Shaggy Mane - Coprinus comatus

It's over a year since my first (and last) shaggy mane post. They're back. These two are about four inches high.


Below you can see what happens if you wait too long to pick them. They turn inky. According to Tom Volk

Members of the genus Coprinus have been collectively known as the "inky caps" because of the curious character of autodeliquescence of their gills-- in other words self-digestion to release their basidiospores. Most of these species have gills that are very thin and very close to one another, which does not allow for easy release of the spores. . . After the spores have matured and been released, the gill tissue digests itself and begins to curl up, allowing easy release of the basidiospores above. In other words, the digestion opens up the fruiting body so that spores from further up the gills become exposed to the air and a clear path of spore release. The self-digestion continues until the entire fruiting body has turned to black ink. In the olden days this ink was actually used for writing.

It's Fall Already - Yellow Leaves, Termination Dust, and Rich Compost

Two weeks of trial
Didn't notice green go gold
Some leaves fall to ground










Thursday dinner done
Walking out of Thai Kitchen,
more snow on Chugach.















May

Winter mulch gathered
into summer compost piles
letting nature play

End of September

Grass, veg kitchen scraps,
Join leaves, water, in the piles
Turned sometimes for air















Natural heat first,
Then compost workers appear
Rich black soil results














Once again we say
good bye Alaska summer
Equinox less light

Pete Kott Trial - Department of Justice Press Release

Below is the Department of Justice press release on the Kott Trial. While they list the charges Kott was found guilty of, they neglect to mention that he was found not guilty of wire fraud.

The also call PPT "Petroleum Production Tax." There is a page on the governor's office website lingering from the Murkowski Administration that also calls it the Petroleum Production Tax, but everything else, including people involved in the Kott trial, called it Petroleum Profit Tax. They seem to puff it all up a bit. It's a good thing the DOJ attorneys are more careful with the details than than their press room.

They also note that Allen and Smith "pleaded guilty in May 2007 to providing more than $400,000 in corrupt payments to public officials from the state of Alaska."

• Kott got about $11,500 (the poll, the $7,992 check, and the $1000 in cash).
• Ben Stevens got about $200,000 in consulting fees for doing "not a lot."
  
• Kohring got $1000.
  
• One to four workers to work on Ted Stevens' house for a couple of months. Roughly at $20/hour for 40 hours a week, for three months, for two workers that would be just under $20,000.
  
• Murkowski got a $20,000 poll that came out in the trial.
  

If we add all these up we can account for about $250,000. That leaves another $150,000 unaccounted for. We know he paid Tom Anderson about $2500/month for six months, but that wasn't during the legislative session, and Anderson wasn't charged on this. If I recall correctly, Weyhrauch was charged with arranging for a job, but he never got it or paid, so that shouldn't count in this. There are the other polls Veco did for other Alaskan politicians that were mentioned in the trial. So it would seem there may be some more surprises to come beyond what we already know.

Anyway, here's the press release.


______________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CRM
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2007 (202) 514-2008
WWW.USDOJ.GOV TDD (202) 514-1888

FORMER ALASKA STATE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE
PETER KOTT CONVICTED ON PUBLIC CORRUPTION CHARGES

WASHINGTON – A federal jury in Anchorage, Alaska, has found former Alaska state representative and former Alaska Speaker of the House Peter Kott guilty of bribery, extortion and conspiracy for corruptly soliciting and receiving financial benefits from a company in exchange for performing official acts in the Alaska State Legislature on the company’s behalf, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division announced today.

Peter Kott, a member of the Alaska House from 1992 to 2006, who also served as Speaker of the House from Jan. 1, 2003 to Dec. 31, 2004, was convicted yesterday following a 15-day jury trial in Anchorage, before U.S. District Judge John W. Sedwick of the District of Alaska. The jury found Kott guilty of conspiracy, extortion under cover of official right, and bribery.

Kott was arrested following the unsealing of an indictment on May 4, 2007, charging him, one former and one current Alaska representative with various public corruption offenses. Kott faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on the extortion charge, a maximum sentence of 10 years on the bribery charge, and a maximum sentence of five years on the conspiracy charge. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 7, 2007.

“This verdict is an important victory for the people of Alaska, who deserve to expect honest, ethical representation from their elected officials,” said Assistant Attorney General Fisher. “I thank the prosecutors and the FBI and IRS agents who worked on this case. Their effort shows that the Department of Justice will work hard to bring to justice any elected officials who betray their duties to their constituents.”

“The jury has found that Mr. Kott accepted bribes from VECO in exchange for his official acts as a member of the Alaska State Legislature. The citizens of Alaska have the right to responsible public officials representing their interests rather than filling their own coffers,” said Deputy Assistant Director Daniel D. Roberts, FBI Criminal Investigative Division. “Battling public corruption at all levels of government is one of the FBI’s top investigative priorities, and no corrupt public official is exempt from FBI scrutiny.”

At trial, the jury heard evidence that Kott, while serving as a member in the state legislature, solicited bribes from and took action to benefit the financial interests of VECO Corporation, a major Alaska oil services company. Trial evidence, including more than 60 recordings of conversations involving Kott and former VECO executives, showed that Kott repeatedly promised to cast votes in VECO’s favor on a key petroleum production tax proposal pending before the Alaska legislature. In exchange, Kott received cash, checks and the promise of a future job with VECO.

The VECO executives who testified at trial, former Chief Executive Officer Bill J. Allen and former Vice President of Community Affairs and Government Relations Richard L. Smith, pleaded guilty in May 2007 to providing more than $400,000 in corrupt payments to public officials from the state of Alaska. Currently, two other defendants have been charged in connection with the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation, including former Housemembers Victor H. Kohring and Bruce Weyhrauch. Thomas T. Anderson, a former elected member of the Alaska state House of Representatives, was convicted in July 2007 of extortion, conspiracy, bribery and money laundering for soliciting and receiving money from an FBI confidential source in exchange for agreeing to perform official acts to further a business interest represented by the source.

This case was prosecuted by trial attorneys Nicholas A. Marsh and Edward P. Sullivan of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section, headed by Chief William M. Welch, II, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph W. Bottini and James A. Goeke from the District of Alaska. The case is being investigated by the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigative Division.

# # #

The Difference Between Professionals and Amateurs

Well, while the real journalists were waiting for the verdict at the court yesterday, I was catching up with my life. I spent a good part of the morning getting a crown on a tooth that broke. Stopped in at the university to work on the Healing Racism in Anchorage newsletter. And then met with a student in the early evening. I put the trial out of my mind, never had the radio on, and when I got home I got back on to try to do something with all the left over thoughts about the trial still in my head. When I finally finished it was 3am and just before posting I thought, well, let me check if there was a verdict on the ADN website. I really didn't think there'd be.

Boy did I feel sheepish when I found out 12 hours after the verdict was announced. The professional journalists were there as they were throughout the trial. One of the things I learned and it makes me feel good about Alaska, is that the tv journalists were there and writing their own stories. Bill McAllister of Channel 2 was there all the time as was Matthew Simonof Channel 11. It's nice to know we have real journalists who write their own stories and not just people who read the teleprompter. I've already talked here about the ADN news folks, Lisa Demer, Sean Cockerham, Michael Carey, and Rich Mauer, and APRN's Steve Heimel and David Shurtleff. And I also got names the names of the two artists who have illustrated the inside of the court where cameras were not allowed: Pat Gillin for Channel 2 and Tamara Ramsey for Channel 11 whose photo at the door of the Federal Building I posted the other day. And Shannon Moore of KUDO. And there were others who in my ignorance, I never identified.

My hat's off to you all. Thanks for treating this amateur journalist with such kindness and support. And let's not talk about how long it took me to find out the verdict, ok?


Bottom photo: Waiting for the Kotts after the trail Monday.



,

What Will the Jury Do? [They said guilty on three counts]

[I did not go to court today. I didn't even listen to the news - I had a class this evening and didn't even think to check the news until I finished writing this last piece. But before posting it, I thought I'd check the ADN site. And my newspaper is here already - it's 3am - and it says guilty on all but the wire fraud. Well, it's over and I can go back to life as normal.]


Going through each count in the four previous posts, I realize several things:

1. I had my typed notes that I took in the court room to consult. I could go back and say, what did they say? And I could go to the ADN site and play the audio and video tapes to check. And tonight I even had the audio of the closing arguments to replay. And to hear how much I left out in my typing.

• The jury can ask to listen to the tapes, though from the judge's comments, it doesn't sound easy. They don't have a computer with links to all the audio and video they way they are posted on the ADN site. They'll have to go back into the court room to listen.
• The jury can check their notes, but seeing how sketchy mine were when I was typing full speed, and knowing how little note taking the jurors did, they aren't going to have much to go back to.
  
• And when I did go back to my notes, they reminded me of how much I forgot.
• But there are 12 of them, so maybe collectively they'll remember a lot more.

2. I think the that the audio and video were so powerful and such direct access to what happened, that these could trump everything said in the court room. These will stick in people's minds. Goeke even said you have unique evidence - the surveillance tapes - you the members of the jury have been able to sit in a ringside seat as they committed the crimes in the indictment. I also think of one point in the rebuttal where Marsh was emphasizing that Kott voted against the ppt bill so the higher tax rate wouldn't pass. He said something like, "He voted no, pushed the red button, nay..." and I remember seeing the red button and thinking how that image will stick in my mind more than the 'no' or 'nay.' So I think the tapes will probably be the major evidence for most people.

3. I think in the end, without good notes, their emotional response will matter. Whether they liked the attorneys, whether they liked Kott. My sense, based on how they laughed at times with the judge's jokes, is that they did like the judge. If they can figure out what he thinks, I suspect that would influence them. But he's done a great job of staying neutral and not tipping his hand.

4. And if the jury is feeling the way I do, they're going to be happy when this is over and they can get back to their normal lives.

Kott Trial - Conspiracy Charge

Conspiracy

For the conspiracy charge the jury has to agree that

• First, beginning in or about September 2005, and continuing until on or about August 30, 2006, there was an agreement between Bill Allen, Rick Smith, and Peter Kott to commit at least one crime as charged in the indictment;”

So, as a juror looking at this, I have to figure out - did they come together to agree to commit a crime? At first blush, it looks like they came together to get legislation passed. That in itself is not a crime, as Wendt emphatically told the jurors. Marsh, in the rebuttal, argued strongly that they had a plan and it was an illegal plan that linked getting the legislation passed to benefits for Kott, particularly a lobbying job when he got out of the legislature.

I think it would be a lot easier for the jury if it were a conspiracy to rob a bank. In that case it would be clear they were knowingly planning to commit a crime. In this case it is much more subtle. They never said, let’s commit bribery, extortion, and wire fraud. I wonder if Pete even knew what wire fraud is. The plans they discussed were getting ppt passed at 20/20, getting a gas pipeline in the long term, getting Kott a job when he left the legislature.

The jury is going to have to not think about the plan being simply about getting ppt passed - which they clearly did plan, and which Wendt said was 'the plan' - and think of the plan that Marsh described that linked the legislative work to the $7,993 check, the $1000 cash, the poll, and the future job. Or the plan to get Allen to pay for Pete Jr. working on Pete Sr.'s campaign, by setting up invoices that say it's for doing future flooring work.

In the Tom Anderson case I think it was clearer. They all knew they were setting up a scheme to launder money so that Cornell Enterprises could pay Anderson without people knowing where the money was coming from. Of course the jury wouldn’t know those details about Anderson, so would they think this way? Before I go too far, maybe I should read the rest of the instructions:

• Second, the defendant became a member of the conspiracy knowing of at least one of its objects and intending to help accomplish it, and;

If we look at the other charges, they are bribery and extortion and wire fraud. So let me refocus. They worked out a way to get Kott money to pay for Peter Jr. to work on his campaign.

• Third, one of the members of the conspiracy performed at least one overt act for the purpose of carrying out the conspiracy with all of you agreeing on a particular overt act that was committed.

The jury has lots of evidence that Kott took actions for Veco in the legislature. And that Allen made payments to Kott. This part shouldn't be a problem


Then the judge goes on:

• A conspiracy is a kind of criminal partnership - an agreement of two or more persons to commit one or more crimes. The crime of conspiracy is the agreement to do something unlawful; it does not matter whether the crime agreed upon was committed.

• It is not necessary that the conspirators made a formal agreement or that they agreed on every detail of the conspiracy. It is not enough however, that they simply met, discussed matters of common interest, acted in similar ways, or perhaps helped one another. You must find beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a plan to commit at least one of the crimes alleged in the indictment as an object of the conspiracy with all of you agreeing as to the particular crime which the conspirators agreed to commit.

I still expect that there will be jurors who will say, "Yes, they did exchange money for legislative work, but they didn't actually plan it. It just sort of evolved from the relationship." Or they might ask, what exactly does 'plan' mean? They never sat down and said, "OK, Kott, you do our bidding and we'll get you whatever you need." But others on the jury might counter with some examples from the tapes where Smith says, for instance, "You've got a job, now get us a bill."

Kott Trial - The Wire Fraud Charge

As I understand this, it basically relates to using interstate phone lines to plan your criminal action. This is based on a single phone call Kott made from Washington DC. Here's the link to the audio from the ADN website. - Audio:
Kott and Smith phone call - March 10, 2006

The jury instructions say:

Wire Fraud

• First, the defendant made up a scheme or plan to deprive the State of Alaska of its right to honest services;
• This would be, I think, the plan for Kott to do Veco's bidding with the understanding that he would be rewarded for that. The defense argued that the only plan was the one to promote the ppt bill in the legislature so that a gas pipeline would get built. And that, he said, was perfectly legal. Lobbyists work with legislators like that all the time. In the rebuttal, Marsh said,
  

Plan. people come to get together with common plan to get something. Wendt talked about them having a common plan. They can work together. It’s a crime when the lobbyists offer a benefit and the politician accepts the benefits knowing they are related to official acts. I respectfully submit to you to consider the words pk used with allen. Allegiance, I’ll get her done, and this is illuminating, pk described it as a team effort. You know who the roster of the team is? Count one of the indictment pk, ba, rs. [Now that the audio tapes of the closing arguments are available on the ADN website, I can see how sketchy my 'transcript' was. This section about the plan starts about halfway into this link. Part: 3 |]

• Second, the defendant acted knowingly and with the intent to deceive and deprive the state of Alaska of its right to honest services; and
• I would say that the defendant acted knowing that what he was doing was not legal based on things he said on the tapes, such as "I sold my soul to the devil" Even though Wendt made a valiant attempt to dismiss that as an expression people say without meaning it, or as boasting to Allen and Smith, it's pretty hard for the jury to ignore his own words here and other places on the tape.
  
• Third, the defendant made, or caused someone to make an interstate telephone call to carry out or to attempt to carry out the scheme or plan.
• There is the call from the DC restaurant, and Smith seems to be able to cause Kott to change his plan to work with the Marathon employee, Thierwechter, (spelling corrected from Thurwacker in previous posts after seeing how the ADN spelled it) he's meeting for dinner. It is one tiny part of the larger plan to get the 20.20 rate on the ppt bill.

• Fourth, the statements in the telephone conversation were in furtherance of the scheme or plan in that they were an important part of the scheme or plan.
• Ah, here's the rub. What exactly is 'important'? The defense dismisses it as a phone call made to get Thierwechter's phone number because he's late and Kott wants to make sure he's coming. While on that call, Smith finds out Kott is meeting with Thierwechter and tells him not to work with him because it would jeopardize the ppt bill. Kott says, "you know where my allegiance lies." But you can listen to the link at the top of this post and hear the call for yourself.

This seems to be the most tenuous of the charges. I would guess that it will depend on how the jury interprets 'important.'

Kott Trial - The Bribery Charge

Bribery

• First, the defendant was an elected official of the State of Alaska;
• This is not at issue

• Second, during the period between in or about September 2005 and August 30, 2006 the defendant corruptly solicited or demanded for the benefit of any person, or accepted or agreed to accept from a person, something of value, with all of you agreeing on what that thing was, intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with a business, transaction, or series of transactions of the State of Alaska;
• This is very similar to the extortion charge. As I understand it, we have the same four items - the $7,993 check for flooring work that was used to pay for Peter Kott Jr.; The $1000 cash; the political polls; and the future lobbying job. And the jury has to believe that these were all in exchange for Kott's work in promoting their bills in the legislature. It doesn't matter whether the parts of the agreement are fulfilled, just that they agreed and understood this was the deal. So, even though he didn't get the lobbying job, that shouldn't matter. Even though he wasn't able to keep the ppt bill at 20/20, he said he would and he tried. Like with the extortion charge, if the jury has trouble with this, Kott's in good shape.

• Third, the business, transaction, or series of transactions involved something of value of $5,000 or more; and
• The poll and the $1000 in cash together are only $3500. But the job and the $7,993 check each would be over $5,000. All four also qualifies.
  

• Fourth, the State of Alaska received benefits in excess of $10,000 in calendar year 2006, pursuant to a federal program involving a grant, contract, subsidy, loan, guarantee, insurance, or other form of federal assistance.
  
• This just means that the State of Alaska gets more than $10,000 in money from the federal government. Clearly this is the case.
  

Again, this one seems pretty clear. Of course, you never know what a jury will think.

Kott Trial - The Extorion Charge

From the jury instructions:

Extortion

• First, the defendant was a public official;
• This is clear - Kott was an Alaska State Representative.
  

• Second, the defendant obtained property which he knew he was not entitled to, with all of you agreeing on what that property was;
• Prosecutor Goeke listed these in the closing:
• $7,993 check for flooring
• $1000 cash [payment for contribution to Murkowski]
• political polls
• lucrative job as a lobbyist for Veco

I think that the prosecution, using the tapes, using various invoices, and witness testimony, showed clearly that the $7,993 check was fiddled around with enough that it was clear that the money was for Kott to use to pay Peter Kott Jr. to be his campaign manager full time. At one point we were told the money was for work on a Sharon Durant's floor and Rick Smith's floor. Another time it was Bill Allen and Rick Smith's floors. And if it were really for flooring, how come the work still hasn't been done? Plus, Kott had the $30,000 in cash in his closet he could have used to pay his son if necessary, and there was $10,000 left over in campaign funds that could have been used.

It was clear the $1000 cash was given to Kott to reimburse him for a $1000 contribution Allen had asked Kott to make to the Murkowski campaign. Jurors could say he was just paying him back. Kott, in his testimony, said he only got $900. We heard testimony that Veco had a program for its employees where they got special bonuses which they were expected to contribute to specific political campaigns. It was pointed out this was illegal because it was in effect a corporate contribution which isn't allowed. Presumably, Allen had already given his limit, and this was a way for him to give more than his limit. But I don't recall that being pointed out. So some jurors may feel that this was just payback for the contribution. But I think the others will see this as Kott's gain.

Kott Jr. said the family didn't believe in polls, never ever used them. Kott said the same. But his consultant ordered the poll. Kott went over it in a phone call with Dave Dittman, and in one conversation confirming to Rick Smith he knew they'd had a poll done, he said something like, "And we may need a second one to see how the ad went."

I thought it was pretty clear that Kott was looking for a consulting job with Veco when he left the legislature. At one point he and Smith talked about it on tape. Kott mentioned Chris Knauss (Kott's former staffer who had been hired to lobby for Veco) and Kott said he wanted to be a lobbyist. But the stuff about being a prison warden in Barbados muddies things a bit. Someone testified that Barbados was a code word for the consulting job. Everyone knew he didn't want to be a warden, but it was a way to bring up the consulting job without asking directly.

But they don't need all four. Just one. But they have to agree on that one.

• Third, the defendant knew that the property was given in return for his agreement or understanding whether explicit or implicit, for taking some official action; and

I think the cumulative affect of all the tapes suggests there is an implicit agreement that Kott has access to favors from Allen (like the four things listed above) if he does a good job working bills through the legislature for Veco. In the May 6, 2006 audio tape, Kott asks Smith whether they have Weyhrauch (presumably to help with ppt). Then Kott says, well I hear he's asked you for a job.. This seems to link the idea of doing Veco's work in exchange for a job. There are long pauses where you wonder if Kott is sending esp messages to Smith saying, "And I'm gonna get one from you guys too, right?" A September 26, 2005 phone conversation between Kott and Smith has Kott saying, "I need a job." Smith says, "You've a got a job. Get us a pipeline." Smith, "What are you gonna do?" Kott: "I gonna be a consultant like Knauss." But you can take that to mean, "You've got a job, it's to get us a pipeline." But that would have problems for Kott too. You can judge for yourself.
Smith and Kott phone call - Sept. 26, 2005
The saving grace for the prosecution here, is that it says, "whether implicit or explicit" in the jury instructions.

• Fourth, commerce or the movement of an article or commodity in commerce from one state to another was affected in some way.

In his closing, Goeke said this was all about getting a gas pipeline, so that counts as interstate commerce. I guess if that is in debate, they can ask the judge.

I think this and the bribery charges are the easiest to convict on. If the jury has trouble with this one, Kott's going to be in good shape.

Kott Trial - Assessing the Closing Arguments

What's a good way to assess the closing arguments? [I've posted my trial notes already under Prosecution Closing I, Defense Closing, and Prosecution Closing II, for a rough, running account of what they said. You can also listen to the Closing Arguments on the ADN website.] The most immediate way to assess is your reaction at the end. So I'll give an incomplete version of that here, having had 24 hours to digest things.

The government's case started by saying it was about public trust which he said was betrayed for greed. Then we went right into the charges and the evidence.

[Again, my courtroom notes are approximate]
Goeke: Mr. Marsh told you it was about public trust. People chosen to rep neighbors on legislature.
four crimes - putting interest of public aside for his own - greed
conspiracy
extortion
bribery
wire fraud

He said the official acts taken by Kott were numerous and he'd get into those. Then he listed four specific instances where Kott took something of value from Veco.

$7,993 check for flooring work
$1000 cash [payment for contribution to Murkowski]
political polls
lucrative job

Then that the evidence was unique:

hours of electronic surveillance you the members of the jury have been able to sit in a ringside seat as they committed the crimes in the indictment

Then he went through the instances where the tapes showed:

• that Kott did some official act - talking to other legislators, maneuvering to keep 20/20 in the ppt bill or if he couldn't, to kill it
• where Kott said on tape that he'd be for 30/30 if it weren't for this guy here (Allen)
  
• that Kott told Allen and Smith that he was working to get their interests met
• that showed he expected a job
• how they conspired to play with the invoices for flooring work (that was never done) to pay for Kott's son as his campaign manager
• how Kott talked to Smith about the poll Veco paid for, said they might do another
• that Allen gave Kott $1000 to cover the contribution Kott had made to the Murkowski campaign

There were lots and lots of examples. Watching these for the second, and in some cases, third or fourth time, it began to sink in how they fit into the case.

