TPMMuckraker Ben Stevens: October 2007
Ted Stevens
Stevens Federal Corruption Probe Includes Seafood Industry Earmarks
lkmcgann | October 30, 2007, 5:29PM
Move over Veco, the seafood industry needs some room in the federal corruption investigation of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK).
Until now, only Stevens' son Ben Stevens, a former state Senate President, had been publicly ensnared in the fishing probe targeting earmarks that went to companies simultaneously paying the younger Stevens consulting fees. But this evening, the AP reports the seafood probe includes Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate.
Investigators want to know if Stevens deliberately ushered $180 million in earmarks and wrote legislation that would lead to consulting fees and stock options for his son.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (8) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Ben Stevens, Ted Stevens
Veco
2nd Veco Exec Testifies to Paying Ben Stevens $250K in "Fees"
lkmcgann | October 26, 2007, 11:41AM
Bad news for Ben Stevens. Another Veco executive testified in federal court to paying the one-time state Senate President, and son of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), $250,000 in bogus consulting fees.
Former Veco vice president Rick Smith's testimony came during the trial of state Rep. Vic Kohring (R-AK), accused of accepting bribes from Veco and unsuccessfully trying to get the company to pay off his $17,000 credit card debt. Veco's Bill Allen previously testified about the bogus consulting fees paid to Stevens, in yet another, earlier Alaska corruption trial.
Kohring's lawyers have long argued that their client was unfairly netted in an investigation shooting for the two Stevenses. One even told investigators they "dun got the wrong man." While the younger Stevens was paid nearly a quarter of a million dollars in monthly retainer fess for his lobbying services while in office, Kohring has been charged with accepting $2,600 in cash.
The FBI raided Ben Stevens' legislative office last year, but he has not been charged with a crime.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (4) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Ben Stevens, Veco
Veco
Accused Pol: "You Dun Got The Wrong Man."
lkmcgann | October 25, 2007, 12:57PM
Maybe the corruption trial of former state legislator Rep. Vic Kohring (R-AK) is really a call for healthcare reform. Kohring learned the age-old HMO lesson (never, ever go out of network) the hard way and ended up begging Veco executives for cash when faced with collection agency calls.
Kohring says a spinal surgery in 2002 at the Mayo Clinic, which wasn't on his health plan's preferred provider list, set him back thousands of dollars. One credit card still had a $17,000 balance in March 2006. With collection agencies harassing him and his house, worth about $100,000, not selling, he approached Veco executives Bill Allen and Rick Smith with an idea. He would lobby other state lawmakers to support a piece of pipeline legislation in exchange for some cash. He never received the $17,000.
Kohring's lawyer has argued prosecutor's nabbed his small fish client when they should have been pursuing the big fish: Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and former state Senate President Ben Stevens. The lawyer, Wayne Anthony Ross, wrote in a letter to federal prosecutors: "You dun got the wrong man." Father and son Stevens, who are both under investigation for their connection to Veco, have not been officially accused of wrongdoing (yet), but Kohring is charged with accepting $2,600 in cash and lining up a Veco summer internship for his nephew worth $3,000.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (13) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Ben Stevens, Ted Stevens, Veco
Ben Stevens
Ben Stevens on Talk Radio: You Got Me All Wrong
lkmcgann | October 1, 2007, 12:39PM
Former Alaska Senate president and son of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), Ben Stevens, hasn't said much publicly since his legislative office was raided last year by federal agents. But this weekend an Anchorage talk radio show host said something about Uncle Ted that angered Stevens enough to call in. (I guess dialing up talk radio shows when you're facing legal and ethical troubles is just what you do in Alaska...)
On air, Stevens volunteered that he is under investigation by the FBI, the IRS and the the National Marine Fisheries Service, but maintained his innocence and called this whole investigation a "feeding frenzy" and a "blood bath." The show's host, Dan Fagan asked him about the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board, where Stevens and his father's former top legislative aide, Trevor McCabe, served together while simultaneously accepting consulting fees from the very companies they awarded federal grants. The grants themselves, of course, came from Ben's dad.
"I didn't receive anything [while on the board]," Stevens told Fagan. "I've got a 30-year relationship with the fishing business. I've been working for many companies and many entities and some of that overlapped, but it didn't have anything to do with what happened on that board."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (6) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Ben Stevens, Ted Stevens
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