Alaska

Justice Department Replaces Stevens Prosecution Team

Zachary Roth | February 16, 2009, 5:03PM

Talk about ironic.

Amid concerns over the integrity of their work, the Justice Department has removed the head of the Public Integrity Section and several other prosecutors from the Ted Stevens trial, according to court filings examined by The Politico.

Late last week, the judge in the case, Emmet Sullivan, ruled that four of the prosecutors, including William Welch, the Public Integrity chief, were in contempt of court for failing to turn over documents as he'd ordered them to do.

The documents at issue relate to allegations by an FBI agent in the case that another agent had an improper relationship with a key government witness, and that the prosecution concealed this from the defense.

Along with Welch, the lead prosecutor on the case, Brenda Morris, as well as several other prosecutors, are being ousted. They're being replaced by Paul O'Brien, chief of the Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section, David Jaffe, the deputy chief of the Domestic Security Section, and William Stuckwisch, senior trial attorney in the Fraud Section.

Stevens the Republican former Alaska senator, was convicted last fall of failing to report gifts on his Senate disclosure form. But defense lawyers have appealed, questioning the legitimacy of those proceedings, citing, among other things, the claim of withheld evidence.

Justice Department

Judge To Stevens Prosecutors: "Isn't The Department of Justice Taking Court Orders Seriously These Days?"

Zachary Roth | February 13, 2009, 4:42PM

This just gets worse and worse...

Last week, as we told you, defense lawyers for Ted Stevens formally asked the judge in his case to hold the prosecution in contempt, after a string of incidents in which the government was found to have withheld information from the defense.

And now Judge Emmet Sullivan has done so, reports the Associated Press.

Last month, Sullivan ordered prosecutors to turn over FBI documents concerning a whistleblower complaint against the agent leading the investigation into the former Alaska senator.

But they didn't, provoking the wrath of Judge Sullivan:

"That was a court order," he bellowed. "That wasn't a request. I didn't ask for them out of the kindness of your hearts. ... Isn't the Department of Justice taking court orders seriously these days?"

He said he didn't want to get "sidetracked" by deciding a sanction immediately and would deal with their punishment later. But he ordered them to produce the material by the end of the day.

"That's outrageous for the Department of Justice -- the largest law firm on the planet," he said. "That is not acceptable in this court."

This is just the latest embarrassment for the Justice Department in the case. In late January, the head of the department's Public Integrity Section admitted in writing to Judge Sullivan that he erred when he said that a group of government employees, who were cited in the FBI agent's publicly-filed complaint wanted their story to be made public. Some didn't, it turned out.

Stevens, the former Alaska GOP senator, was convicted last fall of filing false disclosure reports to hide gifts from an oil-services contractor. He is appealing the conviction.

Ted Stevens

D'oh! Another Screwup By Stevens Prosecutors

Zachary Roth | February 6, 2009, 3:17PM

Those Ted Stevens prosecutors are just looking more and more clueless.

The Anchorage Daily News reports that William Welch, the head of the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, wrote a letter to the judge January 30, admitting that he erred when he said last month that a group of government employees, who were cited in an FBI agent's publicly-filed complaint, alleging improprieties by government officials, "want their story to be made public."

In the complaint, the FBI agent, Chad Joy, had accused a fellow agent and prosecutors of violating FBI policy and fair-trial rules. But Welch has now acknowledged that not all of the employees had agreed to have their names released.

This latest screwup comes on the heels of another slip, in which prosecutors have gone back and forth on whether Joy meets the technical definition of a protected government whistleblower.

As the ADN puts it

:
"Initially, when prosecutors sought to keep the complaint secret, they said he was a protected whistle-blower. When they sought to make the complaint public, they said he wasn't.

The defense has also filed a complaint alleging that a female FBI agent on the case had an improper personal relationship with one of the key witnesses for the prosecution, former oil-services exec Bill Allen.

And even before Stevens, the former Alaska GOP senator, was found guilty in late October of concealing gifts from Allen on his Senate disclosure form -- a conviction he is appealing -- prosecutors were reprimanded by the judge for not turning over key evidence to the defense.

Stevens' defense team has already filed a motion that the charges be dismissed, on account of government misconduct. And in a new filing made yesterday, they went further, arguing that the government should be held in contempt.

"The government still does not get it. Over and over again, it has been caught red-handed making false representations to the Court and the defense," defense attorney Robert Cary wrote.