He went on to talk a little about the charges. He said about conspiracy:

Agreement is just an agreement of 2 or more to commit any one of those crimes.
Did defendant become member of conspiracy?
one of the member performed an overt act. means they did something to advance it. Floor vote, talked to a legislator many things

He talked about the other charges and a little about the jury instructions.

At the end it was pretty convincing. Despite what the defense has been saying, it's all there on tape.


Then the defense started.

I had my closing prepared, but making a detour based on what Goeke said. He talked about PK’s greed. Not a shred of evidence that says he was a greedy man. He works hard for his money, never asked anything from anyone, offered to put in Allen floors for free. This isn’t so. PK isn’t a greedy man. I’m sure you’ll find that.

You know, he's right. Kott's weakness wasn't greed. He did work hard for his money and he didn't have his hand out much. It wasn't money he needed from Allen - hell, he had $30,000 in cash in the closet - he needed approval, and I think he very much enjoyed being close to power. The prosecution did identify four clear instances where he got a financial reward, but for most of this he got an ego reward. I don't think where the law says 'something of value" it isn't referring to ego stroking. But if someone trades his official duties for power and ego stroking isn't that just as bad as doing it for cash? In any case, the defense did have a point here - it wasn't greed.

He went on to deconstruct the prosecution's argument. He was articulate, he was passionate, and he offered details. Even as he was doing it there were times when I thought he stretching things to find a favorable interpretation of the facts for his client. But it was creative.

He cleverly told the jury that all the voting evidence that he said proved that Kott wasn't Veco's water boy, was stuff the "Government didn't show you. We showed you. They didn't want you to see it." I thought that was a powerful argument, unless you looked more closely and realized that when the government went through this and other evidence raised by the defense, it seemed to show the opposite of what Wendt said it did. The government, for instance, pointed out that while there was a 'yes' vote recorded for Kott at the end of 20/20 fight which showed according to Wendt that Kott had voted against Veco, he had really voted 'no' and when his side lost anyway, after the fact he changed his vote to 'yes' so in the upcoming election he could tell his constituents he voted for the people. There were a lot of things like this.

Jan 20 conversation @ horsepower. Conversation about Chris knauss and jim clark. JC with administration. ba and rs wanted jim clark to think highly of them. Talking about how chris knaus made them look back in front of jim clark. You don’t think people talk like this all the time “who do we have?” the sierra club talks like that everyone does. Nothing criminal about it.

He took individual incidents and found a different interpretation. This would make sense if there was just one isolated incident, but the collective impact of all of them suggested to me a very different conclusion than Wendt was pushing.

W: Why did I play that? The govt says this is tying everything in. Govt. get gasline and I’m going to get barbados. They laughed. He sounds despondent. and he says, and I’m going to get my job in barbados. Then he says shit. Excuse my language. He knows he isn’t going to get anything. I’m going to get my job in barbados is equivalent to I’m gonna gt nothing.” And then they laugh.

Here Wendt takes this, as Allen or Smith told us, use of Barbados as a code for a good lobbyist job, and reinterprets the situation to be a sad one where the others were laughing at the pathetic Kott who wasn't going to get anything out of this. But, one could ask, if he never was expecting to get anything, then why would he be unhappy? If all his actions were with no expectation of anything in return, why would be upset? But Wendt really did work hard to make lemonade in the closing.

In other cases, particularly with the voting records on the ppt legislation, it seemed he was loading the jury with so much detail that they might get so confused that they would simply say, 'well, maybe he didn't support 20/20."

And he pointed out that despite what Allen and Smith said about their plea bargains, their motivation to be here was to reduce their jail time and he suggested if they do a good enough job, they won't spend a day in jail. While the tapes talk a lot more directly to the jury - and prosecution pointed out that for all but one, no one knew they were being taped - it wouldn't be fair for Kott to get a greater penalty than Allen and Smith.

He also talked about the 'plan' that is needed for conspiracy. The only plan they had was to pass the ppt and get the gasline moving. This was something Kott has wanted to do since 1992. There's nothing illegal about pushing legislation that will help all Alaskans he said.

He ended, I think, a little carried away with this project of his to make Pete Kott into a victim

He may be a drinker, he was shooting his mouth off. The govt. wants you to believe where there is smoke there is fire. They’ve only showed you the smoke. Sometimes where there is smoke, all there is is puffing. Puffing. Acting like a horse’s mouth. He’s never done ex, etc. Never did anything for ba except to work with them for what they wanted to accomplish. Pete Kott believed we aren’t going to get a pipeline unless we get a ppt. A republican gov.introduced a bill supported by a republican representative. Shooting his mouth off. Now he has pictures of himself on the internet for his grandkids to watch. He spent years in the legislature and in flooring and the Air Force. And it’s not funny, sir.

Well, as I review Wendt's closing, it seems to me the smoke and mirrors were on the side of the defense. And the juror who smiled and provoked the "And it's not funny, sir" comment from Wendt, possibly thought so too. But he raised some legitimate issues and muddied the waters enough on others that it could raise some reasonable doubts for some jurors. No, Kott probably isn't ruled by Greed. It probably won't be fair if he ends up getting a longer jail term than Allen or Smith. And when they try to figure out the plan in the conspiracy charge, will they only think of the plan to push the ppt through? That isn't like planning a bank robbery which is clearly illegal.

Nicholas Marsh did the rebuttal for the prosecution. And addressed many of the issues Wendt raised, particularly the voting on 20/20. It was calm, reasonable, and he was talking to them from more than the brain.

This is one way of assessing the closing arguments. And I'm afraid that after being in trial mostly for two weeks I had some things to catch up on today, so I didn't do it justice.

But, it seems to me, that the most appropriate assessment of the closing arguments will come from the jury. So really, the best way to evaluate the closing arguments then, is not to go through them as I just did, but to pull out the charges and see if you can pin the facts necessary to convict on those charges. That's what's been holding this post up. Trying to figure out how to combine this post and that. I give up. I'll post this as it is and then try to go through the charges in the next posts.



If you want to know more about Closing Arguments in general click here.

Kott Trial - So What Does it All Mean?

Beats me.

I'm still trying to figure how to talk about the closing. There is one tidbit that might be revealing. Towards the end of his closing argument, as I was typing furiously, Defense Attorney Wendt was making his argument [again I warn you this is not complete, but the best I could track what was being said]

He may be a drinker, he was shooting his mouth off. The govt. wants you to believe where there is smoke there is fire. They’ve only showed you the smoke. Sometimes where there is smoke, all there is is puffing. Puffing. Acting like a horse’s mouth. He’s never done ex, etc. Never did anything for ba except to work with them for what they wanted to accomplish. Pete Kott believed we aren’t going to get a pipeline unless we get a ppt. A republican gov.introduced a bill supported by a republican representative. Shooting his mouth off. Now he has pictures of himself on the internet for his grandkids to watch. He spent years in the legislature and in flooring and the Air Force.

Then he said:

And it’s not funny, sir.

I asked the person sitting next to me if one of the jurors had laughed. He hadn't seen anything or heard the comment.

Last night I asked my wife (who sat on the other side of the courtroom from me) about it. She said the juror with the long white beard smiled.

So this is the part where Wendt is telling the jurors what a hard working man Kott is and he's never asked for anything. And the juror smiles. Do you think he wasn't buying it. And how does that juror and the other jurors react to being admonished by the defense attorney?

Kott Trial Day 14 - Jury Instructions

During lunch the clerk's office lobby is open, but the office is closed. So I could use the computers, but not print out anything. So I just snapped pictures of the computer screen. The quality could be better, but you can see all the jury instructions. Page 1 is the cover and by itself. The rest are listed below. pp.2-3 are together, pp. 3-4, etc. The instructions for the specific charges are on p. 17 (Extortion), p. 19 (Bribery), p. 20 (Wire Fraud). I've left the pictures fairly large so you can double click on the pictures to read them easier. Starting with pages 12=13 I started fixing the brightness and contrast so they are even easier, though I wouldn't want to read this every day.

Table of Contents
Jury Instruction No 1 Duty of Juries to Find Facts and Follow Law p. 2
Jury Instruction No 2 Charge Against Defendant Not Evidence - Presumption of Innocence - Burden of Proof ...p. 3
Jury Instruction No 3 Defendant's Decision to Testify ...p. 4
Jury Instruction No 4 Reasonable Doubt Defined ...p. 5
Jury Instruction No 5 What is Evidence...p. 6
Jury Instruction No 6 What is not Evidence...p. 7
Jury Instruction No 7 Direct and Circumstantial Evidence ...p. 8
Jury Instruction No 8 Credibility of Witness...p. 9
Jury Instruction No 9 Evidence and Other Acts of the Defendant or Acts and Statements of Others...p. 10
Jury Instruction No 10 Separate Consideration of Multiple Accounts - Single Defendant..p. 11
Jury Instruction No 11 Statements by Defendant ...p. 12
Jury Instruction No 12 Impeachment Evidence - Witness ...p. 13
Jury Instruction No 13 Impeachment Evidence - Witness...p. 14 [No 12 is for Allen, 13 for Smith]
Jury Instruction No 14 Conspiracy - Elements ...p. 15
Jury Instruction No 15 Hobbes Act - Extortion Under Color of Official Right.. p. 17
Jury Instruction N0 16 Bribery of a State Official Relating to a Program Receiving Federal Funds..p. 19
Jury Instruction No 17 Wire Fraud-Scheme to Defraud- Deprivation of Right to Honest Services...p .20
Jury Instruction No 18 Duty to Deliberate ...p. 21
Jury Instruction No 19 Consideration of Evidence ...p. 22
Jury Instruction No 20 Use of Notes ...p. 23
Jury Instruction No 21 Jury Consideration of Punishment p. 24
Jury Instruction No 22 Verdict Forms...p. 25
Jury Instruction No 23 Communication with Court...p. 26

Cover Page, p. 1

Jury Instruction No 1 Duty of Juries to Find Facts and Follow Law p. 2

Jury Instruction No 2 Charge Against Defendant Not Evidence - Presumption of Innocence - Burden of Proof ...p. 3

Jury Instruction No 3 Defendant's Decision to Testify ...p. 4
Jury Instruction No 4 Reasonable Doubt Defined ...p. 5

Jury Instruction No 5 What is Evidence...p. 6

Jury Instruction No 6 What is not Evidence...p. 7


Jury Instruction No 7 Direct and Circumstantial Evidence ...p. 8
Jury Instruction No 8 Credibility of Witness...p. 9


Jury Instruction No 9 Evidence and Other Acts of the Defendant or Acts and Statements of Others...p. 10
Jury Instruction No 10 Separate Consideration of Multiple Accounts - Single Defendant..p. 11


Jury Instruction No 11 Statements by Defendant ...p. 12
Jury Instruction No 12 Impeachment Evidence - Witness ...p. 13


Jury Instruction No 13 Impeachment Evidence - Witness...p. 14 [No 12 is for Allen, 13 for Smith]
Jury Instruction No 14 Conspiracy - Elements ...p. 15


Jury Instruction No 14 continued ...p. 16
Jury Instruction No 15 Hobbes Act - Extortion Under Color of Official Right.. p. 17


Jury Instruction 15 continued ...p. 18
Jury Instruction N0 16 Bribery of a State Official Relating to a Program Receiving Federal Funds..p. 19


Jury Instruction No 17 Wire Fraud-Scheme to Defraud- Deprivation of Right to Honest Services...p .20
Jury Instruction No 18 Duty to Deliberate ...p. 21


Jury Instruction No 19 Consideration of Evidence ...p. 22
Jury Instruction No 20 Use of Notes ...p. 23


Jury Instruction No 21 Jury Consideration of Punishment p. 24
Jury Instruction No 22 Verdict Forms...p. 25


Jury Instruction No 23 Communication with Court...p. 26

Kott Trial Day 14 - Prosecution Closing II

Nicholas Marsh took over for the final part of the prosecution's closing argument.

[Added Sept 25 - audio links to Mr. Marsh's rebuttal, from the ADN website
Prosecutor rebuttal, Nicholas Marsh: - Part: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 ]

11:43am Nick Marsh:

Court is going to instruct, this is your case to decide. We aren’t supposed to ram things down your throat. I’d like to talk about evidence.

Wendt said pk never took anything from these men. Respectfully, we know he got $1000 in cash $7K in check, a poll. We know he got them from ba. Did you believe that pk never got anything from these gentleman? Does that make any sense with what you heard?

First talk about credibility. Govt. views this as a case about public trust. Mr. K. repeatedly violated the public trust by doing his job and getting paid by ba and rs and knowing he’d get a job at the end. Also about garden variety of trust. We request you do that especially with Kott.

pk - you’ve heard 11 months of recordings, but all those are lies, not true, or rantings of alcoholic. What he wants you to believe instead, what he told you on the stand.

Voting record - pk wants you to believe, because he told you. He decided that 22% was the right rate. When it first came up, he voted no because it was an important bill and he wanted an absent colleague, mr Moses to be there. After he voted yes because he thought 22% was the right thing. But neither was true.

In between those votes, exhibit. 135 to reopen the bill and vote on 22.5, if he really wanted Moses to vote on that, pk would have voted yes. On Aug 10, 9:11 pm he voted no, not giving Moses another bite at the apple. He said because of his deep seated commitment. He voted no, red button. Nay. After voting closed and it passed 23-17. Vote didn’t matter. He’s running for reelection. Then he said I’m going to change my vote, change from nay to yeah> When he said that, do you believe him?

Same thing in May special session. Lot of votes pk didn’t provide. By the way G. says, absolutely the voting record backs up our case. Other votes in June that wendt didn’t mention.

Didn’t tell you about early votes kott cast to keep votes low. When he did BW rescinding vote, pk made that motion to keep that rate from going up from 20/20.

[talking quietly and gently. but starting to get louder. Looking the jury in the eye]

Tape: We’re gonna get weyhracuh. Gotta do 21 to keep them from getting 22.5? Yeh. That’s what I figured. It’s still 20/20.

That’s what pk was telling rs. When he told him he put it to 21. Not because he believed the 21%, he was trying to kill the amendment. Kelly withdrew the amendment. It had the effect. At the end of may, they couldn’t have house get 22.5, because they would have concurrence with senate.

Mr. K told you he really believed in 21%, but amendment was withdrawn and it went back to 20/20. If he really believed in that, wouldn’t he have introduced 21.5?. But he didn't’

In june Kott came back and said he was for 20/20 and what he did that day, allowed them all to come back in a later session and get 20/20. And what he did, that mr. k mentioned on the stand, but wendt glossed over. Mr. Kott, moved to adjourn the house at the end of session on June 8. He didn’t want EB to reconsider. They could kill it at a higher rate. If you consider the notion that he didn’t have power. Think about whether you don’t have to have power to shut down the house.

Rep LeDoux said he was 20/20 that’s what he works for. But here today, he was really in favor of the vote that didn’t go the way he wanted. Choices he didn’t know they were being recorded.

Also on credibility. Explanation of $5000. Loan for a truck. No interest rate. No time to pay it back. Whenever he paid the truck. During all the time til Aug 31, pk hadn’t paid back a dime. You know he had $30K in cash in his closet. Does this make sense it was a loan. If you can’t believe on how he voted in office, or about the loan, or about...., what can you believe kott on.

$7,993 pay. Does it make sense he needed it? You’ve seen invoices. X amount added in. Heard phone calls to make a foolproof plan. In trial, pk and family gave you a different story. to do the floor. I admit things that don’t make any sense, invoices, inconsistency. Doesn’t make sense relation to state of the floors.

But timing. Stovern prepared it July 29 that I got the call, $7,993 for the work, If that were the case, this whole deal for the money would have been on July 29. Why are they talking about this on July 30. The conversation about how to pay son was after they got the money. ?? .....
That invoice never made it to veco? Wouldn’t pk have found a way to get that extra invoice to rs? Ms. Stovern told you the way she got paid was through a company name she put on letter head, because she didn’t think it would look good. The way she sought the payment was through something that was patently false.

If it were about flooring, then wouldn’t you think he’d tell that to the FBI on Aug. 30. But that is not what happened. Left with Aug. 30 phone call, that shows money never for real work.

Back to thing about never getting anything from these gentlemen. For him to go to Uncle bill with his hand out, that was a gift. He had $30,000 in cash. Poll, Mackie talked to Mr. Kott about the poll. Mr. Kott said great. talked to pollster about it. pk acknowledged to rs he got a poll. Mackie and I are thinking about getting a secon poll after the media run to see if it was successful. Why would someone who doesn’t believe in polls talk about getting a second one?

$1000 in cash. Wendt suggested not payback. Of course it was. Mr. Allen never told Mr. Kott he never told pk he would pay him back. When pk wrote the check, he never knew would get paid. Getting it when henever knew he would be paid, that’s a gift.

Plan. people come to get together with common plan to get something. Wendt talked about them having a common plan. They can work together. It’s a crime when the lobbyists offer a benefit and the politician accepts the benefits knowing they are related to official acts. I respectfully submit to you to consider the words pk used with allen. Allegiance, I’ll get her done, and this is illuminating, pk described it as a team effort. You know who the roster of the team is? Count one of the indictment pk, ba, rs.

Employment. That’s what’s hanging over all of this. W tried to .. PK says I need a job. RS says you’ve got a job, get the pipeline. Wouldn’t you expect if he thought it wasn’t fair, he should have said no. He spoke about chris knauss. Don’t you think pk knew what they were talking about. And then the implicit stuff. How many times did you hear Barbados. BA told you what that meant.

And just in case you wondered whether pk linked jobs and votes: We gonna get bw. I hear he applied for a job with you. May 5 Not rs making the connection, it’s pk. Do you think he doesn’t know a job is waiting for whoever wanted it if they get the pipeline.

Btween april 18 and May 7 , never heard any tape about ppt. Well you did. BW was in the finance committee. pk was knee deep the whole time. You have to know the whole story.

Things you heard pk did. From LeDoux and EB they never heard threatened or pressured. Those aren’t words you;ll see in the jury instructions. What it means, is he does what he does in his office because they were his job, but because the people who were paying him or wre going to pay him, wanted him to do it.
What you see pk do something in these tapes, every time he supports 20/20, everytime he does something he goes back to them, he wants credit for doing it, because he knows these people will take care of him at the end.
12:12pm

Instructs you on corrupt means, those are the instructions, not what I tell you or what Wendt tells you. You’re left with recordings, real time recordings. Testimony of witnesses, one pk. said countless times, BA never lied. Does it corroborate what you heard on the tapes. What they said on the stand, did they tell you a different story.

End with overwhelming evidence pk used and abused his official role for ba and rs, that he knowingly received things of value, got paid by rs to do things in the legislature.

Thank you. [12:14]

Kott Trial Day 14 - Defense Closing

I've put a long introduction on the first of today's posts - the Prosecution Closing I. Read that for all the caveats and disclaimers. These are rough, typed in court notes. They give you a sense of what was said, but they ARE NOT RELIABLE. Parts are missing. The attorneys spoke faster than my fingers can type.

Again, go here if you want to find the actual audio and video tapes that match those mentioned here.

[Added Sept. 25 - Links to the audio of Mr. Wendt's Closing. From the ADN website.
Defense attorney, Jim Wendt:
- Part: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 ]




10:11 Wendt [lead defense attorney] - I had my closing prepared, but making a detour based on what Goeke said. He talked about PK’s greed. Not a shred of evidence that says he was a greedy man. He works hard for his money, never asked anything from anyone, offered to put in Allen floors for free. This isn’t so. PK isn’t a greedy man. I’m sure you’ll find that.

It is true what you heard in the opening from the worthy attorney from DC this is about trust. They want you to think that pk violated the government’s trust. He hasn’t violated any trust. Always held to his principles. He was a hard worker. Whether putting himself to school, in the service , grad school, on his knees putting in flooring, in the legislature, he was a hard worker.

This principle of hard work is the bedrock of what pk is about. Everything towards a goal and he wants to get that goal. He’s never asked anyone for anything. He’s worked for what he has. Corrupt? We all have our own definition. PK is not a corrupt individual. Not about trust, but about work.

Remember what EB said about legislation. it’s like sausage, you don’t want to see it being made. It may not be pretty but that’s how it’s made . Not pretty.

I want to go over the case:

Wit. 1 - called by govt. very interesting, knowledgeable guy. Pleasure to hear him speak about ppt and explain. When he was working on ppt he was part of admin. He supported 20/20.

Some witnesses I don’t understand why called.

Sudan Lowell - said pk was speaker of the house

STeve Dunphy: fbi agent - here for one purpose to sit on stand while all govt tapes they wanted you to see, about 58 tapes entered into evidence. in cross exam, agent dunphy said there about 1500 calls intercepted on ba’s phone. About 6500 on ba’s cell and about 9000 on rs cell phone. About 17,500 phone calls and you had 58 tapes, maybe 40 phone calls. You can bet the 40 most damaging one s have been presented. In addition there were video taping from janu to mid june. 12-16 hours some days, others no video at all. Maybe an average of four a day = >600 hours of video. You got , what, less than ten hours. That is what AGent dunphy was here to do

Carla here just to enter travel docs to show pk was outside of ak when he made the phone call

BA and RS - talk later

Brooke Miles - about packet sent to all legislators
Linda Croft = BA’s secretary had written two checks
Jennifer Ferguson about checks going thru the Key bank
Dave Ditmann
Bruce Milne -FBI agent, pk said he did nothing wrong. $7,993 so my son could work on my campaign.

And that was the govt.’s case.

Before I go to our case, want to show what govt. didn’t show you. They could have brought in legislators, but they didn’t. Mentioned three legs Gab. LeDoux, EB, and Fred Dyson. Claimed PK held up Dyson’s abortion bill. Where is that? It doesn’t exist. Didn’t happen. Talked about it, but it didn’t happen. He voted to get it out of committee before ppt became an issue. pk never told Sen dyson anything. They could have brought dyson in to testify about it. pk did nothing to harm that bill, but instead voted it out of committee and voted for it on the floor.

pk did one thing only, voted to get the ppt bill the way he wanted. We presented legis for you to see exactly what he did. Rep LeDoux said that is what we do, we talk to people about legislation. EB said he had no control over Croft or Crawford. Prosecution suggested pk used trickery. Why didn’t govt bring in these legislators? Because they don’t support the govt’s case. The legis who were allegedly manipulated by pk weren’t. It was not good for a legislator to come in to testify for the defense, but we brought them in and they came.

Govt. didn’t bring in actual legislators, rested their case on ba and tapes.

They didn’t tell you about pk’s voting record. Because his record doesn’t support their theory. We brought it in and went over it line item by line item on PPT. Showed his voting record on other bills. You saw he never did anting contrary to his principles. Pro-labor and pro development. He’s never changed.

Govt. didn’t present his voting record because it doesn’t support their case. They didn’t bring it in. We did.

We brought in

Dr. Clive Thomas - talked about legislature - stage for what Pete Kott could and couldn’t do.

