Veco men sparked Stevens remodel
Published: August 3rd, 2008 02:04 AM
Last Modified: August 3rd, 2008 07:35 PM
Editor's note: Earlier versions of this story, online and in print, contained three paragraphs reporting that ex-Veco employee David Anderson said some of Veco's costs on the Stevens house were passed along to an oil company for which Veco was doing work. Anderson on Sunday said he was mistaken about this, and the three paragraphs were removed from the story. Read a fuller explanation HERE.
Catherine Stevens
Bill Allen
Bob Persons
The idea to double the size of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens' home in Girdwood by jacking it up and adding a new first floor was hatched by Veco employees over drinks at the Alyeska Prince Hotel, according to two of the participants.
"This is what I'm thinking -- I want to expand Ted's house," then-Veco chairman Bill Allen told two of his trusted employees, his nephew David Anderson and Robert "Rocky" Williams. "How can we do this?"
The conversation was recalled in interviews last week by Anderson and Williams, federal grand jury witnesses who may testify at Stevens' corruption trial scheduled next month. They said it took place in a suite at the Girdwood hotel rented for the night by Allen, probably in the spring of 1999 or 2000, Anderson said.
Anderson said he eventually supervised the start of the 2000 renovation project for Veco and continued to respond to maintenance requests by Stevens and his wife over the next few years. He said Veco paid for most of the work and Stevens should have known it.
Williams said he too had a supervisory role on the project and that he made no effort to conceal his employment with Veco when Stevens came around. Anderson described his recollections in a telephone interview last week from his home in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. Williams was interviewed at his home in South Anchorage last week and in 2007.
Stevens, who has represented Alaska in the Senate since 1968, was indicted Tuesday on seven federal felony counts of failing to disclose on his annual financial statements more than $250,000 in gifts he allegedly received from Allen and Veco starting in 2000. The Veco-organized house renovation, subsequent repairs and Veco-supplied furnishings were central to most of the alleged violations.
Stevens says he is innocent and has vowed to fight for acquittal. On Thursday, he asked for a speedy trial and got it. A judge set a date of Sept. 24 in Washington, D.C.
Stevens has
declined to answer questions about the house except to once say that he
paid every bill he received. His wife, Catherine, did not respond to
e-mails to her husband's Senate and campaign offices for comment on
this story, and has previously declined to discuss the Girdwood
remodeling.
...
Stevens told reporters last year that he paid every invoice he received on the remodel.
"As a practical matter, I will tell you. We paid every bill that was given to us," Stevens told reporters last July. "Every bill that was sent to us has been paid, personally, with our own money, and that's all there is to it. It's our own money."
In a handwritten note sent last summer to Wev Shea, the former U.S. Attorney for Alaska, Stevens said he paid $130,000.
"This is a sad portion of my life -- it will take time to explain," Stevens said in the two-page note, which was seized by the FBI after Shea told a Seattle Times reporter about it. "Catherine and I personally paid over $130,000 for the improvements to our chalet in Girdwood. Someone -- or more than one -- keeps telling the FBI that's not so. Takes time to go back over five years to prove they are wrong."
In the indictment, prosecutors accused Stevens of misleading friends and staff about the Girdwood project, but it doesn't say whether his note to Shea will be used as evidence of that allegation.
But the indictment appears to back up Paone's statements. It says invoices from "Company A," an apparent reference to Christensen Builders, were sent to Stevens and paid by the senator by personal check.
Those invoices, however, "did not include the labor costs of Veco employees and contractors and did not include the costs of materials provided by Veco," the indictment says. Veco employees "installed electrical, plumbing, framing, heating and flooring materials in the Girdwood Residence," as well as buying and installing fixtures and appliances, the indictment says. Between the summer of 2000 and Dec. 31, 2001, those costs totaled more than $200,000, the indictment says.
FULL STORY:
http://www.adn.com/news/politics/fbi/stevens/story/482555.html
