In October 2006, a longtime loyalist of Sen. Ted Stevens called him up with a big problem: The FBI, he said, was breathing down his neck about a makeover of the senator’s mountain cabin.
Stevens responded by cautioning the friend, Bill Allen, that they “ought to lay really low right now” and “stick this out together.”
Unknown to the veteran Alaskan lawmaker, Allen had already agreed to work with investigators and secretly tape their phone calls — evidence made public for the first time Monday at Stevens’ corruption trial.
Stevens, 84, is charged with lying on financial-disclosure forms to conceal more than $250,000 in cabin renovations and other gifts from Allen and his oil-pipeline firm, Veco Corp.
On tape, the senator tells his old drinking and fishing buddy that he’s worried about the appearance of wrongdoing and even warns that they might be under surveillance.
“I think they’re probably listening to this conversation right now,” he says.
“We might have to pay a fine and spend a little time in jail,” he continues. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
But Stevens repeatedly asserts his innocence.
“I don’t think we’ve done anything wrong,” he says in one conversation. “I’m not afraid of them at all.”
Allen pleaded guilty to bribing state lawmakers and agreed to testify against Stevens in exchange for immunity for his family and a possible break at sentencing.
There are no bribery charges against Stevens — a point that defense attorney Brendan Sullivan sought to drive home during a cross-examination of the government’s star witness that ate up the afternoon and was expected to continue this morning.
“You never sought to bribe Sen. Stevens, did you, sir?” he asked.
“No,” Allen replied.
The attorney also flustered Allen by challenging his testimony last week that one reason he ignored Stevens’ requests to bill him for renovations — aside from their friendship — was that a mutual friend told him the senator only wanted to pay lip service to ethics rules, not really pay up. The defense has sought to cast that claim as a fabrication extracted by prosecutors only two weeks before trial.
“When did you tell the government?” Sullivan asked. “It was just recently, wasn’t it?”
“No. No,” Allen said. “. . . I don’t know.”
Stevens says he asked Allen to oversee the project while he was in Washington but insists he sought to pay all the bills and had no idea his friend was absorbing most costs.
Earlier Monday, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered the government to file a formal response at the end of the day to repeated defense claims that prosecutors intentionally withheld evidence favorable to their client.