Peter Kott - he was determined to finish the flooring jobs
Brooke Miles - showed the pk made $1000 contribution to Mrk campaign the day he allegedly got $1000 from ba

PK answered all the questions even when they were shouted at him

LeDoux
Ohmer - nice woman, worked for pk for many years. RS upset one day and pk not changing. and that pk had a drink. What you see on these tapes is pk drinking, not on the floor of the house sober working for his constituents.

I told you what pk did not do. Now I’m going to tell you what he did do.
You’ve heard a lot of tapes and phone conversations. Exposed not only to picked out tapes, even portions cherry picked out of context. What I have now is an illustrative dramatization that shows when things are taken out of context. Dim the lights please.

10:29 Technical difficulties - power point, trying to get it started.

10:30 didn’t work

Power point - Walk thru highlights

Sept 05- Aug 2006

Making time line
9/26/05 - initial call pk, says, i wanna job - He’s asked, what do ya need. You gotta job, get us a pipeline. I wanna be a consultant like Knauss.
That is it. This is indicative of pk asking for a job from VEco. There are 1000s of phone calls and this is all they’ve got. He’s not a legislator now, it’s out of session, he’s putting in flooring at the gym in Kake. Out of communication. Not in Junau, ER, Anchorage, he’s in Kake.

Happy New Years call - to get instructions. There are none to give. There’s no ppt bill, he’s been out of the loop in Kake, and calling the man he relies on for the man he trusts for oil and gas information. What does that mean - what are my instructions? - does that mean tell me what to do an I will do it? It means, “I wanna hear from you, your an older and wiser man, what do you think? I wanna hear from you.” I’m doing this with Ms. Simonian who you probably figured out is a lot more aware political than I. I don’t know about that Would you think it unusual if I leaned over and asked Ms. Simonian and asked, “What do I do now?” He just wants to talk to ba, hear what he has to say about upcoming legs.

June 11, - call about getting the gasline. PK always for gas pipeline. You’ve seen his campaign literature from 2002 and 2004 he’s always been for a pipeline. And that’s the discussion here on June 11. At this time talking about common goal. Gov. not helping much

June 14 another call. Here, rs says to pk 25% might kill us. pk says 25 is done. He’s saying at 25% we’re not gonna have a pipeline. If you listen what he actually says is, then we’re dead so is the state.

Jan 20 conversation @ horsepower. Conversation about Chris knauss and jim clark. JC with administration. ba and rs wanted jim clark to think highly of them. Talking about how chris knaus made them look back in front of jim clark. You don’t think people talk like this all the time “who do we have?” the sierra club talks like that everyone does. Nothing criminal about it.
Feb 21, 2006 Gov. introduces ppt bill. PK has nothing to do with it cause he’s not on any of those committees.
3/10 phone call - yes, call to get a phone number. No question about that. When pk calledspeciclly asked, got thurwacker’s number. Then T comes in. the T talks to rs. What happens then? Call is minimized. Because fbi doesn’t think it interesting to listen to. Nothing unusual about it. Had there been, then the call wouldn’t have been minimized. then T gets off and off hand conversation about what they’re going to do about Marathon, idle chatter, we gotta get an exemption, rs I’ don’t really like them. Mentions $73million, min revenue before ppt kicks in - they already have some sort of exemption. When you listen to whole tape - you’re my best buddy, I’ve got a lot of best buddies. Govt. wants you to think that’s wire fraud. Where’s the plan or scheme in the phone conversation There is none.
3/15 [all these being added to dark blue background power point slide with yellow boxes.] pk stating to rs and ba what and why he believes. You don’t here him saying, “this is great I’m going to get a good job.” No, this is what we need, if we don’t get it, long term Alaskans will suffer. That’s what he says.

April -May slide
4/ Barbados call. This is the call where the govt says PK tied everything together. You guys are going to get the pipeline and I’ll get my nice job in barbados. That’s what the gov. says. But let’s listen to phone call - apparently we have a problem here, this is not working. It’s working on the computer. Perhaps I can talk about something else and you put the other computer on.

To the jury. Apparently we’ve switched computers. I’ll continue with my closing and then we’ll get back to this. Lights?

actually this is a good time to take a break and come back. Room 604, the Animal House. Well known. 100’s of hours of video and you know, it wasn’t just pk who went there. RS and ba inviting anyone to come up who wanted. Lobbyists, legislators, staff members. What was it? A place for boasting and banter, fueled by alcohol. Boasting and banter. And that’s the core of the govt’s case. Govt. resting its case on the animal house as though what goes on there is somehow reliable. Granted it was among men who should have known better . ba and rs blameless? No. Both had over $400K in

pk has $11,000. Not only were they risking their freedom and their children’s freedom and Veco if it were indicted as a corporation. A full account of that is not presented here, but it has to wait till another day. You know about the house renovation, pig roast and other things hinted at. They weren’t worried about this case. They weren’t worried about that.

PK is the one man who never took anything. BenStevens had contract for $100K. Tom Anderson had a contract. Sen. STevens had his whole house redone. While PK was on his hands and knees doing flooring. These other guys didn’t have to do any work. He didn’t ask for a dime, he didn’t ask for a job then. The govt. is taking from 100’s of hours of tape they are taking out a few innocent conversations out of context and comparing that to these other men who got so much from ba and rs. PK never got anything. That’s what happened, in essence in the animal house. You don’t thing there are tapes you havnt heard of these other men getting their share? Just pk drinking too much. Things that don’t comport with the voting records

Look at screen. Is it gonna work. If you take something out of context.

starting up. black screen. back to power point. Bak to black screen. power point. black.. arrow going around the screen.
Apparently it doesn’t work. Does the audio work?

And I get... on the screen. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, I’ll just have to read it to them.

This is what I’d like you to do, if you will

can we turn off screen off?

W: talking about Barbados and the pipeline. hold on a second here.

Simonion to Wendt - one more

Tape working- Barbados tape.

W: Why did I play that? The govt says this is tying everything in. Govt. get gasline and I’m going to get barbados. They laughed. He sounds despondent. and he says, and I’m going to get my job in barbados. Then he says shit. Excuse my language. He knows he isn’t going to get anything. I’m going to get my job in barbados is equivalent to I’m gonna gt nothing.” And then they laugh.

10:58 April 26, 2006 -

5/7/2006 first time bill hits the floor, Between 4/18 and May 7 you have no tapes. Nothing there. First time pk can vote ont he bill. passed out of finance. 5/6/ I apologize. Passes out of House Finance. They reduced it to 20%. PK had nothing to do with that. now it’s back in front of the house.

May 7 floor debate [power point up May7-9, 2006]

This is not part of power point, but part of the exhibit. You haven’t seen this, but its been talked about. We went line item by line item, you saw that. attached is the actual house journal, you’ll have the whole thing in the jury room This is the house journal that ties into those items. Amendment, raising the 20% to 21%. The infamous BW votes wrong. You can see the yeas and nays. PK voted no. 21.5% passed. Interesting. LeDoux changed to yeah. Original 20-20. For whatever reason, we don’t know why, GL switched from nay to a yeah. After ward. She didn’t switch for the jury. Nothing on the tape about getting Gabrielle to do this for us. this Ms. LeDoux does this and it passes. You don’t hear any of that.

Back to power point now?

Call to rs. I’m going to do rescinding motion Pete calls rs and says 21.5 passed, i’m going to do a rescinding motion. Doesn’t ask rs what to do? He tells rs what he’s going to do. What occurs is rs says to do it tomorrow and he says, “I’m going to do it today.”

[Plays tape. It works!!!] [I think BA said ‘yeah Gabrielle...’ if so, that contradicts what Wendt just said, check the tape. Discussion of who is going to make the motion, better to do it right away.

OK, then there was motion. to rescind passes 22-18. [Looking at Journal on screen]
Can we get back to powerpoint

Back to 20% amendment failed.

[back to journal[ let’s go to next one

[powerpoint] relates to phone call march that govt says is wire fraud. pk votes yes, remember that was what rs originally didn’t want to go thru.

Power point...

Now adjourned may 10. room 604. This is where pk tells rs and ba what he did. I’m gonna tell you how this really came down. you can’t tell a soul, I told EB we can mess this up real good expletives deleted. He’s tell them he got this done, but we know that isn’t true because they were always against it.

I sold my soul to the devil. If you were going to listen to this as though he’s done something illegal. rs what did you do. “I did something with eb that wasn’t totally above board. That wasn’t true. To get ppt. passed.

5/8/ We’re still brand new here. pk says, we’re going to have to go higher. We don’t have this one? that’s ok. to RS

We’re going to have to go to 21. So he’s not sticking with 20%. He’s telling them what is going to have to happen. Working towards a compromise. Hopefully to get a bill that will get a gas pipeline.

May 8 in 604. talk about staying at 20%. Kott says I don’t want to jeopardize pipeline, I’ll stay at 20 and so will others, but I’m not going to jeopardize pipeline.

11:15am Am2 to Am1 offered by kott. He’s given up on 20%, it’s only been there a day and he gives up. And it passes at 21. What is this? OK

Then kelly withdraws and it goes back to 20. But pk voted for 21.

May 8-9 slide

Rates now 21.5 [The power point stuff just isn’t working right, lots of side talk to Smonian (other defense attorney)]

Pete kott votes yes! 21.5 he’s voting yes. He’s not sticking with Vic Kohring and the nays. Next screen.
And then it passes the house. 21.5 PK votes yes. May 9 is the last day of the session

[back to journal on the screen]

28 yes 11 nays you can see pk voted yes. He’s voting for 21.5. Kohring stays at 20. Next screen. Keep in mind, we’re the ones who showed you the voting record. If we hadn’t shown you, all you’d have is the bragging in the tapes.

May 10-June 9

Ohh. this is giving him a thousand dollars in the hotel. And what occurs here. BA specifically says here, you can listen to the tape. Thanks for doing me with your check. He’s paying him back. pk wrote a check to Murkowski for $1000 and BA is paying him back. The govt. didn’t tell you that.

Sen. Bill passes the house at 23.5. PK thinks it to high. 21.5 ok. House rejects conference report.

bragging to bowles. Allen bragging I don’t know who bowles is - senior person with oil.[Jim Bowles is president of Conoco Phillips Alaska,]

June 9- August 10

Offers to do flooring free. BA insists on paying

secret meeting in the bar. Had to go to bar where things not recorded, out in public.

hb 3001 passes the house, pk votes yes. This is important. This is the sliding scale, ba didn’t want it, but pk goes with sliding scale. passes senate at 22.5%

PK says ok 22.5 we have a workable bill. aug 10 special session ends. No conversations about ppt with pk at this time because they don’t help the govts. case.

PK did what he always does. He worked to get legislation passed. He wasn’t working for BA. PK didn’t hold tight to 20/20 when he saw it wouldn’t work. That’s what passed and that’s what we have today.

He may have gone to the animal house, drinking and boasting, but none of that matches what actually happened. We showed you the voting records, they didn’t. They used rs and ba, don’t you think those men desperately want to avoid jail time? If I were a betting man, I think that neither will see a day in jail. Basically, I think ba is an honest man. He wans’t giving pk $1000 as a bribe. Maybe he thinks it will help him get out of jail.
BA says sometimes he’d get up at 6 am and didn’t come back til 7pm because he was out paying his bills. Anyone who works like pk I have a lot of respect. Did you remember a conversation about a lobbyist at your home that wasn’t recorded? When pk got the floors done and I said, what do I owe you and he said “nothing.” PK didn’t want to take his money, but for pk he was uncle bill, He had millions of dollars and people came to him for his money, but pk didn’t have a business association with his friends.

PK was a worker. He may have been a drinker and when he drank he shoots his mouth off, but he was a worker. A man who always wanted a pipeline. If ba disagreed with him on pers/trs and workers comp, that was too bad. pk voted his conscience.

BA was knowledgeable about gas and oil. pk loved him got oil and gas info from him. Been through a hard life. got enormous wealth. Ba is a nice fellow. Don’t know about rs. That’s what pk thought about ba. He loved the man. You don’t think there was any time he couldn’t ask ba for money or a job and wouldn’t have gotten it? he could have at any time and sat in a comfortable chair.

I want to go over with you the jury instructions:

One thing, very interesting instruction, direct and circumstantial evidence. When direct evidence contradicts circumstantial evidence and it isn’t rebutted. then the direct trumps circum. And the voting record is the direct.

Witness manner when you testify. You remember rs, I’d ask a question and he’d look over at these gentleman or his attorney. The witnesses interest in his jail sentence. He was hoping if he did ok, he wouldn’t see a day in jail. they say, there was no agreement. When pk’s house was raided? found an invoice for 5500. It was already prepared. They didn’t know they were going to be raided. There is evidence that contradicts there testimony. Pk’s son truthfully testified and it contradictis. [talking really fast now] I would argue that rs’s testimony is not reasonable. He changed many times.

Statements by the defendant. and how to evaluate those. one thing judge will tell you is to consider all the evidence and the circumstanes. You need to eval circ. under which he made the statements. He was intoxicated and trying to impress uncle bill. In reality he’s compromising and getting ac compromised bill. Fact that ba and rs is not evidence against pk and you can weight that only to evaluate their credibility

Extortion, conspiracy.
Conspiracy, not enough to just meet, you must find beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a plan to commit a crime. there was no plan to commit a crime. The plan was to pass the legislation. How can we get it passed. That was the plan. getting the ppt legislation passed

Extortion - do you really think pk really extorted money from ba? We are torturing the English language to say that. What official action did he take? If you think the poll was given to pk and he got it, then you have to prove he did it in exchange for something specific. You have to tie it in to an act. They can’t do that. It may be an illegal gratuity, but he isn’t charged with that.

Bribery. They have to prove that pk was corrupt. Def. acted voluntarily and intentionally......That’s what corrupt is. They have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. That he did it in connection in his head in connection with doing a legislative act.

And then the wire fraud. And if that telephone call is wire fraud, I don’t know shaking head... You think that was an important part of scheme or plan. firs there was no plan, they were just trying to get legislation passed.

He may be a drinker, he was shooting his mouth off. The govt. wants you to believe where there is smoke there is fire. They’ve only showed you the smoke. Sometimes where there is smoke, all there is is puffing. Puffing. Acting like a horse’s moth. He’s never done ex, etc. Never did anything for ba except to work with them for what they wanted to accomplish. Pete Kott believed we aren’t going to get a pipeline unless we get a ppt. A republican gov.introduced a bill supported by a republican representative. Shooting his mouth off. Now he has pictures of himself on the internet for his grandkids to watch. He spent years in the legislature and in flooring and the Air Force. And it’s not funny, sir.
I’m asking, go back, come back with not guilty verdicts. This man has suffered enough. Maybe he drinks too much and swears too much but that’s the only bad thing this man has done in his life.

Kott Trial Day 14 - Prosecution :Closing 1

U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska
Court Calendar for Monday, September 24, 2007
Current as of 09/21/2007 at 5:30 PM

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8:30 AM	3:07-CR-00056-01-JWS	Judge Sedwick	Anchorage Courtroom 3
USA vs. PETER KOTT TRIAL BY JURY - DAY 14

Warning: This is a long post. These are my notes for today. Actually, I've shortened it by only posting here the Prosecution's Closing, Part I. I'll post the Defense's closing in the next post, and then the Prosecution's part II. Then I'll try to get some briefer overview stuff for people who can't wade through all this.

Very brief overview of today
[Sept. 25 here is a link to the audio of Goeke's closing. Prosecutor, James Goeke:
- Part: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 from the ADN site.]
Goeke began the closing argument for the prosecution. He was very convincing. Then Wendt put on the defense closing. He spoke with passion. Though I thought he was twisting the facts around a lot (I'll try to explain that in a later post) if you didn't listen too closely, you had to believe this guy. His client was a hardworking man and other than drinking to much and saying some stupid things did nothing wrong. [Yes he said all that, I didn't add any editorial comment there.] Wendt had some technical difficulties with his powerpoint, but handled it well. Then Marsh, calm, respectful to all, contradicted what Wendt had just said. His eyes were directed at the jury. A minimum of technical wizzadry. This was not the wonk who did the closing in the Anderson trial, but a sincere and convincing human being.

I've been stalling a while trying to figure out how to post all this stuff. I went by the bike shop to get a new seat post for my winter bike. I got flowers for Joan for putting up with all this blogging. She did come to court today again to see the closing. I ate lunch at home and iced my wrist which has been protesting these marathon typing sessions. In any case, below are my very unofficial transcripts of the case. I've gone through with the spell checker and tried to make it at least legible. But I've left in some typos and abbreviations to remind you that this is a rough, typed as they talked, didn't get it all, but a lot of it, version of what went on in court this morning. pk=Pete Kott rs=Rick Smith ba= Bill Allen eb=Ethan Berkowitz The rest you should be able to figure out. If not, it's probably not that important. Or ask in the comment box.

8:30 - The 8:30 meeting was to settle outstanding questions about the Jury instructions. It was done in a few minutes and court was recessed until 9am.

convene 9:00
Judge to jury; Govt. has burden of proof thus gets to open and close the argument

THE PROSECUTION:
Goeke: Mr. Marsh told you it was about public trust. People chosen to rep neighbors on legislature.
four crimes - putting interest of public aside for his own - greed
conspiracy
extortion
bribery
wire fraud
[I'll post the jury instructions with all this spelled out a little later]
evidence, largely his own words and actions as recorded on video tape and phone
05-06

[You can go to the ADN website to hear the actual tapes. I've tried as best as I could to put down the dates and times (there are a lot of tapes on May 7 and 8) so you can actually hear what was played in court. If I try to match them in this post, I won't get it up for a week. But they are dated and described at the link.]

Witnesses
Physical exhibits
Pete Kott conspired with ba and rs to conspire in the interests of Veco instead of he people
Evidence overwhelming
PK guilty

numerous official actions in his capacity Nov 05 - Aug 06

$7,993 check for flooring
$1000 cash [payment for contribution to Murkowski]
political polls
lucrative job

Unique evidence - hours of electronic surveillance you the members have been able to sit in a ringside seat as they committed the crimes in the indictment

No one on the tapes, phone, 604 had any idea they were being taped.

Testimony of witnesses in the trial
consider that testimony, whether it makes sense against the audio and video



physical exhibits - how they fit in with the tapes and witnesses

1st phone call Nov. 05 I need a job, you’ve got a job, I’m gonna be a consultant
good insight into relationship between pk and Veco thru smith
Both ba and rs said on stand the gas-pipeline was the most important thing for their company and this was tied up with the gas pipeline - worth billions to Veco and state of AK

PKI just want to be the warden in barbados
RSI just want a gasline

Nov 2005 - whether gabrielle ledoux
PK - I’ll get her in line
GL confirmed that he did try to get her support

voice mail, PK - BA cell Jan 2006 Uncle B. PK here happy new year. Just want to get what our instructions are.

Representative of 12 years calls CEO of VECO for his legislative instructions

Jan 06 tape: I’m gonna get this fkkk gasline done so I can get her out her, Im gonna get her done
BA made it clear he’d take care of Kott if PK takes care of pipeline


Conspiracy concept - agreement that can be explicit or implicitly. Doesn’t require written orders of contract. Can be inferred by actions and deeds.

pk and ba 1/24/06 -
2/20/06 - BA and RS upset chris knauss, lobbyist is taking credit with Murk admin with horsepower Allen gained over pk. We got more money in PK than he can even think about.

Has kott talked to Ledoux - did you hear hi say, “I can’t do that, that would be wrong”? NO

3/4/06 - ba and rs make it clear about their objections
have to get dirty and have to get


3/10/06 - phone call pk from DC. Not just for phone call. You know my allegiance is to.
PK makes clear to rs that pk going to do something for Marathon something VEco doesn’t like and RS makes it clear to pk not to do that. you know where my allegiance is. Evaluate in context it occurred. RS so potential problem. If pk voted for this down the road, not relevant to the context at that time

3/ strategizing

3/24/ pk called smith he gained an advantage over dyson: I’ve got dyson over the barrel, YOu talked to dyson, no i got him over the barrel. Got his abortion bill tied up. He’s hot too. laughing. There’s always a way. When ba tells me he’s ready to vote it out, i’ll vote it out.
You hear an agreement, pk doesn’t say: you can’t do that.

3/29 meeting in 604 - he won’t release hold on abortion bill til ba says he can

?? successful in getting other legislators exhibit 20 explicitly linked his support, you’ll get your gasline, govt gets his bill, i’ll get my job in Barbados

5/7/06 near end of legislation. ONce leg session ended, leg dead
called that bw voted the wrong way.
21/5 passed, bw voted wrong, gonna do rescinding motion. had a couple of dems on our side craw and croft. worst that can happen is it passes again. Ben can’t get the numbers over there. can’t get 20/20.

Crowded courtroom

Smith says, I think we wanna go back and get that
An hour later congratulates pk for getting it rescinded and back to 20/20

later 5/7/06 - met in 604 21-27 Exhibits. pk describes how he got it done
11:43 pm - I had to get it done, I had to come back and face this man here, I had to beg, cheat, steal and lie

pk’s continuing efforts to support - offers insight, no idea anyone is watching
7/06/ I’d vote for 30% tax if it weren’t for this guy here.

5/8/06 v. Now I own your ass
I got it done, see

Later still may 8 v.; you know how to do it. I’ll get her done. I don’t care. I’ll sell my soul to the devil

5/8 during day. BW talk about how to maneuver bill thru
later day - Good job
later afternoon - v. 20/20 appears to be slipping away again. Where do you wanna take this bill. Don’t want to jeopardize gasline, I’ll stay on 20/20 .... [listing who will be on 20]

Seeking directions from constituents? No, from Bill Allen.

Later same day PK calls rs - smith notes kott voted for 21.5 and that he had to do it to keep it from 22.5. He’s happy.

