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US Sen. Stevens gifts a focus in trial arguments
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-22 09:47 WASHINGTON -- US Sen. Ted Stevens, the Senate's longest-serving Republican with 40 years in office, took many expensive gifts and tried to avoid publicly disclosing them, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
However, the Alaska Republican's lawyer declared him an "innocent man" in a corruption case that may decide his political future and the Senate's makeup. "This is a simple case of an elected public official who received hundreds of thousands of dollars of free benefits and concealed those facts," prosecutor Joseph Bottini told jurors in urging a guilty verdict during closing arguments. He said Stevens lied on his Senate financial disclosure forms by failing to include gifts including extensive home renovations from the Alaska oil services company VECO Corp, its founder Bill Allen and from other friends. But defense lawyer Brendan Sullivan said Stevens' wife handled finances for the renovation of their Alaska home and the couple thought they had paid for all the work overseen by a friend. Sullivan accused prosecutors of "trying to nit-pick a very decent man." Tuesday's arguments in the monthlong trial came just two weeks before the November 4 elections. The most recent opinion polls show Stevens in a dead heat in a re-election bid against his Democratic challenger, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. If the jurors find him not guilty, it could give Stevens a boost toward another six-year term. A guilty verdict could hurt re-election chances for Stevens, one of the Senate's most powerful Republicans. Democrats hope to dethrone Stevens and enough other Republicans in the elections to hold 60 of the 100 Senate seats, enough to overcome potential Republican roadblocks. Jurors gave no sign of whether either side's closing arguments swayed them. Stevens is first sitting senator to go on trial in 27 years. The last was Harrison Williams, a New Jersey Democrat, who was convicted in 1981 for bribery. Jury deliberations could begin as early as Wednesday. Stevens is known for his proposed "Bridge to Nowhere," which became a symbol of government waste. The now-abandoned project would have linked Gravina Island, population 50, to the town of Ketchikan at a cost of $398 million. Prosecutor Bottini said Stevens did not report numerous items, including a generator for his house, a massage chair, a fish statue, stained-glass artwork, a gas grill and the renovations on his house in Girdwood, Alaska. |
