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Sen. Stevens insists his family paid for all chalet renovations

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Stevens says he and wife used line of credit, trust investment to finance work
  
• Defense: Stevens paid about $166,000, which covered all costs he knew about
  
• Prosecutors say former oil industry executive Bill Allen bankrolled some of the work
  
• Stevens testifies he told Allen not to give him anything, requested full accounting

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens returned to the stand in his corruption trial Friday and described how he paid for home renovations that prosecutors say he should have reported as gifts on financial disclosure forms.

Stevens, the Senate's longest-serving Republican, is the final defense witness in his trial on seven counts related to allegations of making false statements on annual Senate disclosure forms.

Stevens, 84, hopes to clear his name by November, in time for voters to decide whether to elect him to a seventh term representing Alaska, as he has done for nearly 40 years.

In his second day on the stand, Stevens testified that he and his wife paid for all the improvements on their Alaska chalet, which they extensively remodeled about eight years ago. He also attempted to address a series of e-mails that prosecutors introduced earlier in the trial

Under questioning by defense attorney Brendan Sullivan, Stevens described how he planned to finance the cost of renovations, which more than doubled the size of the couple's chalet in the Alaskan ski village of Girdwood, about 40 miles from Anchorage.

"We were going to borrow money from the bank, and use the chalet as security," he said of the plans to expand the home, which originated in late 1999, to accommodate visits from his six children and grandchildren.

Stevens testified that he and his wife, Catherine, obtained a $100,000 line of credit, which was to be combined with $50,000 withdrawn from a trust investment Stevens had in a Miami, Florida, condominium project. An additional $10,000 came from a traditional bank account that he and his wife maintained.

Defense attorneys throughout the trial have maintained that the Stevenses paid about $166,000, an amount that covered all the costs the Stevenses knew about.

The defense has been trying to convince the jury that any additional expenses were concealed from or not provided to the Stevenses, despite their requests for a full accounting.

Prosecutors say that some of the home renovations and other unreported gifts were bankrolled by Bill Allen, a former oil industry executive who has pleaded guilty to trying to bribe Alaska state officials. The jury is aware that Allen may get less jail time when sentenced in the Alaska case as a result of his testimony against Stevens.

Stevens is not accused of accepting bribes.

As he returned for a second day on the witness stand, Stevens was shown a series of e-mails that prosecutors entered as evidence, including one that contained an exchange between him and Allen.

"I asked him to get me bills as to what was going on in the house, and this operation, and all the things that were going on there in 2002," Stevens said.

In the e-mail, Stevens warned Allen, a longtime friend, to "remember Torricelli."

It was during a time when the Senate Ethics Committee admonished Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-New Jersey, for accepting and failing to disclose expensive gifts from a campaign contributor. Torricelli dropped his re-election bid.

"I'm telling him [Allen], he's not going to give me anything. I want a record of what was done on the chalet, and I want to pay for it," Stevens said in an effort to explain the meaning of the e-mail.

Later Friday, prosecutors may get their turn to question Stevens about how he handled Allen's decision to assign company workers and use company materials for some of the improvements.

On Thursday, Catherine Stevens was on the witness stand. During friendly questioning by her husband's lawyers, she laid out a methodical, detailed system of accounting for the chalet project, acknowledging that she had the most hands-on responsibility for the bills.

But when it came time for prosecutors to cross-examine, she was unable to explain an elaborate front deck on the first floor of the chalet, which was added near the end of the construction.

She testified she thought the deck was part of the finishing work that had been done on the first floor by a contractor who had sent invoices that she had paid. She could not name the workers who built the deck, and could not say whether there was an invoice entry describing the deck.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/17/stevens.trial/

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On Stand, Stevens Flashes Temper

'I'm Not Going to Get Into a Numbers Game With You,' Pol Tells Prosecutor By JASON RYAN

Oct. 17, 2008—

In a defiant and occasionally testy appearance in court today, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, forcefully denied charges that he had accepted improvements to his Alaska home in violation of Senate ethics code.

Stevens was sharply questioned by lead prosecutor Brenda Morris this afternoon about his relationship with Bill Allen, the former CEO of a defunct Alaska oil services company, who the prosecution said, supplied the senator's Girdwood, Alaska, home with furniture and other amenities free of charge. The cross-examination was scheduled to resume Monday morning.

At times, the five-term senator flashed his well-known temper, telling Morris, "You're making a lot of assumptions," and declaring, "I'm not going to get into a numbers game with you."

When the prosecutor said that the oil company, Veco, was the general contractor on the Stevens' home, the senator exclaimed, "They were not and you know that."

The defense supplied copies of invoices the Stevenses were sent by Christensen Builders as evidence that Stevens and his wife paid over $160,000 for renovations on the home.

The cross-examination came after the senator took questions for hours from his own lawyers. Stevens testified that he never wanted items left at the house by Allen, and that Allen sometimes acted on his own by adding things to the Stevens' home, including a steel staircase on a deck, a gas grill, spare furniture, a giant toolkit and rope lighting that covered the home, and an 80-foot tree on the property.