Deadlock caused bill to die. Veco doesn’t want anything above 20/20, wanted it to die to get what they want in special session. Gov. calls special session.

june 1, 06 Allen and pk met in 604, handed PK $1000 in cash. Counts it out. And what did ba say about it. He said it was wrong an pk wasn’t expecting it. PK had already made a contribution to Murko. ba and pk have frank discussion about future
ba what do you wanna do
pk wanna be a warden in barbados
pk i wanna be lobbyist
ba you will be
pk once it’s in your blood

Mr. Allen told us in the stand right here, that being lobbyist for veco is lucrative, and it’ll get you other jobs too
RS said, getting the job was contingent on work in leg

6/3/06 pk and rs continue to discuss strategy exhibit .40 discuss Gene Therriault messing up getting the bill they want

6/ should be bill killed, cause not at 20/20

6/5-6 more meetings about killing ppt bill. pk notes he doesn’t understand the problem for the legislators. he can 45-56 exh. one he wants higher rate, another a lower rate

ba tells Bowles he can have stevens and kott kill the bill

appears deal ready to be signed
BA says, you didn’t get it done, you’re going to siberia, not barbados
6/8 pk gets adjournment before vote can be taken
Joins rs and ba in 604 to celebrate the victory - v later in meeting, pk relates what occurred and discuss strategy
going to tell all these guys ‘fuck you’ and then we’ll get a bill. june 8 11:45pm

7/12/06 rs and jerrie mackie talk about the pool they paid for. Mackie told pk about help with the poll, pk said ‘great’ Mackie didn’t say, “PK asked why, didn’t want poll”
Dittman confirms. PK and RS have phone call about whether they discussed poll.
ba: Mackie told you about the dittman poll, right? PK; Yeah.
BA:I’m working my end
pk: I work mine.
Kott didn’t say, I don’t use polls.

audio tape:
We did a poll for you, you know that don’t you? yeah? Bill didn’t know that?
Mackie wanted to do in two weeks a follow up poll to see if anything changed, to see if we wanna do anything different.
No conversation there about not wanting poll. No, we can do another one.

July 31
gonna meet in Juneau
phone call, plan to get pk more money. figured out a way I can help pk .jr.
pk. ?
ba. figured a way to help with a your son, you know? Yeah
Yeah, he’s been pestering me all damn day, already working *****************
We gotta figure out something that’s fool proof
Yeah, it’s fool proof

If the FBI hadn’t recorded this conversation then would it be fool Proof?


Aug. I’ve got your hardwood floor check. Smith didn’t say “i’ve got my check. hadn’t nothing to do with floors.
Linda Croft says she paid that invoice. 6/27/2006 only invoice she ever saw. She didn’t see any $5500 for rick. Paid with ba’s check.
You know what happened to that check. He cashed it and gave it to his son. Kott benefited.

Aug. this is the only conversation where someone knows he’s being recorded****
BA:
PK then rs gave me a check and that was it
ba: on what
pk you remember what we talked about several weeks ago. add it to your bill or something
ba; i gave you $17K on the floor right?
pk aaaa, I have to check. Maybe between both it woulda been close to that.
Nothing here about when can I do that work? because everyone knew what happened, the money tacked onto the flooring invoice, it was just the vehicle.

PK has no idea this is being recorded. SEarch warrants not broadcast til Aug 31

You evaluate the evidence. Let’s talk about how to-evaluate it.

You’ve heard from ba rs the defendant, none knew they were under surveillance. BA said, you think i would have said this if i knew i was on tape?

think about testimony in lens of what you’ve seen. Consistent with what you saw on the video?
When you consider ba’s testimony. Consider it in context of what pk said about ba’s credibility.
Is it consistent with tapes and witnesses test

Count 1
conspiracy nov 05- 06
three crimes
extortion

wire fraud

counts 2, 4, 6

Agreement is just an agreement of 2 or more to commit any one of those crimes.
Did defendant become member of conspiracy?
one of the member performed an overt act. means they did something to advance it. Floor vote, talked to a legislator many things

Ex under color of official right
4
public official
obtained money not entitled
knew it was obtained for something else
commerce moving from one state to another

no question he was in legislature
got check, $1000 in cash, poll, job with veco
Know? he did. think. To be guilty of that, to have that knowledge, pk simply needs to have agreement or understanding implied or stated explicitly. If i do these things, I’m going to get this job, get this money, doesn’t matter if he did it or had the power to do it
ppt leg that certainly affects commerce for the state of alaska


Count 4
Bribery program fed funds
elected official
corruptly solicited or agreed to accept
business transaction value >$50000
AK agency must get >$10K in grants from Feds

same things $7,993, cash, poll, etc
thing at issue, the ppt legislation involved something of $5K - Dickenson made it clear that it was hundreds of millions
AK receives hundreds of millions

Count 6 Wirefraud
made up scheme or plan - acting on behalf of his own interest instead of people
under whose directions - veco
when defendant placed phone call in dc. they discussed legislation, veco’s view,
statements in phone call in furtherance of scheme or plan - conversation had to be about something important to the fraud. About setting pk straight about how he’s supposed to act with the cook inlet oil. pk said, I know where my allegiances are.
phone call occurred from state to state - from dc to Alaska

based on this overwhelming evidence , from all the witnesses, and mr. kott and physical evidence. i ask you to find peter kott guilty on all four counts of the indictment. Thank you.

9:58.

Pete Kott Trial - 8:30 am Start Monday for Closing Arguments

U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska
Court Calendar for Monday, September 24, 2007
Current as of 09/21/2007 at 5:30 PM

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8:30 AM	3:07-CR-00056-01-JWS	Judge Sedwick	Anchorage Courtroom 3
USA vs. PETER KOTT TRIAL BY JURY - DAY 14

Checking the court calendar for tomorrow, I noticed that the trial starts a half hour earlier than normal. The closing arguments are scheduled. Friday the defense said it wanted however much time the government got and the government wanted 90 minutes. So one possibility is that the judge moved it up earlier so they could have a break between the arguments and still get out by noon.

I think the government has a lot on its side. The tapes are pretty damning and the defendant has said he would lie to his friends, and his chief of staff said he was a mean drunk.

If I were the defense attorney I'd try to make the point that yes, there were gifts, and yes Kott did things as a legislator to support their interests in the legislature. But Kott and Allen were good friends, who because of many common experiences and interests really hit it off. And all legislators are supported by people of like political interests and they push those interests in the legislature. There is no specific action that is tied to a specific gift. The wire-fraud charge, based on the phone call from DC regarding Marathan Oil is a mighty slim thread, and this would be the charge, if any, most likely to fail.

That's the only possible hole I can see Kott getting through if the defense can pull it off and the jury buys it. As I recall from the Anderson case, the agreement need not be as explicit as "I'll give you this $7,993 for Hardwood Flooring and you'll get me four votes for 20/20." I think there's enough on the tapes with Kott telling Allen he'll get it done, etc. that the government should be able to make the connection.

This jury is older than the Anderson jury and there are ten women on it. I can't imagine Kott's profanity, lascivious talk of the women in Florida and Barbados in those phone calls, or his living with his girlfriend while he's still married has gotten much sympathy for him from the jury. The defense got the explanation about the wife - that she's not cooperating in the divorce - from the girlfriend, not from the son. That surely isn't the most objective witness for that information. But you never know who gets on the jury. Well have to hear the closing arguments and then wait.

If the connection between the gifts and the legislation is still elusive, the government can quote Don Corleone: someday imported by AKRaven

Someday - and that day may never come - I'll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this justice as gift on my daughter's wedding day.

Pete Kott Trial - Underlying Stories - The Press

Ropinator asked in a comment a few posts ago, "are you a court journalist or something like that?" Ropi is a Hungarian high school student with a thoughtful blog that I read. His question gives me a chance to talk about some of the media stories underlying this case, including mine.

Well, am I a trial journalist? Something like that. At least for the last two weeks I've been. While I haven't hidden my identity from people, I haven't given much detail in my blog profile. I'd rather people evaluate the blog based on what I post than they jump to conclusions from labels in the profile. But the Anchorage Daily News has 'outed' me in their Alaska News Reader link this week.

Many of the outlets focused on the prosecution’s cross examination of former House speaker Pete Kott. Retired UAA professor Steve Aufrecht, in his What Do I Know? blog, says prosecutors scored base hits but no home runs, with their most significant gain questioning Kott’s honesty.

So this is a good time to talk about being a 'journalist' at the courtroom.

I went to the Tom Anderson trial because he was a former student of mine and I wanted to hear what happened first hand. Since I was there I started taking notes to help keep focused. Since I had the notes, I decided to start putting them on my blog. I started talking to Michael Carey (from the Anchorage Daily News) one day and we ended up going to lunch. He introduced me to others such as Lisa Demer. I knew Steve Heimel already from the old days when I did stuff with KSKA. Then one day my blog starting getting lots of hits. It turned out that the Anchorage Daily News (ADN) had linked to my site. The most daily hits my blog had gotten before that was about 22. Now I got 40, then 53, then 101, then 150. And after the trial they tapered off just as fast, though I'd picked up a few more regular viewers and was averaging 15-20 a day.

So when the Kott trial was coming up, it seemed like blogging was the right thing to do. Not just to get my hits up, but because I had taught public administration at the university and have published articles and book chapters on accountability and ethics and corruption. This was the second trial to come out of an FBI investigation that has several other Alaskan politicians implicated, including the US Senator, Ted Stevens, who is the senior Republican senator in the United States Senate.

First, I'd like to say that the other journalists - Lisa Demer and Michael Carey from the ADN - have been very supportive of my blogging. John McKay, the ADN and KTUU attorney who has opened media access to the courtroom, has also been very supportive as have Steve Heimel and David Shurtleff from APRN.

As that previous paragraph might suggest, the media people know each other and help each other out. When the ADN and KTUU got permission to bring their cell phones past the security (but they must be turned off in the courtroom) and to bring their laptops into the courtroom, that was extended to all media. My status as an independent blogger was untested, but they told me to make up a press pass, and by the time I was ready to bring my computer into the courtroom, the security guards knew me as a regular and I had no problems. The other media folks are the camera people - both video and still - who wait outside the courtroom security for attorneys, the defendant and his party, witnesses - to get pictures.
And there are also a couple of artists.
When I talk about media stories, I realize now that there are stories about the media and how they cover things and there are the different kinds of ways they cover stories. I think I have that all mixed together here.

1. The sound bites and surprises are irresistible, especially if they break open something important. Everyone's waiting for the good quotable lines or the juicy event such as when Bill Allen said he paid for the workmen who remodeled Senator Ted Stevens' Girdwood house. Some recent examples:

• The box of red CBC (Corrupt Bastard Club) baseball caps embroidered by Pete Kott's girlfriend.
  
• Kott's Chief of Staff: "I had two different bosses. When Pete was drunk he started talking hillbilly..." In fact,Steve Heimel opened his country music show on KNBA this afternoon, with "Today is National Talk Hillbilly Day" and that Kott trial jurors shouldn't listen to the show because he might slip in some trial comments. (I didn't hear any after that.)
  
• Kott: "If I have a choice between compromising my principles or lying to my friends, then lying to my friends will take a back seat."
  

2. The tension between getting the story in quickly and getting it accurate and meaningful. It's not that easy to objectively summarize 6 hours of testimony - covering all the key points and letting the reader know what it all means without skewing things. Lisa Demer, as I've written before, has done a great job. Going into enough depth without losing the overall sense of what happened is hard. The newspaper people have limited space and an editor to get past so that something is up early on the website and then in the morning paper. The radio and tv people have even less air time to get a sense of the day to their listeners. The sound bite is especially helpful for them. And they are dependent on the court clerk's office to get them the audio cd of the court each day in time to get their stories taped by air time. And sometimes they don't get the tape. I have the easiest task. I can blog as much or as little as I want. I can focus on a small point without worrying about getting the big picture across, leaving the ADN with the responsibility of giving the whole picture.

3. Competition among media. This is something I haven't particularly noticed. Everyone is sharing. If I get to the court late, another journalist will let me know what's happened. As soon as the ADN got all the audio and video tapes from the Prosecutors they emailed the media who are covering the trial, including me, to give us a link to download everything. And it was all very easy to download.
The only competition I've sensed was between local media and Outside media. Rich Mauer from the ADN was not happy that it was an NPR reporter who followed the governor out of court Thursday and broke the story that she felt Sen. Stevens needed to tell Alaskans what is happening with his investigation. And some of the other reporters were irked at Outside media asking them to get on the Stevens case for them, feeling they're too focused on that instead other important stories. And they make remarks about the Parachute Journalists who write stories from Alaska but don't understand the context because they are only here a short time. There's a skepticism about whether the FBI will actually get the quid pro quo smoking gun on Stevens. On the other hand, another reporter said he was sure Stevens won't run in 2008.


4. Adjusting to the new technological realities. The ADN website is evolving quickly and well. Sean slips out of the courtroom regularly and down to the cafeteria wi-fi to send in his reports. And the Alaska Report is an electronic news digest with links and comment area. In addition there are various blogs. It's much, much more than the print published on line. The stories in the print version have little boxes referring readers to the web.

5. I'm still figuring out my role in all this. Unlike the regular media, I'm shy about asking the attorneys questions or calling people up to get more information. I don't want to stick my camera in people's faces. Though I have less guilt doing that to journalists - figuring that if they can dish it out, they should be able to take it. Regulars in the court room go from nodding to saying hi to introducing themselves and talking. Thus I've been talking a little the last few days with Sen. Fred Dyson whose been there regularly and has been discussed in the trial in different ways - mainly as the person who drove Allen to meet the FBI investigators for the first time. The regular reporters have to talk to these people, but it also means their objectivity gets changed as those relationships get better. The extreme version seems to be the White House press who get used by the administration for strategic leaks. And if they don't treat the administration well, they lose their sources. Like with the lobbyists, I guess people have to realize that reporters like them for their stories, not for who they are. But obviously the professional and personal relationships get mixed up.

6. As I'm creating my journalistic identity, I think my role model is Tom Wolfe . Given his bigger than life image, I should clarify how. Certainly not sartorially and not in flamboyance. But in trying to bring meaning to the story by looking at the context beyond the story in the spotlight. I find myself looking at all the actors, not just those on the stage in the spotlight. I've done this with pictures that give a sense of the background of the trial - the clerk's office where I can use the computer to download documents; the cafeteria where the Kott party eats in one section and various journalists in other sections. Filling in the less obvious facts. And I also enjoy a freedom to speculate about possible interpretations of what we're seeing. Since the press is such a critical part of all this, they really should be subjects for the media as well.

Of course, if I were a better journalists, I'd have more information about my photos. In this post, at the top are camera folks waiting for photo subjects to walk out of court. Another one of the artists with her sketch book as she was walking into the Federal Building. Finally, three journalists during a break, with Rich Mauer in the center.

Pete Kott Trial - Underlying Stories 3

The first underlying stories post outlined some of the possible stories underlying what we see in court that might help me understand thngs. In that I did an overview of the lawyers' stories. The second focused on the cultural stories, particularly what I characterized as a clash between pre-modern, tribal values versus modern, rational values that were apparent.

In this one I'm going to explore a couple stories that could possible shed light on the defendant Pete Kott.

Story 1: The Player - But Poker, not Chess

On Day 11 of the trial (Thursday, September 20) Kott took the stand in the afternoon and his attorney Mr. Wendt asked him about his career. When he started talking about the legislature, his eyes lit up and he started talking with a passion he hadn't shown before. He'd finally found his calling. He took great pleasure, he said, working with his fellow legislators, with the administration. Ramona Barnes took him under her wing and eventually introduced him to Bill Allen.

When Wendt and Kott were going through the legislative history of the PPT bill, Kott seemed to get into his professor role and was explaining the ins and outs of how to get things done in the legislature to the jury. He was articulate and spoke easily of the various strategies one could use to block or move a bill along.

On Friday, still talking about the PPT bill. Wendt and Kott's sentences seemed to run together. Kott is trying to keep the tax at 20%. Rep. Kelly introduced an amendment to raise the tax to 22.5. Then Kott made an amendment to the amendment.

K: You take advantage of any opportunity to get what you want.
W: Sounds like a chess game.
K: Classic chess game.

Kott was smiling now, clearly feeling good about how he had pulled this amendment off.

And I got to thinking about this. It was clear that this was the part that Kott loved - the wheeling and dealing, the strategies, the moves and feints, the game of legislating. It was the chess game he enjoyed. Sure, there were some issues he was interested in - labor issues and natural resource development he told us. His father had worked in a GM factory in Michigan, and Kott himself did briefly before he joined the Air Force, so that support for labor is easy to understand. There wasn't much beyond a love of hunting and fishing in his background though that gave us a hint about the source of his interest in natural resource development prior to his hooking up with Allen.

But the more I thought about it, the less apt the chess metaphor seemed. I wish Goeke had asked Kott if he even plays chess. Poker seems a much better metaphor. But talking about chess was a good move on Wendt's part. Chess is much classier, a smart man's game. In chess, except for white's opening advantage, both players start out equal and everything is in the open. You win on pure skill - being able to see four or five or more moves ahead. But in poker, like in the legislative games Kott described, you can have more players and they begin with unequal hands. Some of your cards are hidden, and deceit is required to win; it's even admired. I mentioned this to a legislative staffer I know and he replied, "And Pete was in the regular Wednesday night poker game in Juneau."

The idea that Kott's love of the legislature comes from the fun of 'playing the game' seems consistent with what we saw and heard. Certainly the tapes revealed lots of back room planning on how to keep the 20% tax rate. Kott seemed terribly proud when he told Allen and Smith of tricking Harvard grad Ethan Berkowitz. (In court he acknowledged that he hadn't.) Kott didn't have a vision of programs he wanted to promote in the legislature. Kott liked the play of the game. While one can say passing PPT at 20% was a vision, it was the oil producers' and Allen's vision that was handed off to Kott. And Kott liked the challenge of getting it through for them.

Oh, my staffer friend also mentioned that at the Wednesday night poker games the word was the lobbyists came with lots of cash and they never seemed to be able to win. Do poker winnings from lobbyists have to be listed with the APOC?


Story 2: Kott's Need for Approval Got Him Into Trouble

This story is pieced together from what I heard in court and from a comment by Fred Dyson outside the courtroom. In this story, Kott has such a strong need for approval from a father figure, that he was willing to do whatever it took to please Bill Allen and, his sidekick, Rick Smith (as Kott's chief of staff described him). So carrying their water in the legislature was one way he could please them, telling them what they wanted to hear while hanging out with them and getting drunk were others. Kott did tell us one of the things he and Allen had in common was "he was by himself. So was I." So both, in this story needed each other.

This could be the story the defense will give us in the closing. Kott was caught up in a bad environment. Staffer Ohmer, who articulated Kott's drinking problem also said that the Veco Suite 604 was called the Animal House and it was where people drank, smoked, swore, and watched Gavel to Gavel. Ohmer told us she had two bosses. The one on the tape was only around after a few drinks, drinks he felt he had to accept to please his buddies in the Animal House. The real Kott was the one in front of them in court. The real Kott wouldn't have done so much drinking if he hadn't fallen under the aura of this Uncle Bill father figure.

To a certain degree it makes sense and probably does explain his dependence on Uncle Bill. And as someone from an economically humble background, being around all the money in the Allen entourage was probably mesmerizing. And Allen was a man who came from even more humble beginnings than Kott. What a role model!

But blaming the environment is the sort of story that is more consistent with Democratic ideology than Republican. According to the Alaska Republican Party Platform Republicans believe

The values that strengthen our nation are family, faith, personal responsibility and accountability

Yom Kippur Thoughts

So exactly why does a skeptical agnostic spend most of his day in the synagogue, fasting and praying? Several things come to mind.

1. It's good to have some days where you check out of life as usual and sit and reflect on how you are living your life.
2. The Jewish High Holy Days structure that sort of meditation. Thousands of years of collected wisdom have been invested into this. A lot of the stuff makes good sense in very modern and practical ways.
3. The reformed Jewish movement has a fairly open view that allows everyone to come at this their own way.
4. I figured out, long ago, while living in a northern Thailand town for a couple of years, that tradition is a way to connect people with their ancestors and the generations to follow. At least theoretically, my ancestors were at Mt. Sinai when Moses came down with the Ten Commandments. Who am I to break those links? Hitler tried to wipe out the people who practiced those traditions. Since my parents got out of Germany in time to survive, I would just be completing Hitler's unfinished work if I were to abandon the tradition.
5. I like to see the many people I've come to know over the years who come together at the synagogue.

So let me show you a little about what I like in the services. (All citations are from The New Union Prayer Book: For the Days of Awe. [well it was new once.])

On Rosh Hashanah it is written,
on Yom Kippur it is sealed:

So during the ten days between the two holidays, people have time to repent, ask forgiveness, forgive others and to change their fate before it is sealed.

How many shall pass on, how many shall come to be:
who shall live and who shall die;
who shall see ripe age and who shall not;
who shall perish by fire and who by water;
who by sword and who by beast;
who by hunger and who by thirst;
who by earthquake and who by plague;
who by strangling and who by stoning;
who shall be secure and who shall be driven;
who shall be tranquil and who shall be troubled;
who shall be poor and who shall be rich;
who shall be humbled and who exalted.

But REPENTANCE, PRAYER, and CHARITY
temper judgment's severe decree.

Whether our lives are actually determined for the next year or not, it is true that some will live and some die, etc. I find it good for me to reflect on that. And to consider where I'm slipping, where I can do better, who I've wronged and ask their forgiveness; and whom I have the power to forgive.

And collectively, we have a time to be forgiven and to forgive:

For tansgressions against God, the Day of Atonement atones; but for transgressions of one human being against another, the Day of Atonement does not atone until they have made peace with one another.

I hereby forgive all who have hurt me, all who have wronged me, whether deliberately or inadvertently, whether by word or by deed. May no one be punished on my account.

As I forgive and pardon those who have wronged me, may those whom I have harmed forgive and pardon me, whether I acted deliberately or inadvertently, whether by word or by deed.

This discussion about forgiveness and judging have special meaning this year as I've spent the last two weeks in court watching the trial of an Alaskan politician accused of bribery. He apologized to the jury for his vulgar behavior seen in the surveillance video tapes. Is their forgiveness enough? What about his constituents? All Alaskans? Peter Kott, for my part, I forgive any transgression. And as a blogger, I'm reminded by "whether by word or by deed." Blogging gives me lots more opportunity to do harm by word. And I ask forgiveness for those I might have inadvertently harmed.

But I think what I like about this service is that next we get into specifics. We can all smugly assume we haven't wronged any, or at least not too many, people when it is stated that generally. But the prayer book gives us an alphabet of sins to help prick our memory.

Who among us is righteous
enough to say: 'I have not sinned?'
We are arrogant, brutal, careless,
destructive, egocentric, false;
greedy, heartless, insolent,
and joyless,
Our sins are an alphabet of woe.

And that still isn't specific enough. We aren't just talking about murder and theft and adultery. The prayer book identifies a list of things that cause all of us to pause:

FAILURES OF TRUTH

We sin against You when we sin against ourselves.
For our failures of truth, O Lord, we ask forgiveness.

For passing judgment without knowledge of the facts,
and for distorting facts to fit our theories. [Who doesn't have work to do here?]

For deceiving ourselves and others with half-truths,
and for pretending to emotions we do not feel.

For using the sins of others to excuse our own,
and for denying responsibility for our own misfortunes.

For condemning in our children the faults we tolerate in ourselves,
and for condemning in our parents the faults we tolerate in ourselves,

FAILURES OF JUSTICE

For keeping the poor in the chains of poverty,
and turning a deaf ear to the cry of the oppressed.

For using violence to maintain our power,
and for using violence to bring about change.

For waging aggressive war,
and for the sin of appeasing aggressors.

