Convicted former-State Rep. Vic Kohring didn't seem to be the least bit fazed that today is his last day of freedom for 3 and 1/2 years.

Before turning himself over to federal marshals, Kohring spent the morning standing next to a home-made sign on the Glenn Highway in Alaska, waving to pedestrians and sipping hot chocolate (picture at left):

He said he's not scared of going to prison, but has been Googling the Southern California facility he'll live in for up to 3 and a half years. He could rattle off the population of the nearby town and the high temperature last week (103 degrees).

Said he might write an autobiography while in jail, call it "Absolutely Innocent." Plans to read a lot. Write a lot of letters.

. . . He said he spent the weekend with his family, and has been doing things like stopping mail to his mail box and closing his bank account. Packing.

"It's almost like going away on a vacation. A .... Government sponsored vacation," he said.

Kohring was convicted in November 2007 and sentenced last month for accepting bribes to advocate a natural gas pipeline. His trial was central in bringing Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) into the VECO scandal, with the testimony of VECO CEO Bill Allen. Allen testified that he was blackmailed by his nephew, who was doing home renovations for Stevens, which were paid for in part by VECO.

[Late Update]: The ADN has obliged us with some great video from Kohring's roadside debacle and a heckler who stopped by to tell him to "give it up and go prison". . . which he does at the end of the clip. Enjoy.

As generous as Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) is with earmarks, it's natural for beneficiaries to occasionally get carried away with their gratitude. From Roll Call (sub. req.):

The Interior Department inspector general has opened an investigation into whether federal money was inappropriately used to pay for a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Alaska Volcano Observatory that recognized its chief patron, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), according to information obtained by Roll Call.

Sources say the IG is looking into the funding behind the event at the Russell Senate Office Building....

At issue is whether federal dollars were used in connection with a lobbying event. Federal law prohibits the use of federal funds for such an activity, either directly through the Geological Survey or indirectly through the observatory, which receives much of its funding from Stevens' earmarks....

The April 2 event was an "education opportunity and event," [lobbyist Martha Stewart] said, adding that the sponsors also used it as a chance to offer Stevens a "thank you" for his work.

Of course, with a federal grand jury digging into Uncle Ted's ties to Veco, this is the least of his worries.

Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) problems continue to multiply. The Democratic mayor of Anchorage Mark Begich will throw his hat in the ring today, and initial polls already show him leading.

From Stevens, you can expect much of what voters have been hearing from Rep. Don Young (R-AK): repeated reminders of how much pork the legendary earmarker has brought back to the state -- and how many millions are still to come.

As a kind of preview of those tributes to the earmark, the senators' office has released a galvanizing series of videos titled "What Are Earmarks?"

To Stevens, the virtue of the earmark is incontestable. In this video, for instance, Stevens proclaims that "I don't think the President was looking at Alaska when he said he wanted to reduce [earmarks by] 50%." Surely not!

Of course, Alaska is long the reigning and undisputed champion of the earmark. A database of this year's spending bills by Taxpayers for Common Sense showed that Alaska (even with two of its three lawmakers under investigation) led the states in earmark spending per capita. $346,073,350 in earmarks for 683,478 residents put that per capita spending at $506.34 -- drubbing the second highest spending state per capita, Hawaii, more than two to one.

You can understand Uncle Ted's chagrin that Alaskans would even consider biting the hand that feeds them.

The feds are probing whether Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) was on the take from execs at the oil company Veco. One focus in particular has been whether CEO Bill Allen paid for Stevens to jack up his Alaska home and another floor. Allen, cooperating with investigators, even taped phone conversations with Stevens. That much is clear.

But there's another angle to the investigation which seems to center on Stevens' possible use of earmarks to stuff his buddies' pockets. One of those earmarks that's getting a lot of attention is a $1.6 million appropriation Stevens made in 2005 to the Alaska SeaLife Center for it to buy property partially owned by Trevor McCabe, a former aide and close associate of Stevens. McCabe is also tied up in another area of investigation with Stevens' son Ben.

According to this detailed blow-by-blow account of the deal by The Anchorage Daily News, an aide from Stevens' office and a lobbyist teamed up in order to make sure that McCabe and his partners got their money. They had some trouble finding the right organization to close the deal. The City of Seward, where the property is located, was eventually ruled out, because the requisite public oversight would prove too hairy -- it wasn't a sure thing. That's why the funds made their way to the SeaLife Center, a marine research center and tourist attraction that's grown up on $50 million in public money.