The government contends that Stevens knowingly accepted all of the items but failed to report them, along with work done by Veco, on Senate financial disclosure forms.

Morris questioned why Stevens let Allen use his house, even when he did things to upset the senator and his wife. "If you didn't want all of these items, why didn't you get your key back?" asked the prosecutor.

"He was using the place much more than I was. ... There are no gifts there at all," Stevens said.

Stevens told the jury that he was at home only two nights in 2000 and spent less than 20 days there during the year.

Morris closely questioned Stevens about renovations, including a deck added to the home in 2002, when most of the other renovations were complete. Earlier in the day, Stevens told his defense lawyer he had no idea that a steel staircase would be added to his home, which he calls a "chalet."

"It's not a question of wanted it ... it was there when I saw it," Stevens told the prosecutor.

When the prosecutor kept pressing the senator about the staircase, Stevens shot back that it was from Allen's junk pile. "It was left over from an [oil] platform. Did you know that?" the senator asked.

Morris zeroed in on the point, saying it proved that Veco material was being used on the senator's home and that Allen directed the effort.

"Veco is not Bill Allen to me. Bill Allen is not Veco," Stevens replied. "You're the one bringing Veco in here. Bill Allen is my friend."

The defense has highlighted memos and notes from Stevens, asking Allen for bills for the work.

When the press began to inquire about rumors that Veco had done the work, Stevens' friend Bob Persons, who monitored the progress on the home, sent the senator an e-mail dated Dec. 4, 2004. "The press will try to spin this on you, we're fully documented and so is Bill," the e-mail read.

"Weren't you covering your bottom with these e-mails?" Morris asked the senator.

Stevens responded, "My bottom wasn't bare."

The prosecution then entered into evidence Stevens' response to his friend's message, in which he noted his displeasure at how his press secretary, Courtney Boone, was handling the issue. "I'm a little pissed at Courtney," Stevens wrote. "She didn't listen to the question and didn't really find out who the questioner was. I'm telling her that only happens once on my team."

Also in his testimony Friday, Stevens told the jury that his wife received all the bills and paid for all of the work done on his house.

A federal grand jury indicted Stevens in July for allegedly lying on financial disclosure forms required by the U.S. Senate. Prosecutors claim Stevens omitted $250,000 in gifts, including the house renovation.

Stevens also said today that Allen lied to the jury in his testimony.

Testifying that the renovation was overseen by his wife Catherine, Stevens said his wife undertook the project while he focused on his work. "Catherine threw herself into the project," he said.

Under questioning by lead defense attorney Brendan Sullivan Jr., Stevens said of his wife, "She got all the bills and paid all the bills."

Questioned about Allen's earlier testimony in which he said that Stevens knew he wasn't being billed for work done on the house, Stevens, 84, shot back, "That's just an absolute lie."

As Sullivan read a transcript of Allen's testimony from the trial that Stevens had told Allen he knew Veco was doing a lot of work on the house, Stevens interjected, "That's another falsehood." 

Stevens testified that he was unaware of add-ons to the house that Allen and others built, including a steel staircase and a small balcony made of steel on the third floor.

"Did you know a porch would be built?" Sullivan asked his client.

"No," said Stevens, who first testified Thursday in the trial that began last month. 

The defense then reviewed exhibits the government introduced, including an October 2002 note that Stevens sent Allen, which stated, "You owe me a bill ... remember Torricelli my friend ... Friendship is one thing, Congressional Ethics rules are an entirely different matter."

Asked why he included a reference to former Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., who decided not to run for re-election to the U.S. Senate amid an ethics investigation, Stevens testified about the former lawmaker's legal issues. "It was a serious problem because he took something from a friendship deal," Stevens testified.

Stevens also contradicted Allen's testimony that he was only asking for bills to give the appearance that everything was being done properly. Stevens' attorney asked him, "Did you ever tell [Bob] Persons you were trying to cover your ass by asking for this bill?" "No," Stevens said.

Persons is a friend of Stevens' who looked in on the home renovation project and kept the senator updated on its progress.

Stevens testified that the gift of a stained glass window in the house was his wife's artwork and he had no interest in it. "What goes on in the house is Catherine's business," Stevens said. "What goes on outside is my business."

Despite work done to the house, the senator testified that his house is a mess because of design flaws that have resulted in extensive ice damage to the roof and gutters and a request from the FBI that he not alter or repair anything until after the trial.

At the trial in federal court in Washington, D.C., Veco workers have testified about the flawed roof design and that they installed a heating system on the roof to prevent ice buildup. At trial, Allen called the roof design a "mistake." Stevens told the jury today he only learned about the heating system "when Bill Allen told me he had it done."

The jury was shown pictures of the roof in its current condition, dented with twisted gutters. "The whole thing's a mess. ... I can't fix it," Stevens said, citing the FBI request.

The senator also testified that a Viking gas grill Allen installed at the home was also of no use to him, saying, "I told him I didn't want it, that it was his business. ... I never used it."

The case is expected to go to the jury next week.

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