For obeying criminal orders,
and for the sin of silence and indifference.

For poisoning the air, and polluting land and sea,
and for all the evil means we employ to accomplish good ends.

FAILURES OF LOVE

For confusing love with lust,
and for pursuing fleeting pleasure at the cost of lasting hurt.

For using others as a means to gratify our desires,
and as stepping-stones to further our ambitions.

For withholding love to control those we claim to love,
and shunting aside those whose youth and age disturbs us.

For hiding from others behind an armor of mistrust,
and for the cynicism which leads us to mistrust the reality of unselfish love.

There are more verses, but you get the point. For most of us, it's these 'little' sins that accumulate and I find it a list that I respect.

And Judaism is not rigid. The rabbis do not all agree, but give their interpretations and the prayer book offers conflicting interpretations:

Rabbi Samuel ben Nachmani said: At times the gates of prayer are open, at times the gates of prayer are barred. But the gates of repentance are never barred.

But it is reported that Rabbi Juday the Prince taught: In truth, the gates of prayer are never barred.

Rabbi Akiba taught: The gates of prayer are open, and the prayer of those who practice steadfast love is heard.

Rav Chisda taught: Though sometimes the gates of heaven seem shut to all prayers, they are open to the prayers of the wounded and the hurt.

And so the prayer book recognizes that everyone has a unique relationship to God.

You are my God, and my redeemer. Therefore, while around me others think their own thoughts, I think mine; and as each one of them seeks to experience Your presence, so do I.

So whether there is actually a God external to human beings, or a God lives 'only' inside of human beings, we have available this connection to each other and connection to this heritage of moral teachings. If someone needs to believe that there is an external God who is watching and who will reward and punish, in order to live a righteous life, then they can have such a God to help them. If others cannot accept that a God exists outside of human consciousness, the words of the prayer book are still a good guide to reflecting on one's actions over the past year and the coming year.

Of course, there is also the music - the melodies that have been heard over and over again and are good friends. And in our synagogue I love that we have so many members who sing and chant the various songs and prayers. They aren't professional cantors, but they have beautiful voices and their participation enriches our services. No cantor's singing of Avinu Malchenu can reach me the way our friend Lynn, standing in front of the open ark and torahs, her dog Mary at her side, can. And members of the congregation come to the bima to read sections of the prayer book as well as the Torah. We aren't just an audience, we're participants.

Kott Trial Day 13 - Kotts Chief of Staff, "I had two different bosses"

[I accidentally deleted this post that I made with a slightly different title at 10:34 am today. I reconstructed it, but it doesn't want to go back to 10:34]

U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska
Court Calendar for Friday, September 21, 2007

---

9:00 AM	3:07-CR-00056-01-JWS	Judge Sedwick	Anchorage Courtroom 3
USA vs. PETER KOTT TRIAL BY JURY - DAY 13

The first defense witness today, State Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux basically said Pete Kott never threatened or coerced her about legislation.

The second defense witness was Judy Ohmer, a PhD in Education from University of Oregon, and said she has extensive experience in alcohol counseling. She also was a chief of staff for Pete Kott when he was speaker and the term after that.

Kott's attorney, Wendt, seemed to be working an earlier theme that once he was no long speaker of the house Kott had littleen power. Ohmer confirmed this - "As Speaker he was King of the Hill and could pull people together at will. But not when a regular legislator."

He started to ask her if she thought Kott was alcoholic. The Prosecution objected she was not there as an expert witness.

Wendt then asked if she ever saw Kott drinking out of the office.

She replied: ( approximation of what she said)

Absolutely, I had two different bosses. When he was drinking he began
speaking hillbilly, swearing...Cussing more, more biting, more boasting,
exaggerated, 'me Tarzan.'

[Was she suggesting that hillbillies are drunk and cuss a lot?]

The Defense rested at 10am. Judge Sedwick asked if we could have closing arguments this afternoon. Wendt said he preferred Monday, Government said they could go either way.

So the jury will go home soon. The attorneys and the judge have to agree on the jury instructions. Closing arguments will be Monday.

Pete Kott Trial Day 13

U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska
Court Calendar for Friday, September 21, 2007

---

9:00 AM	3:07-CR-00056-01-JWS	Judge Sedwick	Anchorage Courtroom 3
USA vs. PETER KOTT TRIAL BY JURY - DAY 13

When I got back to the courtroom after posting during the break, the Prosecution had canceled its rebuttal. So the judge told the jury that he'd thought that possibly they could hear the closing arguments today, but it was better to give both sides the weekend to prepare. He thanked them for listening so diligently, warned them not to talk to anyone about the trial, or to listen to tv or radio news, read newspapers covering the trial, or the internet. Then at about 10:45 he recessed them for a long weekend. We could hear a cheer from the hallway as the jurors walked out.

Then the judge asked how long the defense needed for the closing.
Wendt said, "As much time as the prosecution."
Judge Sedwick: "OK, five minutes for each."
Wendt: "That's fine with me."
Government said it had gone over a little in the last trial, so to be on the safe side they asked for an hour and a half.
Sedwick: Then 90 for the defense. And it's ok if you go 95, but I would like us to finish by noon. I don't want to go on into the afternoon.
They then agreed to meet after lunch today to settle the jury instructions.

I went to the Clerk's office to get the proposed jury instructions. I see now that what I got was Defendant Kott's Objections to Jury Instruction, NOT the judge's proposed instructions. Whoops. Good thing no one's paying for this. All right, this says,

The government has charged Pete Kott with one count of Extortion Under Color of Official Right, or the Hobbs Act, based upon four separate alleged benefits:

1. a promise of a job
2. $1000 in exchange for a campaign contribution to Frank Murkowski
3. $7,993 in inflated flooring to pay Pete Kott Jr. for rnning Kott's re-election campaign, and [I thought the Kott's did hardwood flooring. Is inflated flooring like walking on an air mattress?]
   
4. a poll for Kott's re-election campaign.

Well that's only one of the charges. So apparently they are satisfied with the rest of the language, or they submitted other objections. Anyway, here are photos of the language the defense would like for this charge. Now, it's 4:23, so presumably they have worked out the final language already. Click on the pictures to enlarge them.






Tonight is Erev Yom Kippur so this blog gets to rest until Saturday night at the very earliest.

Pete Kott Trial Day 12 - Kott Admits He Lies

The earlier posts today were pretty much on the fly during breaks. For this one I've had about six hours to digest what happened

The prosecutors didn’t make the home run I was expecting when they had a chance to question Kott. Rather they got a base hit here, a walk there. Nothing spectacular, but when it was over, I think they scored a few more runs than the defense.

The most significant gain for the government, I think, has to do with Kott’s honesty. Kott was caught between what he said on the tapes, and the defense’s attempt to prove that Kott was not doing Veco’s bidding. Goeke got Kott to admit that

• He lied to other legislators in his (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to get done what he needed to do, including legislators with whom he had built some rapport
• He lied to Bill Allen and Rick Smith, the two people he told us yesterday were the only two people who had never lied to him.
  
• He would lie to his friends to maintain his principles.
  

Wednesday, Bill Allen, Uncle Bill as Kott calls him, was like family. This was a very special friendship. He could walk into Bill's house any time, and he did. Thursday Kott is trying to show that Allen doesn't "own his ass' as Allen claimed on tape. So now what he said on tape to Allen about doing his bidding and about his power to get things through the legislature was not really the truth, he was telling Bill what Bill wanted to hear. It was ok to lie to his best friends, almost family, to maintain his principles. What Goeke didn't ask was, "What are these principles that are more important than honesty and truth telling?"

What are these principles? In all this testimony, Kott really didn't tell us much about his principles. He did say he believed strongly in natural resources development. Was that really a principle he held stronger than truth telling? Then again, maybe it was. After all, he was willing to lie to other legislators to get the gas pipeline through. He also talked about the importance of family. But he tells us to look at his actions, not his words. While he put "Married for 30 years" on one of his brochures, now, we learned in the testimony, he has been living about four years with a woman who is not his wife to whom he is still legally married. And Bill Allen, he has told us throughout is like family, but he has also told us now that he has lied to Bill.

We don't know what those principles are. We do know he lies to get what he wants. So why shouldn't the jury assume that he is lying to them to get what he wants - a Not Guilty verdict?

Getting Kott to say that he lied to his very, very good friends, and to acknowledge that honesty is not one of his principles (he'd rather lie than violate those principles), the prosecution has undermined Kott's credibility with the jury.

Below is a series of exchanges where Kott said he lied. While they are not verbatim, I think they are fairly close, certainly in meaning, to what was said.

1.

Goeke (G): On the tape you say to Bill Allen (BA) and Rick Smith (RS) that you had to lie, cheat, and steal.
PK: There was a bit of deceit with Rep [Ethan] Berkowitz (B). I didn’t know at the time he knew what I was up to. I felt somewhat disappointed in myself.
G: How long working with EB?
PK: Ten years.
G: His role?
PK: Minority Leader
PK was speaker, had to develop relationship with Minority leader and did.
G: Why were you talking about lying, cheating, and stealing?
PK: Wanted to make point I didn’t feel real comfortable about it. Violated what I perceived as my ethics. Especially with Mr. B. We’d worked in the coup together also.
G: About getting votes of Crawford and Croft through your connection with B?
PK: Yes, if you review all the transcripts, you’ll see Crawford and Croft stuck on 20/20 position. They didn’t want to see anything pass if it wasn’t a gross tax. If they couldn’t get that, they’d do what they could to ?stop it? I was going to get credit for then [for getting their votes] I didn’t really deserve.

So right in the beginning Goeke has gotten Kott to say he had lied. The original quote from the tape, was that he told Allen and Rick that he'd had to "lie, cheat, and steal" to get Rep B to vote his way. So he's admitted that he would lie to his legislative colleagues to get his way, even one he'd developed a close relationship with.
By the end he was also admitting that he also, at least exaggerated, if not lied, to Allen and Smith about having gotten Crofts and Crawford's votes. He got credit for something he hadn't done.

2. The defense was trying to show that while Allen and Smith wanted the PPT to stay at 20/20, Kott was a free agent who instead voted for 21.5. To do this, they had to admit that what Kott said to Allen and Smith on the tape wasn't true. And so he did:

G: Later you went to Room 604 as was your custom. When you’re up there you have no idea the FBI is recording that conversation. So when you told RS, you were going to go up from 20/20 that wasn’t true was it?
PK: it was true
G: Recall later in the room, do you recall those conversations. Going to play a tape.
May 8 06 Ex 30 5:05
I don’t want to jeopardize the gas line, I’ll stay on 20, Reps x,y, and z will stay on 20.
Who’s on the screen?
PK: that was BA
PK You are speculating on my motives. These are good friends of mine. I’m going to tell them what they want to hear.
G: You’re lying to them
PK: I think my votes speak for themselves
G: I agree, but i think for different reasons

3. Then a little later. He gets Kott to say he is willing to sacrifice the truth for his principles. I think he missed an opportunity to ask, "So what are these principles that are more important than the truth?"

G: But you told Smith and Bill Allen frequently about your ability to work things.
PK: These are friends, I’m going to tell them what they want to hear, I want to boost their morale. This is chit chat.
G: You tell this jury here, that what they want to hear is that you lied to them
PK: not quite a lie, but a (stretch?) of the truth.
G: It wasn’t the truth?
PK: No it wasn’t the truth.
G: And those were the people you considered your long time friends, your Uncle Bill.
PK: There’s a difference between my words and actions. My principles.
G: Willing to sacrifice your principle of the truth with them?
PK: Yes. You can’t have it both ways.
G: Long standing relationship, right?
PK yes


4. After talking about the power of Fairbanks Senator Therriault, Wendt, Kott's own attorney asks Kott:

W: Did you have that sort of power
PK: I wish I did
W: Did you want Bill Allen and RS to see you as important?
PK Certainly I wanted to look good in their eyes.
W: Do you regret saying those things now?
PK Certainly led me to say things that weren’t entirely true. Whether I regret them at this point, I’m not sure. Perhaps I shouldn’t have gotten into that environment in the first place. If I have a choice between compromising my principles or lying to my friends, then lying to my friends will take a back seat.
W: What do you mean by back seat? That your principles come first?
PK: Yes

They covered a lot of other ground that I trust will be mentioned in the ADN and other sources. In the end, I would think this was the most important revelation for Thursday. I think that it should be relatively easy for the Prosecution to tie together how Kott's story changes depending on what point he's trying to make. Allen and Smith are my best friends and I trust them completely. Except that I lie to them when it suits me. I tell them what they want to hear. Presumably, before 12 total strangers he should have no compunctions about telling them what they want to hear so he won't have to go to jail.

Pete Kott Trial Day 11 - PM Break

Defense asked Pete Kott about 6 or 7 issues to get him to explain his side of these. I left my notebook with those in the court. These were things like
1. Did you receive a check for $5000 from Allen for a car payment? (It was a loan)
and other open issues.

Then he was done and Prosecutor Goeke began a strong attack. He's asserting things that Kott has supposedly done and why he's done them, often forgetting to make them questions. The defense has objected several times and asked for Goeke to stop yelling at his client and to ask civilly.

Goeke apologizes and asks one polite question and slowly gets back into his attack mode. Basically he's tearing into the long testimony about the votes and what they mean. He's trying to show that Kott actually was working to kill the vote on PPT and that his very last vote as a legislator was actually a no vote which he changed after the vote when he saw that the bill was passed by a lopsided margin.


Below are very notes, typed as they spoke. Goeke is speaking very fast as is Kott. So take these as an approximation of what is being said. I've tried to put PK and G on the left to show who is talking, but there are times when they get mixed together. Though given how Goeke "asked" questions, they were often mixed together. Sorry about the typos. This is time over complete accuracy.

Cross Exam. 2:10 PM

Goeke: A couple questions about procedures in the house. When vote taken in the house, reflected on a tally sheet. Board with red and green lights, you can see. Cutomary for speaker, when voitng is close. Customary for speaker to ask to change their vote. Then new change is recorded in record in the house and reflected that it was changed. Your testimony was you voted for 22.5 because that was a compromise you wanted, everyone had hashed out their positions. This was fair and equitable, splitting the baby and very one was going to go for it right?
PK: I was 20/20 person, at some point you have to throw in tile and compromise.
G: Lets look at last hours of the session.. Exhibt 134. AK House 3rd Special Session. rEcords a particular vote. Date:8/10/06 15:40pm Recognize that sheet? Farily described it. This sheet refelcts SBS 3??? concur. Vote on concurrence of final PPT in the final session?
PK: No, I believe this is a..we need to go to the journal..
Goeke: OK, let’s go to journal
PK: I say this because it is a vote on the issue of concurrence, but not the final vote.
G: Reflects vote on concurance 3:40 pm it failed. You voted no to concurrance?
PK: correct
G: If vote doesn’t concur, then the bill’s dead?
PK: What it says.
G: Voting for concurrence on house bill 3001. If the house agreed to concur, the PPT rate would have been 22.5.. Correct. And you voted no? correct.
G: Keep looking. It’s got a vote tab. 20 y 19 n one excused. Moses. Correct
If you switched your vote, it would be done.
Recognize this exhibit? Another sheet about a vote, a few hours later 21:11:09. That says, HB 3001 concur. Vote to rescind action failure to concur that happened at 3:40pm
With regard to before, 225 was what you wanted. 135 is a motion to rescind previous action. The effect of this vote is to rescind the failure to concur and allow another vote on 3001. You testified, and moses is back. And you vote Nay. You don’t want to rescind the failure to concur. 9:11pm August 6.
25Y 15N motion to rescind is passed. Another vote on should we concur with the senate and if we do, we’ll go to 22.5.
3 minutes later there is a vote on concurrence. Do you recall?
PK: NO
G: You don’t recall the final vote of your legislative career?
PK: I probably voted for the bill.
G: Gexihibit 136. Aug. 10, 2006 9:13pm says concurrence vote on HB 3001. About two minutes after rescind vote carried. Do you see how you voted on that motion?
PK: It appears I voted yes.
G: End of legislature and end of your career. It reflects that you changed your vote from yeah to nay.
PK: At the end of the day, you changed from yeah to nay. After voting was closed.
But before the final tally was cast. You voted yeah, after the tally.
Objections
Sustained
If you wanted to vote yest at 3:40pm. It would have been done.
PK: It might have been changed.
G: If you had voted yes you would have had 22.5.
PK: NO, because we would have had a reconsideration and had it before us again.
G: Wouldn’t it have been 20-19. No, it would have been 21-19. It would have been 21-18. It would have passed. It would have passed.
PK and there would probably be a reconsideration vote.
G: You had a swing vote at 3:40pm, you vote not to concur. They had to fly in a sick man, you vote.
J: What the lawyers say is not evidence.
G: Isn’t it true Mr. Kott, if you had voted to concur at 3:40pm, we would have had 22.5.
PK: correct
G: If you wanted 22.5 you could have voted on the motion to rescind, so could have voted for 22.5. If you wanted 22.5, why vote to rescind concur.
PK: 22.5 was not where I ultimately wnated to get to. At this point there was still hope to get compromise. I didn’t want to see vote on issue of this magnitude to go down in history passed by 1 vote. I wanted it to have a wider margin.
G: You voted to no on the final vote. Didn’t you vote no in the final vote?
PK: I’m looking at the change from nay to yeah. Did you hit the button for no the first time you had the opportunity?
Appears I did
G: You changed it so the writing was on the wall. It was good you did it for the jury.
Objection: there was no jury then
Sustained
G: Isn’t it true you changed your vote after the voting was closed, after you saw the final vote tally on HB 3001 at 9:13, when it was 23-17, you hit no and changed your vote to yeah.


Hectic time period May 7 and 8. When you and BW called RS. You made it clear to RS that you were at a rate higher than 20/20.
PK. both BW and I conveyed on May 8 2006 at about ??pm.
G: Later you went to 604 as was your custom. When you’re up there you have no idea the FBI is recording that conversatio. So when you told RS you 1pm, you were going to go up from 20/20 that wasn’t true was it?
PK: it was true
G: Recall later in the room, do you recall those conversations. Going to play a tape.
May 8 06 Ex 30 5:05
I don’t want to jeopardize the gas line, I’ll stay on 20, xyz on 20.
Who’s on the screen?
PK: that was BA
PK You are speculating on my motives. These are good friends of mine. I’m going to tell them what they want to hear.
You’re lying to them
I think my votes speak for themselves
G: I agree, but i think for different reasons


Mr. Berkowitz
G: You shared a common objective, for different reasons. He wanted a higher tax rate. YOU told the jury you wanted to kill the bill because you told BA you wanted to stay at 20/20
PK: He wanted to kill it I wanted to see 20/20, but it didn’t get there.
G: At that time 22.5 was too high
PK; Yes, there’s a process of elimination
G: You thought the senate locked in, infliexible at 22.5
PK That’s what I believed. So I thought, but they were locked in 10-10
G: You say you supported 21.5 at that time, but in the closing hours it would kill that bill. There was no time for a conference bill. Isn’t it true you heard Dr. Thomas that at the end of the regular session any business not done dies.
The session is about to end on May 9.
Correct
G:
PK: That appeare to be their position because they never responded. When sent to the Senate there were several hours left in the session. Sat on Presidents desk for several hours.
G: Your opinion there was time
PK Absolutely
G: But the bill died.
PK: Wasn’t the house fault
G: You had an opportunity earlier to vote 22.5, it would have passed.

June vote. Special session in the middle of June.
G: You told the jury you were at 21.5 or 21.7 in mid June, but not true?
PK> No it was at 20/20 again
G: Where were you at end of session in June,
PK JUneau
G: Your position
PK I do’t know
Video: Fuck you, fuck all those guys. Let’s all go fuck them June 8, 06 11:48 pm
PK At that time my official position is the vote cast on the board. That is the only position recorded for the annals of history.
G: You had no idea of video. that’s a pretty good window into your position with Veco. Consistent with your position all along in the spring, summer.
You talked about what to do with legislators who don’t go along with 20/20
You want to help, you are 20/20 guys.
Wendt: The witness said he didn’t not recall, provide him with a transcript
Judge: Frame the question as you will
G: We could play the clip again
J: We saw it once, that is enough.

Pete Kott Apologizes to the Jury

Kott's attorney asked him:

You've come all this way, your air force career, all the positive things you done as a legislator, how do you feel these video tapes of you acting badly will affect your legacy, how do you want to be remembered?

PK: Unfortunately the legislation will be just that. They'll forget the good things, and remember the bad things. Tough to forego being a legislator all the friendships. This has been extremely embarrassing. I knew that coming into this.

To the jury, I apologize for the vulgarity presented to you in this trial, but I believe I had to go through this. The charges are incorrect. I'm not guilty. This trial will probably cost me a lot, but my legacy is more important.

That's not quite verbatim, but gets the gist. He almost sounded like he could produce some tears.

And then it was time for lunch. The defense has a few more topics and then the prosecutors will have a chance to ask questions.

I was told by someone the governor was in attendance, but I didn't see her.

Pete Kott Trial Day 12 - If I Were On the Jury

U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska
Court Calendar for Thursday, September 20, 2007

---

9:00 AM	3:07-CR-00056-01-JWS	Judge Sedwick	Anchorage Courtroom 3
USA vs. PETER KOTT TRIAL BY JURY - DAY 12

The defense has me baffled. This morning they have picked up from where they left off yesterday afternoon, going line by line through the code of the official legislative history of the Petroleum Profits Bill (PPT). They are now into the second special session called by the Governor. I really have no idea where Wendt is taking this. I thought he was trying to make the point that Kott was not doing Allen’s bidding. Basically, the other people I’ve asked have said variations of the same. “They’re trying to show he didn’t help Allen with the bill.” “That he was in no position to amend the bill.”

But in order to do so, Kott has had to compromise himself in several way.

1. He's confessed that he was tricky and deceitful:

PK: There was a bit of deceit with Rep Berkowitz. I didn’t know at the time he knew what I was up to. I felt somewhat disappointed in myself.

PK: I wanted to make a point, but I didn’t feel real comfortable about it. Violated what I perceived as my ethics. Especially with Mr. Berkowitz.

Well, if he was deceitful then, why not now in court to save his neck?

2. By making one point for Kott, he seems to give away other points
He wants to show he’s independent of Allen and Smith so:

• at the restaurant in DC he talks with a Marathon Oil Rep. Rick Smith tells him by phone that any change (like the one Marathon wants to exempt Cook Inlet oil) would jeopardize the bill. Kott testifies, “Smith was just blowing smoke.” But yesterday he said Smith and Allen were the only people who always told him the truth. Now he’s saying Smith was lying to him. Hmmm.
  

• He was worried that Allen might question his loyalty because Allen could see him on the Gavel to Gavel coverage of the debates conferring with Democrats. “Allen was very conservative and he could see me conferring with Democrats.” Again, what happened to that great trust and friendship they had? Just talking to Democrats is going to jeopardize all those years of bonding he talked about yesterday?