As the ADN summarizes the deal:

The backdoor arrangement described in the documents appeared to assure that a money-losing real estate venture by the partners would be bailed out by U.S. taxpayers without any need for the earmark itself to be explicit about its intent. As passed into law, the public language of the legislation only spoke vaguely about "various acquisitions."

The FBI is digging on this, along with the inspector generals from the Interior and Commerce departments.

Yeesh. There's muck and then there's Alaskan muck.

Bill Allen, the former CEO of Veco, has been the government's star witness in a number of corruption cases against state lawmakers, and he would surely be at the heart of any case against Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and his son Ben, should the current grand jury investigation result in an indictment. So a checkered past would be sure to come up.

This would surely qualify. The Anchorage Daily News has the whole sordid tale, and I won't recount it here. Suffice it to say that the central allegation concerns whether Allen had a sexual relationship with a crack-addicted 14 year-old named Bambi Tyree back in the mid-90s; Allen is said to have provided a stream of gifts to her and her family, ranging from a car to $5,000. The main fact witness for that allegation seems to be another drug addict who was Tyree's boyfriend when she was 18 (he was 36). It's not clear what Tyree herself says about it. And Allen's lawyer denies that there was ever any such relationship.

In any case, Anchorage police began investigating anew late last year. A prior investigation was dropped in 2004 at the request of federal prosecutors, who were investigating a broader sex and drug ring. Why has it started again? "To make sure there's nothing else out there that we're missing," says one police captain. Somehow I've gotta believe it's more complicated than that.

From The Washington Post:

It's true that in Washington, adversaries often wind up drinking together after hours. But when insiders at the FBI saw that Sen. Ted Stevens had RSVP'd "yes" to last Friday's annual director's holiday bash, the hunters couldn't quite conceive of partying with the prey. FBI agents raided the Alaska Republican's home less than five months ago as part of a sprawling corruption probe.

Every member of Congress is invited to the party, but Stevens was among those who had replied to say he'd be attending. But the embattled senator must have gotten cold feet: He was a no-show at the packed party, where handcuffs and holsters abound.

If you thought Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) was going to let the berries in his state go unresearched and the vistas of alternative uses for salmon unexplored just because he's under federal investigation for past earmarks (among other things), then you thought wrong. Roll Call (sub. req.) reports that Stevens pulled down $88 million in earmarks in this year's omnibus spending bill. Among them:

According to a preliminary review of the bill, Stevens is listed as inserting 17 earmarks into the bill, worth more than $25 million. The earmarks would cover a variety of projects, including $824,000 for alternative salmon products, $975,000 for berry research, $332,000 for “new crop opportunities,” $133,000 for native plant commercialization, $700,000 for the Mountain View revitalization project in Anchorage and $7.5 million for the Denali Commission to undertake transportation infrastructure projects in the state.

Unfortunately, there appears to be no earmark this year to create another Salmon-30-Salmon (see above).

Even with the Democrats in the majority and the FBI on his tail, he's still got it:

Senior Republican appropriators in the Senate have collected more money in earmarks than any other members of Congress, even though President Bush and GOP leaders have forcefully criticized “pork-barrel spending.”

Not only have these lawmakers defied their leaders, they have also taken a much greater share of the pot set aside for rank-and-file Republicans than have senior Democrats....

Sen. Thad Cochran (Miss.), ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, has collected $774 million worth of earmarks in 12 spending bills. After Cochran, Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska), the second-ranking Republican on Appropriations, secured more money for special projects than any other member of Congress: $502 million.

Not surprisingly, Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA) took the gold in the House. And the bronze went to Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), who's earmarking activities are also under investigation.

On Friday, we noted Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) vague threats to the media, particularly The Anchorage Daily News. If reporters didn't stop tying him and his son to the ongoing Veco bribery scandal, then he'd... well, he didn't say what he'd do. But he'd do something, and those reporters would be sorry.

Well, that wasn't the first time, TPMm Reader DW pointed out to us. Back in 2005, Stevens was furious that journalists were asking about a 2003 earmark of his which gave exclusive fishing rights of pollock to Alaska natives in the remote Aleutian community of Adak. The papers were zeroing in on a lawsuit which claimed that Stevens' son, Ben, had an option to buy 25 percent of the fishery there at the time of the earmark. The FBI has since launched an investigation of the Adak measure among many other entanglements between Stevens, his son, and area fisheries.

