WASHINGTON — A feisty Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, sparred with a federal prosecutor Friday, testifying at his corruption trial that he always paid his bills and that an oil-services company played no role in remodeling his Alaska house.
Stevens, one of the most powerful Republicans in the Senate, took the witness stand in his own defense to counter charges that he lied on financial disclosure forms to hide more than $250,000 in gifts and renovations to his Girdwood house provided by a close friend, Bill Allen, who headed the now-defunct oil-services company Veco.
Federal prosecutors have alleged that Stevens turned to Allen and Veco for the work because Stevens knew the labor would be free.
The 84-year-old lawmaker, who is running for re-election to a seventh full term, lived up to the combative reputation he has earned in Congress. A former prosecutor himself, Stevens repeatedly critiqued the way he was questioned by Justice Department attorney Brenda Morris.
“I am not going to get in a numbers game with you,” he said at one point. “You are not listening to me,” he said, criticizing another of her questions as “tautological.”
Stevens’ defense hinges on his ability to convince jurors that he never falsified the disclosure forms. His legal team, led by attorney Brendan Sullivan, has asserted that the senator and his wife paid $160,000 for work on the house — a fair market price for the job.
They also have said that Stevens’ wife oversaw the project.
Stevens testified Friday that he was unaware that Veco workers assigned to the remodeling project were on the company payroll. He said he enlisted Allen’s help in 1999 to find him an architect and workers and paid the workers through a general contractor, which ran the project. The contractor testified that he reported to a Veco foreman and Allen.
Stevens conceded that, in hindsight, there was “a lot more intersection with Bill Allen than we thought” in the renovation. But, he added, “Bill Allen is not Veco. We never used Veco on this project. Bill Allen was a friend” who helped line up laborers.