To make their points, they are going through the official Legislative History of the Petroleum Profits Tax bill. This is drier than desert dust. I can’t imagine what they are thinking presenting all this detail to the jury. Not only are his points being lost in all the detail, the tiny bits of evidence they muster in their favor will blow away like dust when the prosecution cross examines Kott later today.

I can understand that calling Kott as a witness was a way to change the terrible image of Kott the jury got from watching and listening to the tapes. That was a really damaging image. And on the stand, Kott looks very sober and knowledgeable about all the strategies of the legislature. This certainly improves the picture of Kott himself.

But the downside is that prosecution now can question Kott. The defense has proven itself time and again to be well prepared. I can’t imagine any gains Kott may get from his testimony for his own attorney surviving the cross examination this afternoon.

Kott Trial - If I Could Ask Some Questions

There are lots of issues that have been battled back and forth in court, and I'm sure the prosecution will raise in tomorrow's cross-examination, but here are a couple of new questions that came up today.

1. Wednesday, Mr. Kott said that Bill Allen had never lied to him, that he trusted him. But Bill Allen has pleaded guilty to bribing Pete Kott. Given this, how can you say that Bill Allen never bribed you?

2. Deborah Stovern says that you have lived with her in her residence on F street in Juneau for 3 1/2 - 4 years. That when you go to Anchorage you stay with your son. If that is the case, how did you run in November 2004 (only three years ago) and 2006 as a representative from Eagle River?

3. You said in court Wednesday that one thing you had in common with Bill Allen was your interest in Natural Resource Development. I understand that would be helpful to show that you voted for various bills because you had this strong value in Natural Resource Development. But I don't recall NRD as a commonly held human value. And in your discussion of your life, there was nothing - not work experience, not education - that hinted at such an interest. When and how did this interest come up?

Pete Kott Trial Day 12 - Now's the time to come to court

At the end of today's session, the attorneys discussed the rest of the trial schedule.

I would guess that Thursday afternoon, when the prosecution gets to cross examine Pete Kott, will be the pivotal point of the trial. After lunch session begins at 1:30 normally. This should be the most interesting part of the trial.

Pete Kott Trial Day 11 - Pete All Afternoon

There was a lot said, not much earthshaking and I just don’t have time to cover it all. Pete Kott took the stand and covered things like:

• Why he keeps $30,000 in cash in his closet. (Is it alone on F Street while he and Deborah are in Anchorage? I hope the burglars don’t read the newspapers.)
• He never asked for a poll to be done, never used it.
• Old campaign fliers that showed he used the slogan “Experienced, Proven Leadership” since his second campaign (implying that the fact it was on a 2006 flier didn’t prove that he took Dave Dittman’s polling advice to stress leadership.)
• He’s never taken a bribe from Bill Allen.
• A blow by blow account of the November ‘04 legislative coup by 13 Democrats and 9 Republicans that would have had Pete Speaker of the House for two days.

He talked about his life:

Born in Flint, Michigan. Dad worked for GM. So did Kott after high school. But in 1969 he joined the Air Force. He had postings in Texas, Thailand [Taiwan according to ADN] (where he met his wife), Turkey, New Mexico, and Florida (where he got a BA in Criminal Justice and a Masters in (dare I say it?) Public Administration. That’s two MPA’s out of two legislative corruption trials. Really, we teach ethics. But these are things that faculty can’t really test (unless students cheat on their assignments) for, and in the short time students are in graduate school it isn’t easy to change fundamental values. And many could argue legitimately that we shouldn’t. But the basic standards of the field? But I digress.

He ended his Air Force career in Anchorage where he also started teaching political science at Whalen Baptist College. A student who read the chapter on when to run for office, pointed out that after reapportionment, Kott’s district had no incumbent. So Pete ran. He loves being a legislator.

All this testimony, starting at 1:30 and going till 4:30, seems to be intended to contrast the real, living Pete Kott with the often drunk, foul mouthed, guy the jury has seen and heard on tape. And he looked much more impressive on the stand under the friendly questions of his attorney. He even looked like he was talking directly to the jury. But he may have only been looking at his monitor.

What about his relationship with Bill Allen? Well, they were introduced by Ramona Barnes who had taken Kott in when he joined the legislature and they bonded on a bus on Sakhalin Island, Russia, a state paid trip.

He and Bill hit it off so well, he thought, because

• we liked each other
• his immediately family was not so immediate - son and sister moved away. He was by himself and I was too sort of
• we had a lot of things in common
• hands-on trying to scratch through a living - he did much better than I
• Our beliefs in developing natural resources

This is pretty close to verbatim:

Bill Allen was very knowledgeable. He was my number one source of information. Before lobbyists, They have their own interests. Bill and Rick always gave me an honest answer.

It was at this point that the lady behind me laughed out loud. I was also thinking, Bill Allen didn’t have his own interests? Didn’t he get fined for lobbying when he wasn’t registered as one?

Then at 3:20 pm Wendt started asking Kott about the PPT legislation. Detailed information about it. Starting with page one of the legislative history. Line by line. Translating every coded term. (PPT was the Petroleum Profits Tax that was the highest priority of Veco.)

2/21/06 FN1 Zero DNR
3/30.06 RES RPT CS 1DP 1DN 2NR 3AM

This went on until 4:30. Actually, I have to admit, that while I thought I would fall asleep for sure, learning the code was kind of interesting.
FN= fiscal notes DNR= Department of Natural Resources - they had zero fiscal notes

RES = Resource Sub Committee
RPT = Report
CS = Committee Substitute
So the Resource Sub-Committee reported the bill out with a Committee substitute bill

1DP = 1 Do pass
1DN = 1 Do not pass
2NR = 2 No recommendation
3AM = 3 support the Amended bill

This is how the seven sub committee members voted on the bill.

But why are we doing all this?

It appeared to me that Defense was trying to make two points:

1. Kott had no impact on the bill.
2. Kott actually voted to raise the tax, not lower it.

The first time he got to vote on it was May 7,the second to the last day of the regular session I think, There was one other vote when it was unanimously voted onto the floor for debate. Even though the Senate bill was passed first and so became the working bill for both houses, and the Senate had voted for 22/22 (I think) instead of 20/20 (20% tax; 20% credits for new investment), the Finance subcommittee had voted it back down to 20/20 before it got to the floor of the House.

Another line in the record looked so innocent:

5/7/07 (H) AM NO 20 Adopted Y21 N19

On May 7, in the House, Amendment Number 20 was passed 21-19. This was the famous (among wonks) vote when Weyhrauch voted wrong. He voted to raise the tax to 21.5 by mistake, and they had to get the vote rescinded. Under questioning from his attorney, Kott said

I made the motion to rescind. Rep. Weyhrauch came to me. And I believe...(I didn’t catch it quite, but it was something like votes should be what people really meant, not mistakes). Anyone on an issue of this magnitude, if someone made a mistake, I wanted to be sure everyone voted their conscience.

That sounds pretty noble. But you know that the defense is going to play the tape I posted last night in which Kott, from the floor, calls Smith in Room 604, and tells him what happened and they’re going to rescind the vote and revote. Here you can listen for yourself:
Rep. Pete Kott to Veco VP Rick Smith phone call

So then the next line of the history of the bill:

5/7/07 (H) RESCIND ACTION ON AM20 Y22 N18

By now I bet you can read that without translation. Rescind the vote on Amendment 20 passes 22 to 18.

Kott said he was surprised it was rescinded 22-18. Someone beside Weyhrauch changed his vote. If only Weyhrauch had changed his vote it would have been 20-20 and the 21.5/21.5 would have stayed. "On an issue this contentious, I just thought if only Bruce Weyhrauch changed his vote, it wouldn't pass."

Do you think that Pete Kott, if the original vote had failed and a Democrat had asked to have it rescinded so he could vote his conscience, would agreed? Listen to this the audio of what Kott told Smith right after the vote:

Rep. Pete Kott and Veco VP Rick Smith phone call

These simple cryptic lines hide so much. Defense was trying to show that Kott never did anything to help Veco get the bill passed. He has to know these tapes are going to be played in the cross examination.

The second main thing he was trying to get across was on the next lines:

5/8/07 (H) AM NO1 BEFORE THE HOUSE

5/8/07 (H) AM2 TO AM1 ADOPTED Y22 N17 E1

If I understood this right, there was a new amendment to raise the level from 20/20 to 22.5/22.5. (Veco wants it to stay at 20/20). But Kott is able to get AM2 passed 22-17 (I don't think he told us what E1 was) AM2 amended the AM1 changing the 22.5/22.5 to 21/21. So, instead of an Amendment raising the original 20/20 to 22.5, Kott's amendment had it only go up to 21. In essence, he lowered the amended level of 22.5 to 21, thus, I'm assuming, limiting the damage.

But Wendt characterized this as Kott's only real action on this bill was to raise it from 20/20 to 21/21 - the opposite of what Veco wanted. And the opposite of what happened. Cute. But I'm sure the prosecution will easily knock over this house of cards.

So at 4:3o (yes there was 70 minutes on this) the jury left and the attorneys talked about the schedule. I think that is worthy of a post by itself and not being buried down here at the bottom of this long post that only three people will see to the bottom. But for those of you who made it this far, the prosecution expects to begin its cross examination of Kott in the afternoon tomorrow for a few hours. I would guess this will be the most interesting part of the trial.

Lisa Demer's Style Changes Slightly

[Additional Comment: Today's (Thursday) article looks like the old Demer]

I've complimented Lisa on her reporting of the Anderson trial. She's kept up crisp, relevant, and neutral coverage of that trial and the Kott trial. I know from the blog how hard it is to keep the writing as unbiased as possible. It's hard to do succinct summaries of all the details that capture the key points without putting one's own spin on it. I've got a little more freedom here because all the other media cover the basics. I don't have to give a complete overview.

So I was surprised to read this morning's article on the Kott trial.

It started out with:

Ex-state Rep. Pete Kott's son tried to keep his father out of federal prison Tuesday

Well, probably this is true, but it sure puts a negative spin on Kott's testimony from the git go. I'm sure Judge Sedwick wouldn't allow this in the testimony. We don't really know what Peter's thinking.

The younger Kott, who is also named Peter, testified Tuesday that $7,993 in cash he received from his father was just an advance for future flooring work. That's not so, said the Veco executives. They said the money was a payoff to allow Kott's son to take time off and work on Kott's re-election campaign.

It looks like the Veco executives were rebutting what Kott Jr. said. What they are quoted as saying happened last week in court. You wouldn't know that by reading it.

Kott said that he served as his dad's campaign manager in 2006 but that his title just as easily could have been gofer.

The first part of this sentence is accurate, but he didn't say "I could have been called a gofer." The writers are making that point, which I would agree with based on what he said he actually did. But the sentence starts with "Kott said..." and there is nothing to indicate where the writers stop quoting Kott and start adding their own interpretation.

These are just little things, but it is just these little things that make the difference between sloppy, biased reporting and good reporting. The only difference I see is that Lisa isn't writing this alone the way she has been. I recognize it isn't easy to get your writing all cleaned up. And I know that I leave things in my posts I wished I'd fixed. It's especially hard when I'm doing a quick post during a break in trial. So, this is just a friendly chide. Keep up your regular high standards.


I'm reluctant to put my camera in people's faces, especially when they'd rather not be photographed. But from a distance without interrupting is ok I think. That's just my comfort level and I'm glad the other guys have the stomach to flash in the faces of people we should see. Anyway, here's a picture in the Federal Building cafeteria at lunch today to give you a sense of things. The Kott party is on the left. (Pete's in the red tie.) KTUU's Bill McAllister is working on his computer toward the middle. And Lisa Demer and Sean Cockerham work on the right.

Pete Kott Trial Day 11 - Pete Kott takes the Stand

It's lunch break.

Debeorah Stovern continued on the stand till about 11:30am. Overall she seemed to be a good witness. She looked nice without being flashy. She spoke well. She was consistent in her answers about the books and how she kept the records and why invoices said what they did.

When asked if she would be surprised to know that none of the FBI tapes had a conversation about using the $7,993 check from Allen to pay for flooring, she said, yes she would, she knows there were conversations. How does she know? Pete called her to tell her about the check from Allen's house when he and Peter Jr. and Allen talked about it. My sense of that was that she was told it was flooring and believed the conversation was about flooring.

She also gave a somewhat less cynical explanation of the Corrupt Bastards Club. She'd been invited for cocktails at the Baranof lounge and Rick Smith was reading a newspaper article and had her read it. It talked about how all the legislators who got money from Veco were corrupt and named some, including Pete Kott. The reaction was an ironic "hey, we're the corrupt bastards club' and the people listed in the article were the members. I recall back in the Sixties it came out that President Nixon had what he called an "enemies list." The people on that list took it, eventually, as a badge of honor to be on that list. I can see this being the same sort of thing. Of course, there is a difference. Nixon was impeached and resigned in disgrace, so people on his enemies list turned out to be 'good guys.' But two Veco executives have pleaded guilty to corruption and one of the people on the list, Tom Anderson, has been convicted of corruption and several others have been indicted. And Pete Kott is in Day 11 of his trial.

Even though Stovern was a strong presence on the stand, it seemed the prosecution made some points. They asked why Peter Jr. hadn't been paid with campaign funds for his work as campaign manager instead of getting future work for flooring to pay him. Prosecution asked whether it wasn't really so it wouldn't show up in the APOC report. She said it wouldn't look good for family members to get paid too much. But it wasn't a problem to pay family members a fair amount. When questioned about her payment for work on the campaign, Goeke asked why she didn't get paid until January 2007, near the end of the reporting period, way after the campaign, and why it listed Captial Consulting instead of Deborah Stovern? She answered reasonably, they had agreed that she would be paid if there was money left over, otherwise not, and by then it was clear they had money left over. And she had created the Capital Consultants billing form because now that she had learned the APOC reporting procedures, she was thinking of doing work for other campaigns. But she never did create the company. Goeke then asked, so your pay was listed to a company that never existed so it wouldn't embarrassing. And the he compared that to leaving Peter Jr.'s payment being called flooring work because it wouldn't have to go on the APOC report. There was an objection, but the jury heard the question.

The defense also asked Stovern about Pete's relationship with his wife. Not good. Seems they are having trouble with the terms of the divorce.


Pete Kott took the stand about 11:35 and Wendt immediately asked him about the $30,000 in cash in the house. We already heard yesterday from Peter Jr. that he prefers to use cash. The Kott's don't seem to trust banks it seems. Pete also prefers cash. The money was basically from his per diem checks as a legislator over two years. If he isn't spending them, perhaps the legislature should review the per diem policy. It is supposed to be for living expenses while in Juneau. Maybe the pay is too high. But that's another issue altogether.

He said none of the cash came from Allen or Smith, except for the $1000 Allen reimbursed him for his contribution, at Allen's request, to Murkowski's campaign. (Actually, Pete said he only got $900 back.) I recall Allen being questioned earlier about making campaign contributions through his employees illegally. This sounds like the same sort of thing.

Kott also testified about several campaign fliers that showed he's been using "Experienced Leadership" as a slogan since 1994, long before he got that advice from Dave Dittman. He also said he never asked for the poll or used the poll. Again, this would be to establish that the payment of the poll by Allen wasn't an illegal act by Kott since he wasn't a part of it. But he did hire Mackie as a campaign consultant, and it was mentioned already that the candidate is responsible for the campaign. We'll see where this goes.

One other point. I mentioned the jury's laughter at the Judge's humor this morning. I think it probably was a way to relief some stress and a show of trust of the judge. He made another mildly humorous comment when Wendt needed to lower the microphone. Something about Wendt being shorter than the government attorneys, but taller than the judge. The jury laughed loudly again. But when Kott joked about how he knew a campaign brochure's date, "in the photo I look a little younger , so it must have been earlier" that wasn't the slightest titter from the jury.

I've got to go eat before court resumes at 1:30

Pete Kott Trial Day 11 - Morning Break CBC Hats

Debora Stovern has been the defense witness this morning. She described her relationship with Kott as 'his significant other." She also works as his bookkeeper for his campaigns and Kott Hardwood Flooring. She also does flooring work.

She's been explaining billing practices as the defense was trying to show that the $7,993 paid by Allen was accounted for by invoices to do maintenance work for Allen in the future and also for Rick Smith. This is the money that the prosecutors claim was paid to Peter Jr. for working on the Kott campaign.

And my notes say that yesterday Peter Jr. said the money was for work on Sharon Durant's house and Rick Smith.

On cross the government asked about $30,000 in cash found at the Stovern/Kott residence in Juneau. Why didn't Kott pay his son with this? It was per diem she said. If it was per diem, how come it was collecting? Why wasn't it spent for living expenses, asked Goeke.



Ms. Stovern also embroiders on the side, and the Goeke brought out a box with red baseball hats that were embroidered with VECO on the front and a few that had CBC embroidered on the back. What does CBC mean? Stovern said it was a barroom joke based on a newspaper article - Corporate Bastards something. This was corrected, it was Corrupt Bastards Club. Goeke wanted to offer this as evidence. Wendt asked, all of them? Goeke allowed that one red hat with CBC on it was enough.
Judge Sedwick: Better mark the hat so we know which red hat is the exhibit.
Laughter from the jury.
Judge: The exhibit number doesn't have to be embroidered on the hat.
More laughter
Stovern: I could embroider it.

I think the laughter reflects a level of comfort the jury has with the judge and their time together listening to all these details.

One other detail before I get back into the trial.

Stovern, under questioning from Goeke, said that Kott lived at her place in Juneau and with Peter Jr. in Anchorage. Does he get his Permanent Fund Check at his Juneau address? She wasn't sure. But he does most of the SE Alaska work for the company and Peter Jr. does most of the Anchorage work. [he didn't ask why Pete did the work for Allen instead of Peter.]

But essentially, she said his residence was in Juneau most of the time. His stuff was there. Has been for 3.5-4 years. No one has asked why he was representing Eagle River if his residence was in Juneau in 2004 and for the election of 2006.

Gotta get back into the courtroom now.

Kott Trial Day 10 - The Afternoon

Overview:

• Peter Kott Jr. loses some of his luster under cross examination and delivers an infomercial on hardwood flooring
  
• Ethan Berkowitz, witness for the defense [April 26, 2008: If you are coming here from EthanBerkowitz.blogspot.com, you should note that Berkowitz did not come voluntarily, that Kott wanted Berkowitz to say that he did not vote the way the prosecutors told him to vote, and essentially Berkowitz was not a friendly witness for Kott. The details are below.]
  
• Brooke Miles, returned as a defense witness

From what I can tell the defense was trying to make several points today:

1. Pete Kott wasn't all that influential in the legislature and couldn't deliver what Veco wanted anyway.

In the morning session, Dr. Clive Thomas' testimony seemed aimed at showing that Kott wasn't on key committees and that at the end of the session things are chaotic and he didn't have much influence. Ethan Berkowitz was the Democratic leader in the house, and the legislator who stood up and protested when Weyhrauch voted the wrong way and then had the vote rescinded so he could vote the right way - you can hear Weyhrauch say he made a mistake and so they should revote, Berkowitz's passionate speech about the influence of lobbyists who call legislators on the floor, and Weyhrauch's indignant response here. It all has much more meaning now that we've heard the story from the other side.

On this link you can hear Kott talking to Smith right after Weyhrauch voted 'wrong.' It appears Kott is calling from the floor and Smith is apparently watching on Gavel to Gavel from 604.
Rep. Pete Kott to Veco VP Rick Smith phone call

Today the defense attorney Simonian questioned Berkowitz:
Q: Did Pete Kott get you to trade votes?
Berkowitz: I don't have the authority to trade votes.
They had him read the transcript where Kott said he got him to trade votes, and Berkowitz again said it wasn't true.

This appears again to be trying to show that Kott didn't have the power to deliver to Veco.

As I said in the previous post, I don't think this point matters, legally. The jury instructions in the Anderson trial were that it didn't matter whether a) if he could deliver or b) if he did deliver.

Here's a section of an earlier post on charges from the indictment.

• (A) Kott and Weyhrauch "unlawfully obtain[ed] ... money and other property... in agreement for the performance of official acts, in violation of Title 18..."

As I understand it, from the Anderson trial, it's the agreement, not the actual carrying it out, that matters.

2. That the $7,993 check that Allen wrote to Pete Kott in summer 2006 was NOT to pay for Pete Kott Jr. to continue on as campaign manager as the prosecution said, but rather was really advance payment for two flooring jobs Pete Jr. was to do. One for a Sharon Durant and the other for Rick Smith.

3. That Pete Kott never asked for a poll or wanted a poll or had any use for a poll. Thus even if Dittman did a poll that was paid for by Allen, Kott was not part of a deal to get a poll, and thus didn't enter into any agreement for the poll. Thus that charge is not proven. They also wanted to show that did not follow Dittman's advice to emphasize Kott's experience and accomplishments for the district.


In cross examination, the prosecutors very politely, but relentlessly exposed inconsistencies.

First about the money. Marsh started by reiterating Peter Jr.'s comment about his deep commitment to doing good work. Then asked whether getting paid a year in advance (for Smith's flooring) wasn't a bit unusual. And you haven't done the job yet? No. And you haven't given the check back? I plan to.

How did it come that he was getting such an advance? Well, he didn't have enough money to not do his regular work much longer while he worked on the campaign, and had told his dad he'd have to get paid or quit so he could pay his family's bills. So Allen wrote this check for an advance on these two projects. [I can accept that perhaps Allen might have advanced money for Smith's flooring, though that is a stretch; I never understood why Allen would be paying for the other person's (Sharon Durant) flooring.]

But then Prosecutor Marsh asked Peter Jr. why he wasn't just paid out of campaign money. There wasn't enough money, well, not enough to pay me, enough for signs, fliers, etc.
Marsh: Would you be surprised to learn the campaign had plenty of money?
And then he went on to show that the campaign had a surplus of over $15,000 and that lots of money had been donated to charity.
Marsh: Who filed the seven day APOC report?
Peter Jr.: I didn't file paper work. I handled grassroots stuff.
M: But you were campaign manager.
PJr: That was not in my scope. My job is to get voters. I'm no accountant.
M: But you run a business...

Basically, the idea that the money was for flooring looked pretty shaky, and with two paid staffers who filed the APOC reports and ordered polls without Peter Jr's knowledge, it was hard to believe he was the campaign manager in the traditional sense. So if he knew about the polls or not really wouldn't matter.

The prosecution also pulled out a campaign brochure that was sent out after the polling data came in that highlighted Kott's experience, as Dittman had advised based on the polling. This attempt to show that the campaign did take Dittman's advice was less convincing, since any incumbent is going to push his experience. But Peter Jr. said he hadn't been involved with the flier, reinforcing the idea that he really wasn't in charge.