Reporters' questions about Adak sent Stevens into a flurry of threats. From the Daily News:

"I know who you're after," he said, wagging his finger at the Daily News reporter in his office. "You're after me, and you've done a good job so far of keeping me tied down."

He said the "attack" on him involving his son in effect alleged a criminal conspiracy and was "very close to libel."

And when would that suit come? "I'm going to wait and see just how far you go in libeling me," he replied, according to The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner account of the remarks, which he made to four reporters in his Capitol Hill office. Apparently neither the Daily News, nor KTUU, Anchorage's NBC affiliate, have gone far enough, because Stevens never sued.

But the possible retaliation wasn't limited to just legal reprisal. Stevens lamented that he used to have such a good relationship with the Daily News. But then McClatchy Newspapers came along and bought it. From the News-Miner:

Stevens said he personally helped the Daily News with at least two financial challenges over many decades.

"Why the subsequent owners, the McClatchy people, have decided to continue this malicious attack on me, I don't know," he said.

"I intend to pursue to find out why it is the owners of these media that I have had a relationship with for over 40 years have changed and decided to maliciously attack me as consistently as they have."

So, what to do? Maybe McClatchy needed to be taught a lesson. Again, from the Daily News:

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Look out Anchorage Daily News (and maybe others)! Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) is gonna get ya! He's not saying how, but he's gonna get ya.

Just because two oil executives have pleaded guilty to bribing Stevens, his son, and a handful of Alaska state lawmakers, and a grand jury is hearing evidence against Stevens and his son, the Daily News keeps on reporting that Stevens is mixed up with the wrong crowd. And probably just to sell more papers, whenever one of those Alaska state lawmakers gets convicted of taking bribes from the executives (Bill Allen and Rick Smith of Veco), the Daily News feels compelled to mention Stevens and his son. Stevens spoke his mind to the Daily News in an interview:

"Your papers print (the names of) those people who have been convicted and my son's name and mine at the same time. As far as the public is concerned, it's all the same ball of wax," Stevens said. "I'm not going to comment on that ball of wax."

Just for example, take the trial of former state pol Vic Kohring for taking Veco bribes. The paper reported comments by both Kohring's lawyer and jurors that Stevens and his son were really the ones who should be on trial. And during former Alaska lawmaker's Pett Kott's trial, the paper reported when Veco exec Bill Allen admitted that he'd paid for renovations on Stevens' Alaska home. Now, is that fair?

And is it really that big of a deal that one the most powerful, longest-serving senators in the Senate's history is under investigation?

"I don't see any reason why we should have had this massive press interest in what's going on," Stevens said. "It's just an investigation of a federal agency. They go on all the time. No one else talks about them the way they talk about the one involving me."

So put two and two together: 1) the paper has been unfairly tying him to crooked locals and 2) the investigation isn't that newsworthy anyway. Clearly, the ADN is on a smear campaign. As Stevens said before, the paper's trying to "assassinate" him. And that's a crime that will not go unpunished:

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We've noted Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) knack for helping out friends and family before. His son Ben for instance, relied on dear ol' dad to channel millions to fishing companies that in turn channeled hundreds of thousands on to him. His former aide Trevor McCabe partnered up with his son Ben and benefited from his relationship with Uncle Ted in other ways that have caught investigators' attention.

Though Alaska's a huge state, the billions Stevens brought home make the state seem quite small. Somehow projects tend to benefit people close to him. Roll Call takes a look (sub. req.) at just one of those, Stevens' recent earmark for $20 million for a ferry project in the state. Stevens has inserted "nearly $50 million for the project into appropriation bills from 2002 to 2006," Roll Call reports. The ferry would connect Knik Arm to Anchorage, cutting down travel time from two hours to 15 minutes. And look who had the foresight to invest:

Several current and former members of Stevens’ staff — including Chief of Staff George Lowe and former top aide Lisa Sutherland — as well as Rep. Don Young’s (R-Alaska) son-in-law Art Nelson own undeveloped land on the Knik Arm....

