the kickbacks and payoffs from the private sandbox.
And now, the Adak Electric Utility is still disobeying State of Alaska Regulatory Commission ORDERS (has been since 1999!) and neither gov. Tony Knowles or Frank M. ever saw to it that the RCA statutes were obeyed and violators punished. It is all part of the underwater iceberg yet to come.
Hope you freeze your assets off, 'Bill', I mean Tom.
Secret code: ADAK - Aleut Defense And Kickback cabal.
- Citizen with a conscience.
Stephen Taufen wrote on June 27, 2007 12:24 AM:I meant then senator Frank M. - we get all this mixed up so easily in Alaska - land of the Crony Frontier.
daCascadian wrote on June 27, 2007 1:54 AM:SeeDee >"...How do people stand to be around them...hmmm..oh, right...money..."
"...there is an eroticism of money..." - Neue Zurcher Zeitung
[code = like as in I like what is happening to these people]
azbill wrote on June 27, 2007 2:19 AM:I am so sick of these crooks and the generations of crooks that follow them. Is there any republicans left that have any moral character or have they all gone over the hill with the Bush crime family? I don't know one republican I'd loan a dollar to and expect to get it back even with their written promise. Republicans are the party of moral corruption, DEATH, WAR and TREASON. Stevens is just the only part rotting at the moment.
azbill wrote on June 27, 2007 2:20 AM:I am so sick of these crooks and the generations of crooks that follow them. Is there any republicans left that have any moral character or have they all gone over the hill with the Bush crime family? I don't know one republican I'd loan a dollar to and expect to get it back even with their written promise. Republicans are the party of moral corruption, DEATH, WAR and TREASON. Stevens is just the only part rotting at the moment.
Big Mitch wrote on June 27, 2007 3:02 AM:Let this be a lesson to all of us. Don't name your airport after anyone still alive.
The Republicans went on a huge campaign to get things named after St. Ronald Reagan, and it worked. He is deified, but Iran-Contra is forgotten. Ted brought home big bacon to Alaska and now the airport in Anchorage is named after him.
Please visit the Schapira blog, "What we know so far ..." at http://schapira.blogspot.com
... and tell 'em Big Mitch sent ya!
Security code: hope. It's not just a town in Arkansas. We got one in Alaska, too.
Anonymous wrote on June 27, 2007 4:20 AM:Stevens as of March 31 had $663,000 cash on hand in his Senate campaign account, while Young had a whopping $1.9 million in reserve.
NYT.
CASH is KING
local yokels will never call bullsh*t on Ted or Don
That is the key to the perpetual welfare state
Let the Buy off and backhanders to ADN and KTUU begin
Hamish wrote on June 27, 2007 8:04 AM:Alaska has been a welfare state for a long time, and particularly since the pipeline was built. They suck up many times what they pay in federal taxes to provide themselves with services that other states buy with state tax revenues. Why? Because Alaskans get a check from the state every year for living there, and the rest of us pay to build their bridges to nowhere. Alaskan state politics has, since Stevens and Young and the other crook Murkowski (Sp?) were elected, made Louisiana look honest.
buckheaddad wrote on June 27, 2007 9:34 AM:Perhaps someone should give Sen. Stevens + his equally notorious son a copy of the history of the Talmadge family, down here in GEORGIA.
Especially the part about the "money in the overcoat in the hall closet". . . . it's painfully funny, and combined with ALCOHOL, put an end to the Talmadge dynasty.
NOW, when you get the Bush Family, all you can hand down after the MONEY, is the METAL PROBLEMS, (and THEY ARE GENETIC).
RandyR wrote on June 27, 2007 9:54 AM:
Justus wrote on June 27, 2007 10:32 AM:Isn't it cool that Ben Stevens is willing to take it in the ass (literally) for his dad. You gotta know that Ol' Ben was passing it up the line to his dad but what a man to take the heat and the time for Ted. I guess that this is just another sign on how dad and lad can work together.
As they say...The sins of the father revisit the son.
Anonymous wrote on June 27, 2007 11:47 AM:A $5,000 fine for taking $480,000.
Robin Boerner wrote on June 28, 2007 1:54 AM:I think he's learned his lesson.
Why hasn't either the House or Senate Judiciary Committees put Alaska's Patriot Act US Attorney Nelson Cohen under oath yet to ask him if he had to take a "Bushie" loyalty oath (Mary Beth Buchanan got him his job) and what he is doing to clean up Alaska. And, with the little I have seen in my three years here he should be burning the midnight oil most nights.
oil companies....
fisheries....
Bridges to Nowhere....
the military in Alaska...
if Halliburton is Cheney's piggy bank,
tikvay wrote on June 28, 2007 11:07 AM:Ft Richardson is Stevens.
I have lived in Alaska for 40 years, and watched it become more and more corrupt, thanks to F. Murkowski, Stevens es, and Young. The last great Gov. Jay Hammond was Republican, and yet he stumped for a Democrat who was running against Frankie when he decided to become King instead of Senator. Now that some of the corruption is being paid attention to, Frankie is MIA. I wonder why Ben is taking a hit while is Daddy remains untouched, as does Young and Lisa, BAH!!!!
rjw wrote on June 28, 2007 5:02 PM:FYI
FYI wrote on July 1, 2007 3:12 PM:Reported From Washingtonian
Sen. Steven Hire White Collar Crime Lawyer
BIO here
Theodosius30 wrote on July 2, 2007 3:31 AM:http://www.wc.com/attorney.cfm?attorney_id=212
Bill Bittner's (Bittner's sister is married to Ted Stevens) son worked as an aide to indicted Alaska State Representative Tom Anderson.