The defense seems to me to be picking at minor points to discredit the prosecution's case. And the prosecution is very well prepared each time. Again, as in the Anderson case, the power of the government is pretty awesome. That's a good thing if they are going after real crooks, it is scary if they are going after the wrong people, or people they don't like.

Peter Jr. did spend a fair amount of time, in answer to his defense attorney Wendt's questions, talking about the hardwood flooring business. The different kinds of wood, how the wood takes time to dry sufficiently, kinds of coatings for the wood. I'm not sure what the point was - perhaps to show his mastery of the subject and his love for it. The prosecutors didn't object about him as an expert witness on flooring (as they did about Thomas' status as an expert earlier in the day), and after a while I thought I was listening to an infomercial.

Other people in the court today included: former state legislators Vic Fisher and Andrew Halcro. Fred Dyson was back. Weyhrauch's attorneys were there. Kott family members. A lot of press. And others whom I didn't recognize.

And at one point, prosecutor Marsh was asking a question when someone sneezed, "Later you God bless got three thousand...."

Someone told me that Pete Kott would be a witness. It didn't happen today. We'll see if it happens tomorrow.

Kott Trial Day 10 - The Professor and Pete Jr.

U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska
Court Calendar for Tuesday, September 18, 2007

9:00AM

3:07-CR-00056-01-JWS

JudgeSedwick

Anchorage Courtroom 3

USA vs. PETER KOTT
TRIAL BY JURY - DAY 10

I got into court just before the morning break. (I had some things to do that I'd been putting off and couldn't put off any longer.) Michael Carey caught me up. There'd been a debate among the attorneys about expert witnesses and now on the stand was Dr. Clive Thomas, a political science professor at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau. I know Clive somewhat - he recruited students for legislative internships and he keeps close touch with what is happening in the legislature.

I watched as he and defense showed charts of how a bill becomes law. The point seemed to be that Kott wasn't on any of the important committees and thus couldn't really influence the legislation the way the prosecutors had portrayed. There was something about the testimony that was different from most of the other testimony. Part of it was Dr. Thomas' informality. While he told the attorney, "You can call me Clive," (he called him Mr. Thomas), that informality also came across as a lack of respect to the court. While that lack of deference is not atypical among academics (I say this as one of them), it was very much in contrast to the deference all the other witnesses displayed toward the court. The prosecutor's cross exam made Dr. Thomas seem far less expert than the defense would have liked. Perhaeps the jury can get a college credit or two on American government after the trial.

The second witness, Peter Kott Jr. was a total contrast. This clean cut, nice looking man with what appeared to be Asian features was not the image I had when Pete Jr. had been mentioned in court. He was deferential, spoke easily, and seemed like a thoroughly likable man. He talked about being born at an air force base in Omaha and ending up in Alaska when he was 13. Started college at UAA, about 15 years later is still working on finishing the degree. He got trained by his uncles in Michigan to do hardwood floors and came back to Alaska to start a business that he owns with his Dad.

Pete Jr. was a good move by the defense. He is a stark contrast to the alcohol influenced, profanity laden speech that we've heard in the tapes the prosecution has shown us of Pete Sr. Pete Jr. talked about his family - at 23 he married a woman of 39 with three kids. They have added two more. He named each one and the ages.

He also talked about working on his Dad's campaign in 2006. The key point was that they "Never, never, never used polls, don't believe in them." As campaign manager in 2006 he never asked for a poll, it was never discussed, and he never saw it. The way he testified, I'm sure the jury has no reason to doubt his sincerity.

So what does it all mean? Well, even if Pete Kott had no influence in the legislature to do what Veco wanted, that really doesn't matter. The law, as I understand it, only cares if he took money with the understanding that he would use his position to favor the needs of those paying. Actually doing it doesn't matter. Whether he would have done it anyway doesn't matter. The point is he is already paid to be a legislator and shouldn't be taking money from others to do his job. Or to do special favors.

Pete Jr. softens the image of Pete Sr., but I'm not sure that anything he said affects the facts in the case. I'm sure they'll make the case that since he was the campaign manager and didn't order a poll, that Pete Sr. can't be seen as having asked for the poll. But he also says he was an unpaid campaign manager and that Deborah (the same Deborah that FBI Agent Milne yesterday said Kott lived with in Juneau?) and Jerry Mackie did get paid for working on the campaign. Pete Jr. didn't know how much Mackie got paid, but he thought it was a lot. And we know that Mackie ordered the poll from Dittman. So I don't think this will go anywhere either.

Kott Trial Audio and Video on ADN website

The ADN has gone through the audio and video tapes, organized them, and posted them. I don't think it's everything, but it includes audio from the trial itself. To get a sense of how Veco used the Alaska State legislature, click here.

FBI Wire-Tap Tapes and Videos

I've just looked at the material made available by the Prosecutors through the Anchorage Daily News.. From the couple that I've opened, it looks like this (on first count):

• 46 audio (wma or wav) files dated September 17, 2007. The first two are Kott audio files.
• 14 video (wmv) files dated September 17, 2007.
  
• 38 audio files dated August 24, 2007. The couple I opened are from the Anderson Trial. I assume they all are.
  
• 24 video (wmv) files dated August 24, 2007. These are from the Anderson Trial also I assume.
  
• 25 pdf files dated August 25, 2007. The two I opened are from the Anderson trial

Here's the first audio tape on the list. Kott in Juneau talking to Smith at Riley's Bar in Anchorage. Kott sounds like he's been drinking. Someone named Trotter takes the phone from Smith and Kott tells him he's in Barbados, warden of the prison, and checking out the ladies. He then tells Smith he wants a job. Wants to be a consultant.

FBI tape of Pete Kott 01 uploaded by AKRaven


Here's a video. I couldn't get onto Viddler, so I uploaded it to YouTube, but had to pick a small file. This one isn't anything remarkable. At least the videos have the date and time on them. This is May 9, 2006 in Suite 604 at the Baranof. Rick Smith, Veco VP, is trying to call Pete Kott at 12:21 am. Bill Allen, Veco CEO, walks out of the bathroom.



This is just to give you a sense of what's in here - and what people have been listening to at the trial.

Kott Trial - Three Cheers for the Press

The Anchorage Daily News got copies of all the government's tapes used in the trial - the wire taps and the video from the Baranof Suite 604 - and has emailed the local media how to download them.

Hello news directors/news organizations. This is David Hulen, I'm the assistant managing editor for news at the Anchorage Daily News. After several weeks of trying -- with huge help from John McKay -- we were able today to get from the government all of the exhibits that have been introduced by the prosecution in the Kott trial.

We are the pool for this material and we're making it available via FTP server as we did with similar material during the Anderson trial. Instructions on how to download are below.

A couple notes: The quality of the material is a huge improvement from what you hear in the courtroom or what some of us have been grabbing off the official courtroom recordings. The quality of the video recordings inside Suite 604 is pretty good, too. Here's the hitch: There are no dates on the audio files. I think they're listed by exhibit number, although I havent had time to check that for sure, and I'm not sure the exhibit numbers, if that's what they are, are in sync with what actually was entered into evidence. So you're on your own to figure out what's what. The videos at least have a time stamp.

If I've missed media that would be interested in this material, please let me know and I'll get in touch.

Ray Metcalfe, who was in court today, has been accusing Ben Stevens of ethics violations for years, but no one wanted to listen. This is a giant civics lesson for Alaska. But it's important that we not walk away thinking all politicians are crooks. Rather, that we learn to listen carefully and to distinguish those who are honest and dedicated from those who would sell their office for their own gain. And we need to ask more about the corporations that sprinkle our non-profits with donations. Are they doing the same with our politicians? The testimony in the trial is raising the issue that the big oil companies let Veco do their dirty work here, while ostensibly keeping their hands clean. If it wasn't clear before, it's clear from this trial, that Metcalfe's tenacity is likely to see Stevens' indictment before long.

I'll be checking through some of this material that is now available, but I'm not sure if I have the time to post all or even any of it. But I'm sure it will be widely available soon through other media websites. The Daily News has already been posting portions of the daily audio from the trial. If you haven't heard it, go listen. They've picked some of the highlights.

High school and university teachers!!!! Are you listening? This, and the cd's of the trial itself are great materials for Alaska history, for government, and other classes.

This really is a chance for people to get a real understanding of the facades some politicians put on. People really do hold important bills up if other legislators don't vote their way.

And this is must listening for all legislators. Sitting in court would have been a better way to go, but this is second best.

This is all due to the fact that the Daily News and KTUU hired attorney John McKay to represent them as interested parties in this case to get access to the materials in the case. Thanks for this public service! You can find some of the audio here - in the middle of the page.

Pete Kott Trial Day 9 - Miscellaneous Notes

Things got pretty tedious in court today as the lawyers fished the answers they wanted from the witnesses. My wrist was sore from typing so much Friday i didn't bring my computer so I don't have anything close to verbatim, but the attorneys would tell the facts they wanted the witnesses to say, and end it with, "right?" So, I began to doodle. Than can be dangerous, but with no cameras allowed, and no artists in the courtroom, you'll have to make do with these dubious likenesses. But you can get a little sense of what it felt like.

Above Kott's attorney Wendt is questioning Smith. He got Smith to say that his Veco salary was $165,000 a year. Plus annual bonus. It took a while to get that out, but it was $20-90,000. And then there were special bonuses which Smith said he got seven of the last eight years. Another $20-50,000. Anything else? Well there was severance pay. He got a monthly check until about ten days ago when he got a lump sum $384,000. Oh yes, don't forget the attorney's fee payment - an even $Half Million. If the costs are less, he can keep it. If more, he has to pay himself. He didn't ask about health care or other perks. Or even if he gets a pension.

He also asked Smith about his dealings with the owners of the Buckaroo Club where he got cash for checks for one of the 150 golf tournaments he arranged. He said that he only used them to cash checks for the last tournament of each year. . Wendt asked about whether the Buckaroo owners had warned him about the IRS opinion of this. He said he did it because he enjoyed and to raise money for charities. Sometimes there was extra money, sometimes he was behind. I'm not totally sure about the relevance to the trial, but perhaps it was part of his questioning about the many charges that apparantly were dropped in exchange for his testimony. Or just to raise questions with the jury. The prosecutors did protest a few times that Wendt was asking Smith questions that weren't related to the original testimony and the judge said that he understood that, but would give Wendt some leeway so he didn't have to call Smith in as a witness for the defense.



Judge Sedwick continues to appear very patient and even-handed. He makes practical decisions that seemed at getting the proceedings moving along. He even has suggested to the attorneys how to word questions to get at what they wanted to get at without having objections.


The prosecution used Dave Dittman to pin down the payment of the poll he did for Kott, that it was ordered by Jerry Mackie and he was told to bill it to Veco. And Dittman did that without calling Allen to check. And he also testified that he talked to Kott about the numbers and what they meant and what he should do with the information (Stress your experience in the legislature, point out all the school improvements you brought to Eagle River.)

Meg Simonian introduced herself to Dittman as "one of Pete Kott's attorneys." I had wondered earlier why Wendt introduced himself to witnesses as "I'm Pete Kott's attorney." Did he catch her phrasing? She also started by saying, "We haven't met before this, correct?" And "You didn't want to meet with me did you?" And Dittman confirmed this. I have to find out exactly what the rules are on that. If the defense hadn't talked to the prosecution's witnesses, then it makes their questioning a lot more difficult and explains why they tried lots of different approaches and sometimes lost points because of the answers. The picture shows the basic view I had, with the attorney's mic cutting through my view of the witness. I did a lot better on the likenesses of those you see from behind. But, given no one else seemed to be drawing in the courtroom, these are probably the best pictures there are of today.

State Senator Fred Dyson has been in court a few times. Bill Allen was in his truck when Dyson pulled over and told him there were some people he needed to talk to. That was when Allen first talked to the FBI. He was sitting behind me today and during the break I asked him if this was all stuff he already knew or not. He said he suspected a lot, but this was all very enlightening. I asked him why there weren't other legislators there. He said Hollis French and Gary Therriault had been. He agreed with my thought that this was a far more effective ethics training course than what the legislature got last January. He mused how easy it would be for a legislature to have a Bill Allen in the office, someone he's known for a long time and with whom he agrees with on many issues, to offer some work to him. He related how one businessman had talked to him about some issue and Dyson had been sympathetic and the guy was so happy that someone didn't just blow him off. As he left he asked how he could contribute to his campaign. Dyson said he had to tell him, that he couldn't do that way.




The court room is pretty full of journalists these days, so all the other basics will be available at other sources. I'm sure you can hear on APRN, Channel 2 or 11, or read in the Anchorage Daily News.

Pete Kott Trial Day 9

U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska
Court Calendar for Monday, September 17, 2007

---

9:00 AM	3:07-CR-00056-01-JWS	Judge Sedwick	Anchorage Courtroom 3
USA vs. PETER KOTT TRIAL BY JURY - DAY 9

Quick Summary:

A few interesting things came up, but nothing spectacular came up as the Prosecutors were trying to dot all the i's and cross all the t's in their case - showing each invoice and check
that would show Kott received something of value from Veco - and the defense trying to show that the government was stretching to try to make their flimsy case.

Witnesses:

Rick Smith - defense finished cross examination including questions about his Veco salary, severance and legal fee payments (more next post), prosecution did its redirect
Linda Croft - an administrative employee at Veco who also handles Bill Allen's personal checking account to confirm invoices (and lack of) on the flooring bills paid to Kott and who wrote and signed the checks.
David Dittman - Of Dittman Research to ask about poll conducted for Kott and who ordered and paid for it. (more next post)
Jennifer Ferguson - A manager at Key Bank to confirm the dates the flooring check was written and deposited and who cashed them (Kott Flooring.)
Bruce Milne - Fairbanks FBI agent who first notified Kott about the tapes and did the first interview with him in his home in Juneau.
Brooks Miles - Executive Director of the Alaska Public Offices Commission who confirmed that it was illegal (at the time being investigated -Jan 1, 2005 - Dec. 31, 2007) for corporations to contribute 'something of value' to political candidates and that polls were specifically mentioned as 'something of value.' (I don't often use pictures I didn't take myself, but when I saw this on the APOC site my reaction was, "Wow, she sure didn't look like that today." She had light yellow hair falling around and framing her face today.)

At the end of the testimony, about 4pm, the defense asked for a Rule 29 Judgment for acquittal on all accounts on the grounds that no reasonable jury could find Kott guilty based on the evidence. The prosecution argued briefly against this. The judge denied the Rule 29 judgment.

At the most crowded there were about 40 spectators in the courtroom. In the afternoon there was a contingent of judges from the Russian Far East in to observe a US courtroom.

Termination Dust

Termination dust in Anchorage refers to the first snow on the mountains. It signals the termination of summer. But we did manage to enjoy the 60's temperature and warm sun. But the first leaves are starting to drop and the mornings are cooler. Our neighbor Chris said the snow was there Thursday already.

Yes it would be prettier without the streetlight, but this is reality.

Pete Kott Trial - The Underlying Stories Part 2

I started this thread in an earlier post, where I pondered the underlying stories of the trial. I identified just three different sources of underlying stories.

Story 1: How the attorneys tell their stories.
Story 2: How the press tell their stories.
Story 3: The stories of our culture, indeed of humanity, that the trial reveals.

Of course there are hundreds of other stories - each of the jurors will find a number of stories in the proceedings. And the Clerk and others who have to get the court room ready, post the calendar and all the items in the docket, each have very different stories of the trial than I'm identifying. But I can only speculate on a couple here.

I started sketching out the attorneys' stories in the earlier post

I'm still thinking about the press stories. Are bloggers members of the press? Well, the security guards allowed my computer into the courtroom with the other press computers yesterday. But I'll save these stories for a later post.

Right now I'd like to muse about the cultural stories that arise in this trial.

First, I would note that the main character in the trial so far has been Bill Allen. Pete Kott has said very little since the first day when the jury pool assembled and Kott stood up with the attorneys and introduced himself as "Pete Kott, the defendant." Since then he's been a quiet shadow sitting between his attorneys. Witness Rick Smith has a supporting role to Bill Allen. So let me try on this story as an interpretation of some of what is happening here in court.

We have a clash of two different cultures - a pre-modern, tribal world and a modern, legal world. In Bill Allen's world, as I tease it out of his words and behaviors, power and family are the main values. Loyalty is a second, but lower value. The law, the government, the legislature in particular are seen as either obstacles to be overcome or tools to get what you want. Allen is clearly an intelligent man. Coming from a poor family, as he told the story, where he and his family survived as 'pickers' of fruit and vegetables in Oregon, he often missed school to pick. He finally dropped out at 15 to earn money as an assistant welder. He has used his wits, his ability to work hard, and his ability to size up people, to create a business that earned between $750 million and $1 billion last year, according to his testimony.

In the world he described, good and bad referred to how something would affect his business. Good legislation was legislation that would benefit - directly or indirectly - Veco's prospects. Good people were those who supported Allen and Veco. Money was a sign of power. And with money, this high school drop-out could show his power over the better educated. He could buy legislators. He paid Tom Anderson to be a consultant who did, apparently, very little for his monthly check. He paid for political polls for state legislative candidates. He handed out checks to legislators. They had audiences with Allen in the Baranof Hotel's Suite 604. But symbolically, he could really show his power by building the addition to Ted Stevens' house and by hiring Ted Stevens' son for $4000 a month to do "not a lot." The most senior Republican U.S. Senator was beholden to him. Surely, that's a sign of power. He even bought a newspaper - The Anchorage Times. So all these educated people worked for him - a high school drop out who'd picked fruit as a child.

Earlier in the trial, I'd thought perhaps loyalty was the main virtue in this world - the loyalty of the Pete Kotts. The loyalty of his Veco employees. He said he trusted Kott as a friend who would do whatever it took to support him. He told the court he'd put aside $10 million when Veco was sold, to support the loyal employees who'd worked for the company and made it what it was - not the executives, but the workers.

But then I looked at the situation before me. Allen was the government's witness against his most loyal servant, Pete Kott. We've watched this tribal culture on HBO - in the Sopranos and in Rome. We see it in the car bombs of Baghdad. We even see it in the White House where the rule of law is trumped by the raw use of power, and the redacting of significant parts of the Constitution. If the rule of law has any meaning in this culture, it is might makes right. And when the FBI confronted Allen with hundreds of hours of secretly recorded audio and video tapes, he saw that their army of investigators and attorneys had more juice than Veco. In this conflict of power, the FBI had him by the balls, a graphic image that would say it all in Allen's world And to protect the ultimate core of a tribal culture, his family, he abandoned Kott and the others, to keep his family out of prison.

This is not an immoral man. Rather this is a man who lives by a different code of right and wrong from the one that now judges him. Family and power come first. Loyalty to underlings comes next. He told the court he didn't expect anything from the Government for his testimony. He recognized their power, and in their place he would not treat his vanquished with 'fairness'. But he also had his own pride - in the powerful company he built by his own hands and wit, in his own hard work - and as he told Kott's attorney, "I won't beg" the government to lower his sentence. He'll take what comes as a man. He's protected his family, whatever else happens, happens.

This man who ruled by the pre-modern values of power and personal loyalty is put on trial by the rules of a modern state, where rationality, not personality count. Where merit, not loyalty and personal connections, is the standard. (A merit generally prefers college degrees to dirty fingernails.) His behaviors are judged, not by power, but by laws. The kind of laws he paid legislators to write in his favor and that he ignored when they were in the way.

I think it is important to recognize the good qualities in Allen. This is a man who, it would appear, was raised in a culture where poverty was bad and thus money was good. No one was there to help him, he had to help himself. The modern, civilized world failed him. It forced him to work as a child. The school system didn't work for him. The idea of rule of law wasn't, apparently, one he learned from his family and he wasn't in school enough to get it there. With what he had, he build a large corporation which gave him the power to take care of his family. He played well by the rules of tribal culture.

And lest those of us who believe in the rule of law get too smug, tribal instincts are alive and well under the veneer of civilization we wear. We see it flare up in divorce courts, at football stadiums an boxing matches, among hunters and fishers. It's part of our humanity. We're still learning how to balance the tension between protecting our own and helping others, between the freedom of the individual and the good of the larger community.

Mushroom Pictures

Biking home from the trial yesterday, I took the longer way home around Goose Lake. We've had a lot of rain recently and the mushrooms were out. I can't find my mushroom field guide, so I'm going to post without trying to figure out what they are. Anyone who knows, please leave a comment.

Here's a mushroom eye view of the woods.

There were a lot of these brown mushrooms with a cream trim

And these little tiny ones popping up through the moss.

And these were somewhat bigger. You can see the relative size by looking at the moss.

This russet colored one from the top and then from the side.

These scattered clusters of mushrooms are what first caught my eye.

Pete Kott Trial - The Underlying Stories

Having my laptop in court yesterday, meant I could take almost (emphasis on almost) verbatim notes. But six hours of lawyers pulling words out of witnesses mouths is pretty tedious. So how does one tell this story? Or maybe more accurately, which stories should one tell?

Story 1: How the attorneys tell their stories.

The main story is the story of the defendant. The government is trying to show the jury the story of how Pete Kott got payments for his work as a legislator. From the approximately 9500 monitored phone calls six months of video (according to Agent Dunphy) they have culled less than 25 for the jurors to hear the words of Pete Kott, Bill Allen, and Rick Smith (mainly) talk about Kott "doing whatever it takes" to get the Petroleum Profits Tax bill passed at the 20/20 (20% tax and 20% credits for investing) level and to push the gas pipeline. Both of these would ensure continued business for Allen's oil service supply company, Veco. In exchange we hear that Kott received political polls paid for by Veco. Kott gets an extra $7,000 (over the $12,000 fee) for refinishing the hardwood floors in Allen's house. And he gets the promise of a good job when he leaves the legislature.

All this has to be woven together from the bits and pieces of audio and video tape, invoices, checks, phone records, etc.

Monday, Kott's attorneys will begin in earnest to take the same facts and show how they mean something totally different. They've given hints in the cross-examination. Kott has simply been doing his job to represent his constituents by promoting the economy of Alaska by strongly promoting legislation that he believes will be a great benefit to all Alaskans. Yes, he's good friends with the Veco executives. All candidates work to support their political allies' causes and get campaign donations because they have the same political beliefs. But when Kott disagrees on issues with Veco, he votes his own way.

Then there are the stories the attorneys tell when the jury is out of the courtroom. These are the stories they use to convince the judge to grant them the use of some evidence or to prevent the opposing attorney from using some tactic. These stories that help build the professional biographies of the attorneys and the judges.

Story 2: How the press tell their stories.

Story 3: The stories of our culture, indeed of humanity, that the trial reveals.

I'll work on Stories 2 and 3 in later posts.