Along with her husband, Scott, a lobbyist for Ducks Unlimited, Sutherland owns slightly less than four acres on Knik Arm. The value of the land went from $38,400 in 2005 to $65,000 in 2006, according to the borough assessments.

A second former Stevens aide, Trevor McCabe, also owns land on Knik Arm along with Young’s son-in-law, Nelson, and Yardarm Knot Fisheries LLC executive Alan Chaffee through the company Point Bluff LLC, according to public records. Nelson owns a 10 percent stake in the company, according to the Anchorage Daily News....

McCabe and his wife also own a separate 3.7-acre parcel on Knik Arm. The value of that property went from $37,800 in 2005 to $62,400 in 2006, according to the property assessment.

Sounds to me like something the old Tammany Hall pol George Washington Plunkitt would recognize as "honest graft." They seen their opportunities and they took 'em.

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.

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Here's some strange news coming out of the Alaska trial of former state Rep. Vic Kohring. It turns out that when former Veco CEO Bill Allen testified last month in a separate corruption trial about being blackmailed by his own nephew, the strong-arming was related to Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) suspect home renovation.

Allen was defensive on the stand that day, the Anchorage Daily News reported, combating questioning from defense attorneys that he actually threatened to kill his nephew:

Allen said he didn’t make such a threat. “Not me, no. I told them (him?) I’d beat the shit out of him,” Allen said.

Later, he said: “I never did say that I would kill him. No. I wouldn’t have done that … because his mother is my sister.”

Today Allen clarified while under cross-examination that his nephew was blackmailing him over “Ted Stevens’ house.” Just what his nephew was threatening to do (go to the feds?) is unclear.

Allen also testified again today that Veco paid for some of the renovations that doubled Stevens' home, but he didn’t know how much Veco spent.

Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) superstar white collar defense lawyer Brendan Sullivan made Washingtonian's list of most influential DC law and lobbying types.

Sullivan's other famous clients had included Oliver North and several Duke lacrosse players. And what drives this successful lawyer? He's pretty up front:

“By the time somebody comes to me, they are pretty far up the creek,” Sullivan has said. “The good thing is they will pay almost anything.”

Note: the rankings weren't based on discretion.

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.

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What's an FBI investigation between friends? Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) buddies in the Senate are standing by him.

And by standing by him, I mean contributing thousands of dollars to his re-election campaign, the AP reports.

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch led the way, donating $10,000 from his political action committee and another $4,000 from his campaign fund. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas and Kit Bond of Missouri each added $10,000 from their political action committees, according to campaign reports released Friday....

Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott's political action committee donated $5,000 and Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard's campaign chipped in $4,000. In all, the Stevens campaign raised more than $463,000 since July 1, making it one of the senator's most successful fundraising quarters.

Surprising? Probably not, considering a recent report from Marketplace radio that chronicles how two charities with ties to Stevens bring members of Congress to Alaska for lavish fishing tournaments. The trips would normally cost $1,000 a night, but thanks to the generosity of a series of PACs and non-profits backed by lobbyists, lawmakers don't spend a dime. The law also shields Stevens' campaign from having to disclose who attends.

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Marketplace radio's Steve Henn has a new angle to the Veco-Stevens scandal: the two men quietly paired up in 2002 to support the campaign of seven other Republican senators. Politicians often use their political action committees to purchase influence with members of their caucus, but Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) appears to have gone one step further. Veco CEO Bill Allen served in his proxy, echoing Stevens' leadership PAC contributions, buying the senior Republican senator clout on Veco's dime.

Here at TPMmuckraker we've painted the Alaska tale as a series of various cash-for-political favors incidents. But Henn describes a more complicated -- and telling -- relationship between Allen and Stevens. He noticed that in the summer of 2002, Veco executives poured $70,000 into seven Republican Senate challengers' campaign funds. The donations "closely mirrored cash gifts" from Steven's PAC.

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) and Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) are two good examples.

Working in concert, Ted Stevens, Bill Allen and VECO executives used half a dozen political committees to raise about $25,000 for Coleman's 2002 campaign, and $50,000 for Sununu's. Both Coleman and Sununu are running for reelection this year.

Here's a breakdown of the Veco-Stevens donations to Sununu, including a $25,000 donation from Veco to Stevens' PAC, which then made its way straight into the Sununua Victory Fund.

Stevens brought Sununu and Coleman even closer into his sphere of influence by inviting them up to Alaska for his annual salmon-habitat fundraiser and influence-swapping event, the Kenai River Classic, co-hosted by Bob Penney.

CBS news highlighted some of Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) greatest pork hits this weekend-- including $1 million to promote salmon baby food and $500,000 to paint a jet like a flying fish.

The airplane project was sponsored by the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board, a non-profit set up by Stevens and originally run by his son and former aide. The board hands out tens of millions in grants to promote the Alaska seafood industry.

Unsurprisingly, Stevens wasn't happy with the story. A spokesman told an Alaska CBS affiliate that they "in some cases actually distorted" facts:

Stevens' press secretary, Aaron Saunders, tells KTVA-CBS 11 News the senator is, "dismayed CBS ignored the facts."

" ...we never said the salmon baby food project was designed to promote Alaska salmon. Furthermore, we emphasized that these funds were not allocated for the development of salmon-flavored baby foods, as it appeared in the story. It was to be used to explore the many health benefits of omega 3s, which certainly could help children across America, not just in Alaska," [Saunders said].

Stevens' office apparently had no comment on the half million for the Alaska Airlines salmon paint job.

Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK), who's made a hobby of denouncing the corruption among Republicans in her state, recently told Newsweek it's time for her state to "grow up" in a feature on the nine women governors holding office across the country.

Palin, elected on an anti-corruption platform, has worked on tackling the "cozy relationship between the state's political elite and the energy industry that provides 85 percent of Alaska's tax revenues," Newsweek writes.

Some of her decisions, including canceling funding for the infamous Bridge to Nowhere, has created an intra-party rift between her office and the all-Republican federal delegation. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) recently called relations between the two Alaskans "frosty" (knowing Stevens, we'll assume the pun wasn't intended) after Palin stood in the way of the bridge.

Palin has also gone after Ted's son, former state Sen. Ben Stevens (R), saying she wants him out of his seat as Alaska national Republican committe chairman. Palin said she'd heard enough when Veco CEO Bill Allen testified to bribing him while he was in the state Senate.

It looks like Veco plays favorites. Since 1993 the oil services company tangled in several of the Alaska corruption investigations has given Rep. Don Young (R-AK) more than two and a half times what it's donated to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), the AP reports.

Young's raked in $180,630, while Stevens has only pocketed $70,500 (but that presumably doesn't include other perks like Veco employees remodeling his house or parking cars at his fundraisers.) Young and Stevens are both under federal investigation for their ties to the corporation. The FBI is particularly interested in the annual pig roast former Veco CEO Bill Allen would host for Young.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski has only pulled in a pittance ($41,250), but she's only been in Congress since late 2002, when her father bequeathed his seat to her to become governor of Alaska.

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."

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After giving the press "no comments" since the FBI raided his home in August, Sen Ted Stevens (R-AK) finally spoke yesterday. And what did he have to say? Stevens told a Fairbanks Daily News Miner reporter that he's on "frosty" terms with Gov. Sarah Palin (R), and she should think carefully about how she spends Alaska's federal bridge to nowhere money.

Short about $329 million to build the bridge that would have connected an island of 50 people to a more densely populated, neighboring island, Palin told transportation officials to direct the $200 million to an alternative project like an upgraded ferry system.

Stevens worries the federal government might want the money back, even though the language that targeted the money to the project was stripped from the bill after it became a scandal. Alaska got the money just the same, however, and Stevens has never admitted defeat.

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Yesterday a jury found former Alaska state Rep. Pete Kott (R) guilty of taking bribes from former Veco CEO Bill Allen, who testified during the trial that he also paid for some of Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) home remodeling, AP reports.

In exchange for helping to get a petroleum state tax law passed that would entice oil companies to build a pipeline lucrative for Veco, Allen gave Kott cash and promised him a job at the company. Kott's sentencing hearing is scheduled for December 7.

Federal prosecutors say the seven-term former lawmaker from Eagle River, north of Anchorage, accepted nearly $9,000, including a $7,993 check that he used to pay his son to work as his campaign manager. The company also paid for a poll at a cost of a $2,750, prosecutors said.

Also, prosecutors said, VECO promised Kott a job after he left office in exchange for his support of their political agenda.

The jury conviction signals danger for Stevens, who is under investigation for his dealings with Allen.