Pete Kott Trial Day 8 - Rest of the Morning

U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska
Court Calendar for Friday, September 14, 2007
Current as of 09/14/2007 at 12:00 PM


9:00 AM 3:07-CR-00056-01-JWS Judge Sedwick Anchorage Courtroom 3
USA vs. PETER KOTT
TRIAL BY JURY - DAY 8



The rest of the morning was not quite as exciting as the Bill Allen's testimony. Summary:

1. Discussion among attorneys and judge whether the Government could ask Rick Smith what Pete Kott understood things to mean. Criteria the judge cited from other cases were
a. has to be helpful to the jury.
b. Should not allow to interpret clear statements as opposed to statements given in code.
2. Witness Karla Schofield - deputy director of Legislative Affairs testifying about a travel reimbursement Kott turned in about travel to DC for an Energy Council meeting in March 2006 (I think, could have been 2005). It wasn't totally clear where this was leading, though the discussion before was about his trip to DC to meet with Marathon Oil people on behave of Veco. So if that was the same trip, maybe that is relevance. I still want to know who paid for his trip to the Don Young Pig Roast. I guess if the state had paid for that they would have brought it up.
3. Witness Richard L. Smith, VP for Veco. Nothing popped out at me during the testimony, though it was basically pushing toward whether Veco promised Kott a job in return for doing Veco's work in getting the PPT and gas pipeline through the legislature.

Below are my notes as I took in the courtroom. It was easier to keep up when Allen was testifying because there were long pauses and he talked slowly. But the rest of the morning people responded much more quickly. I tried to keep the actual language as much as possible, but sometimes I had to skip along, shorten, etc. just to keep up with what was going on. Sometimes I had several A(nswer)s without any Q(uestion)s, which indicates there were questions and I tried to incorporate the questions into the answers. So this is pretty rough, but will give a reasonable idea of what when on in the court this morning, for anyone who wants more details.




10:40am

Simonian (Kott Attorney): It appears Rick Smith is going to testify. Pivotal is conversation where Pete Kott says “We need to get Marathon Oil”.
Judge: Let me rule first, then I’ll hear it. Haven’t had time for written ruling. But looked at cases. Concern will ask Smith to give his interpretation of tapes. Decision: It appears there’s no dispute. Correct: Smith can testify to what he heard or saw. Can testify what actions he took. Cannot testify what other understood. Leaves: Can he testify what he understood them to mean? Citing cases. Some cases say yes, others say no. Has to be rationally based on perception of witness - not expert. Also has to be helpful to the jury. Should not allow to interpret clear statements as opposed to statements given in code.

I conclude must be ruled on 701 and this can’t be done in a vacuum and I’ll hear you both out and give a ruling. Marsh shared the one and said there were others Exhibit 15, March 10 phone RS-PK - where Kott calls from DC to ask for Thurwacker’s number. That’s the basis of the wire fraud count, and the only basis, so critical. On page 3,
PK “we gotta take care of Marathon in this deal..
J: Let me hear from Mr. Marsh what he plans to ask what Mr. Smith understood.
M: Talking about PPT bill.
J: this is pretty obvious
M: But not obvious to juries. Not whether it was relevant to Veco.
J: Just ask him if Veco had a position regarding Marathon.
M: I agree but, Mr. Kott says, this is just a phone call. Smith’s interpretation different.
J: It’s clear, jury can figure it out. Mr. Smith doesn’t need to put words into Kott’s mouth. You can get at it different, but leaves jury to figure it out. That’s m ruling on that particular aspect.

10:53am Ready for jury.

Marsh: Govt calls
Swearing in Witness
Name: Karla Jayne Schofield - Juneau
Marsh: Tell us about yourself.
A: Grew up in Ketchikan? College outside. deputy director for Legislative Affairs Agency. Worked for State for 30 years. Responsible for bill drafting, teleconferencing, info offices around the state, etc.
Financial duties, oversee the office
Q: relates to travel?
A: I guess, process all the per diem, pay travel submitted by legislators.
Q: Ways sitting members of legislators can have travel paid for by state.
A: Yes, officers have money . Presiding officer or dept chairs and can approve own travel if it’s small amount. Leg Budget and audit and Leg finance committees, etc.
Q: Ex. 112. Do you recognize that document?
Q: What is it?
A: Travel to Washington DC March
Q: You indicated reimbursement to energy council? You know what that is?
A: Several leg go to, this is an annual meeting held in DC
Q: Does document contain about airline trip?
A: Shows between airfare and taxis we reimbursed $1,491 for that portion.
Q: Times he came and went?
A: Has itinerary?
Q: Times plane left?
A: March 9 Alaska Airlines arrived, departed March 11.
Q: Hotel records?
A: For DC and sEattle.
Q: For night or Mach 10 hotel in DC?
A: Yes
A: form shows their itinerary, sometimes asking for travel advance,
Q: form submitted to get money back when they travel. What’s that number?
A: total reimbursement
Q: How approved?
A: Kott chair of legislative council, can approve on travel.

Wendt:
Q: Trip for annual energy council meeting, correct?
A: Yes, several of our legislators attended.
Q: every year?
A: yes
Q: This 2006? No different from others, several others went as well.
A: yes
Q: In paper work, in order?
A: yes appeared to be
Q: complete?
A: yes
Q: also process per diem
A: yes
Q: get per diem in Juneau?
A get daily per diem and if they travel eligible for lodging portion
Q: Kott provide with any phone bills?
A: No he did not?
Q: Legislators allowed to make personal phone calls if they pay for it?
A: Yes.

Witness Excused.

Next Witness Rick Smith. 11:06am - waiting for him to arrive
11:08 Oath
Name: Richard L Smith
Please spell it:
A: Can’t hear it
Judge: Will give you hearing assistance.
Can you hear me?
Smith, 2013 Forrest Park Drive, Anchorage

Marsh: Morning, Can you tell us about where your were born, grew up.
A: Massachusetts, first 16 years lived across the US, father in Air Force
Came to Alaska at 16 in 1961
Education: West high school, several colleges over next few years, no degree.
Q: Employment history.
A: Beside early small jobs. 1964. Worked for AA Railroad on the earthquake. Gandy Master. Labor on railroad, putting ties in, from Anchorage to Whittier, mostly in Portage area.
Lager in 60’s Union Oil company as truck driver in California, Marketing for company. Early 70’s bicycle shop, store manager till late 70s. The distribut?? firm for oil company, eventually owned that. 1989 to Veco on oil spill, logistics management and supply.
Asst. Mangers for log. and supply on Valdez Oil Spill, in office as sales coordinator, salesman, later management sales and marketing. Then promoted to VP govt. affairs.
Q: STill work for Veco?
A: Resigned this spring
Q: point in time when met Bill Allen?
A: Yes, fall of 89
Q: relationship with BA change?
A: Early mid 90s, more time with BA, sales, with Anchorage Times, negotiating the sale of times to ADN.
Q: Started govt relations?
A: probably mid 90s. Bill asked me to help him with those areas, support people who believed in same causes we did.
Q: did your relationship with BA change again in that job?
A: oh yeah, we became best of friends in last 10-12 years, both socially and business.
Q: What did in GR?
A: Helping campaign strategies and fundraising for candidates. Mostly federal and state, little local.
Q: During this time, matters that came before state legs important? why?
A: Yes, Legislation that would affect oil and gas and mining industry, most natural resource extraction industry, we paid attention.
Q: Come to meet members of leg.?
A: yes, lots of them
Q: recall meeting PK?
A: yes, don’t recall the date?
Q: continuing relationship when he became member of legislature?
A yes
Q: Ask about BA? Relationship 92-present day? A: Yes Q: Motorcycle wreck
A: 2001
Q: Any changes after that?
A: Hit his head on pavement without helmet. Caused disconnect between though process and ability to verbalize that. Say, would say meat for fish, sometimes he would catch it. Only major change.
Q: Still today?
A: Yes.
Q: Aware of effort to build Gas pipeline and effect on veco?
A: We were very much for that, what our company does and did, were really for it parties agreed this the right time.
Q Wen BA interested?
A: Early 2000s, economics seemed to come together, raising gas prices, need for gas to re-inject in North slope going done. Perfect storm, first time in history of Alaska, all the entities, govt. admin, legislature, producers starting to see they could get together and do something to cause pipeline to be built.
A: around 2001-2002
Q: What steps Veco take?
A: decided to get proactive, now might be the time to introduce legislation that would get the project moving forward, bring parties together to discuss. Created piece of legislation that would resurrect old legislation to allow natural gas pipeline to be started.
Bill: Stranded Gas Act. We went to PK asked him if he could support a bill of this nature and move it along, he said yes. HB 519
Q: 2005-6 Veco still pushing?
A: yes
Q: One or more than one?
A: 2005 or so, numerous talks, admin entertained, Murkowski entertaining proposals to build a natural gas pipeline, other entities, North Slope producers, three majors, talking with admin, trying to make pipeline go forward.
Q: who were the three?
A: Exxon, Conoco, BP
A: Fall 05 apparent that Gov M. working to have something to deliver to 06 legislature
A: Hopeful it would make it in 05, but didn’t.
Q: Become aware of PPT sometime?
A: Yes, sometime during that 05 06 course of events, negotiations focused on admin and three producers. 3 concerned with fiscal certainty and some definition in legislation that would provide for tax structure on oil and gas that would give them a long term look on what costs would be on this project. When hit legislature when gov. introduced it called PPT
A: Working economics of massive project. Their contention, without a stable tax structure, they couldn’t work out costs over long term.
Q: What relationship did that legislation have to Nat. Gas Pipeline?
A: Put forward, without PPT, there would be no project agreed upon for NGP.
Q: You understood PPT nec before GP?
A: Very definitely.
Q: What steps did you take to push PPT?
A: Once we realized producers wanted that in place before NGP, we supported that position. Was Governors and Producers position.
Q: How PPT structured? How change the rtes?
A: General idea, I can’t explain details. Establish tax rate on oil and a credit rate on new development and capital investment on North Slope. Tax credit rate to promote more development for enhanced recovery on NSlope?
Q: Gov and producers agree on specific numbers?
A: As I understand it, last minute they agreed on 20%tax and 20%credit?
A: Yes we supported that, because producers were our clients. We felt it was a major increase over previous tax. Surprised they agreed.
Q: What do you mean, your clients?
A: We work for them on N. Slope?
Q: What does Veco do for them?
A: maintenance, handle equip, new construction, build modules, ship and install them, engineering design work...
Q: If pipeline build and PPT passed, more work for Veco?
A: Yes, even if not direct contract work, expand work to be done, very hopeful to get work?
Q: Contact with legislators to promote NGP? PPT?
A: Yes we did, push 20/20?
Q: Think need to push legislature to get 20/20 passed?
A: Yes
Q: Any House member that planned to rely on to get it thru?
A: Very definitely. Used Pete in a lot of those ways, he was very significant. Carried our water whenever we needed him.
Object to leading.
Allow now, but be careful.
Q: Mr. S: tell us more about how by 2005 and spring 2006 your relationship with kott.
A: Good friends, were for many years, still was. spent a lot of time with him in Anchorage, Juneau, on the phone.
Q: What things talked about?
A: Person things, and what was happening in L., developing NGP bill, politics of the state to make gas pipeline happen.
Q Go to Juneau fair amount?
A: To visit with legislators, our lobbyists, other industry lobbyists, other folks had same interest in developing pipeline
A: Stayed in Baranof Hotel, Yes, had room we kept on monthly basis. Room 604.
A: Yes we had meetings and gatherings in 604.
Yes (kott had been in 604 prior to 2005
Q: 2006 session, anyone in state senate you relied on to push 20/20?
A: Ben Stevens and John Cowdery.
Q: 9/05 - 8/06 were you aware of wiretap on your cell phone?
A: No
Q: Jan - Aug 2006 know FBI had audio and video bug in 604?
A: No
Q: Phone call you had with Kott Sept 26, 2005, recall?
A: Can’t pin the date down, had a little look at it I could probably tell.
transcript on overhead
Wendt: Object to transcript being displayed, shown to witness to refresh his memory.
Judge: ok
Transcript down.
Q: remember discussing prospect of job with PK?
A: Yes
Q: did PK ask you for a job? A You got it.
Q: prior to 2006 how you involved with job for PK?
A: We’d talked for several years, both BA and myself, and Bill had made a commitment after PK’s tenure quit or wasn't’ reelected, we’d have work for him.
Could have been with Veco, or ...elsewhere
He reminded me he needed a job, his job to get pipeline through
Q: recall asking PK what are you going to do in this conversation?
pause. yeah. I do remember that?
Q: Chris Knaus?
A: Worked for Murkowski admin, prior on PK staff
Q: After talking about Kott’s job, why start talking about Chris Knauss.
A: Pete repeated he wanted to be a lobbyist, talked about Chris being a lobbyist. He made light of Chris abilities, I said he was good. If Pete jealous, Chris already employed and he (Kott) was on the outside of Veco at that point.
Q: That time period ever hear PK reference Barbados
A: Oh yes, standing joke.
Q: Did Veco have project in B?
A: Yes, Fuel handling and storage systems. Fairly significant for Barbados. A year in negotiations to build a new prison for Barbados. Bill and myself had talked to Pete about that, an ongoing potential project.
Q: Ever refer to wanting work in Barbados. Think he was serious?
A: No, we couldn’t even fill that kind of position?
Q: Why do you think he brought that up?
Objections
Sustained
Q: Every hear PK reference Barbados in relationship to legislation?
A: I don’t recall.
Pause
Jury watching intently
Q: Ask about Gabrielle LeDoux
A: State rep from Kodiak
Q: 2005 concerned she might not support position?
A: yes
Q: conversations with Kott to get her on board
A: many times, felt PK had best relationship in legislature with Rep LeDoux, felt he could get it done.
Q: Felt you needed her support?
A: Not sure.
A: Yes he did (talk to her to get her online)
Q: As 2006 leg session started did you come to learn PPT going to be introduced? When
A: yes, late January.
A: at last minute producers agreed, we wanted to get it passed
A: very concerned, when go in with your best offer to 60 people let them put their fingerprints on it, very hard to hold it, Very concerned.
Q: 3/4/06 [11:52am] Come back soon Feb. 2006, conversations with PK about PPT?
A: Yes. A: how we would hold 20/20 provision together in legislature
A; Yes [asked Kott to do things]
About to start different subject, should we recess?
Yes.

Kott Trial Day 8 - Ben Stevens paid $200K for "Not a lot"

In addition to telling the court he paid for contractors who worked on Ted Stevens' Girdwood house for a couple of months, ex-CEO of Veco said he paid Ben Stevens for "Not a Lot" under cross examination. Here are my rough notes from the court room which is now on break. I'm going back in now.

Q: We’ve already talked about payments to Ben Stevens - as much as $200,000?
A: Can’t count time before he was in the senate. How long was he in the Senate?
Q: Do you know?
A: .....4 years.
Q: During that time did you pay him $200,000?\
A: $4000 a month.: Some questions about Ben Stevens, what did he do for Veco?
A: Not a lot. But I did talk to him about a marina in Sakhalin Island. Ben really good about ships. He was gonna go over with me. About the time, the valley trash stuff happened and he was battling that. And when he was done, I couldn’t go. I did do a little bit with him about the marian.
Q: Is it fair to say most of what he did was work on the pipeline.
A: Yes, I talked a lot to him about that. He studied PPT a lot. People would ask him about it. Cause Ben, he studied and a lot of those guys , a lot of your legislators, really didn’t study PPT and the gas pipeline, but he did.

Kott Trial Day 8- Veco Paid for Stevens Girdwood House Contractors

In this morning's testimony, former Veco CEO testified that he paid for Veco employees to work on Stevens Girdwood house for about a couple of months.

I had my laptop in the court today and here is my rough transcript of that exchange:

Q: One allegation, you helped Sen. Ted Stevens remodel his Girdwood house. You and Veco paid a number of bills for remodeling that house. Isn’t that correct?
A: You know, if you say material. I gave Ted some old furniture, but I don’t think a lot of material, some labor.
Q: So you paid some labor bills for Stevens house.
A: Yes.
Q: For contractors working on the house?
A: For Veco Employees?
Q: How many involved?
A: I don’t know, I didn’t see it ...I had to run Veco. Probably 1-4?
Q: For how long? Weeks or Months?
A: Probably a couple of months?
Q: In addition to supplying Veco employees working, did you supply any other assistance?
A: I told you about old furniture. That’s all I can, you know, remember. Uh...I hadn’t, I went by maybe a month or two, to see what they were doing. Most I was gone.
Q: You would go by every month or two to check?
A: yes.
Q: How long to complete from beginning to end? 6 months, a year?
A: I don’t know. Probably, maybe as much as six months.
Q: We’ve already talked about payments to Ben Stevens - as much as $200,000?
A: Can’t count time before he was in the senate. How long was he in the Senate?
Q: Do you know?
A: .....4 years.
Q: During that time did you pay him $200,000?\
A: $4000 a month.

Peter Kott Trial - On at 9am

According to Judge Sedwick's case manager, Robin Carter, the Kott case is on at 9am. She also said the computer system had crashed at 2am and they were still working on getting them back up.

Pete Kott Trial - Gone Missing?

A quick check of the Court Schedule for Friday, September 14, 2007 doesn't show USA v Peter Kott. Is this an oversight or did something happen? I missed court today, but news coverage all said there'd be more today. Nor is USA v. Peter Kott scheduled Monday as of 09/14/2007 at 1:00 AM.

U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska
Court Calendar for Friday, September 14, 2007
Current as of 09/14/2007 at 0:30 AM

---

8:30 AM	3:07-CR-00068-RRB	Judge Beistline	Anchorage Courtroom 2
USA vs. JOSEPH LEOPOLDO-PIMENTEL AKA STATUS CONFERENCE
8:30 AM	3:99-CR-00147-04-JWS	Judge Sedwick	Anchorage Courtroom 3
USA vs. ROBYN MEECE ADMISSION AND DISPOSITION HEARING ON PETITION TO REVOKE
9:30 AM	3:01-CR-00118-RRB	Judge Beistline	Anchorage Courtroom 2
USA vs. KATESHA LASHON BROWN STATUS HEARING
10:00 AM	3:06-CR-00041-17-RRB	Judge Beistline	Anchorage Courtroom 2
USA vs. YIN TAK MIN PROPOSED CHANGE OF PLEA HEARING
11:00 AM	3:06-CR-00041-08-RRB	Judge Beistline	Anchorage Courtroom 2
USA vs. JUSTIN KILLIAN PROPOSED CHANGE OF PLEA HEARING
1:15 PM	3:06-CR-00041-RRB	Judge Beistline	Anchorage Courtroom 2
USA vs. THOMAS RANES FINAL PRETRIAL CONFERENCE
2:30 PM	3:07-CR-00088-RRB	Judge Beistline	Anchorage Courtroom 2
USA vs. STEVEN ALLEN LANDERS HEARING ON MOTION TO CONTINUE TRIAL / SCHEDULING CONFERENCE
3:00 PM	3:06-CR-00041-01-RRB	Judge Beistline	Anchorage Courtroom 2
USA vs. JOSHUA S. MURPHY PROPOSED CHANGE OF PLEA
3:30 PM	4:07-CR-00013-01-RRB	Judge Beistline	Fairbanks Courtroom 1
USA vs. CHRISTOPHER SMITH STATUS CONFERENCE

Pete Kott Trial Day 6 PM - Don't Forget Your Helmet

This afternoon we heard from Bill Allen, the former CEO of the company that was known as Veco. Under Government questioning he told about his life. This could have been an Alaska oral history project. Allen was born in New Mexico in 1937, family moved to Oregon where they picked crops, and then back to New Mexico. He dropped out of high school at 15 and got a job in the oil fields as an assistant welder for El Paso Natural Gas. "I thought I'd died and gone to heaven."

I should say here that before he began this tale, Prosecutor Goeke asked him about an accident. He was in a motorcycle accident in 2001 without a helmet and hit his head on the pavement. He has images, but sometimes has trouble finding the words to convey what he's thinking. It was emphasized that his thinking is not impaired, only his speech. And it was slow and deliberate as he sometimes paused waiting for the word to come to him - long pauses. This explained some of the long, long (15-20 seconds) on the telephone tapes.

Anyway, he had his first test (welding I think) at 17 and was a welder foreman at 21 and a supervisor at 24 or 25. I don't have time tonight to go into all the details, but he made it to Alaska where he worked on Cook Inlet oil platform named King Salmon in 1968. Arco asked him to form his own company which got joined with a similar one owned by Wayne Veltri and the beginings of Veco were formed.

OK, this is not going to get to deep today. Tonight is Erev (the eve of) Rosh Hashona and we have people over for dinner and then we go to synagogue. Tomorrow I will again miss the trial , this time to observe Rosh Hashona.

I think the key points will be available at the Anchorage Daily News, and I'll get blogging again tomorrow night. But it is interesting to see the effect of education here, or rather limited education. At the Anderson trial, most of the key players had at least a college degree. They at least talked about right and wrong. There was some profanity, but not too much. Here, the focus is strictly on getting things done so I can get what I need for my company to get business or for me to get a job. The 'fuck's are frequent in the conversation. And there is no discussion at all about the public interest, the public good. The legislature is just an obstacle to be overcome and has no real legitimate role. At least it hasn't been mentioned or talked about. Of course, one can argue that those with education should be held to a higher standard and I don't have a response to that.

Anyway, people are here and I have to quit. Happy New Year to all.

Peter Kott Trial Day 6 - noon report

I got into the courtroom about 9:20am, while the jury was listening to a tape.

Overview of morning (from 9:20am-11:45am)

1. Listening to tapes Exhibits 56-62
2. Cross examination of FBI Agent Steve J. Dunphy who verified that the CD's placed in evidence were accurate copies of the original.
3. Some discussion among attorneys and the judge about how the defense could cross examine Dunphy and the possibility of their bringing in other audio evidence

The Tapes

While I was in the court they listened to Exhibits 56-62

Topics covered:

1. Polling data for Kott election campaign, how he was doing (not well) and Allen and Smith getting polls done for him by Dittman Research

2. Hardwood floor installation by Kott at Allen's house and the payment for that work - $19,993

3. Allen and Smith concerned about helping Kott get work for Kott's son

4. The reaction of the oil companies to the legislature's not going along with the Governor's gas pipeline bill and PPT legislation

5. Kott flying to Anchorage for an afternoon/evening (then returning to Juneau) so he can attend Don Young's pig roast and get a campaign picture of himself with Don Young (did he he get reimbursed by the state for that trip? That wasn't mentioned)

6. Going to Florida or Barbados to work as a prison warden and play with the pretty women

The conversations were from three tapped phones: Allen's home and cell and Smith's cell.

The conversations were between end of July and August 30. Other important events then were the state legislature's special session which was in July and August 2007. Also the Alaska primary elections were August 22. So the last tape - on August 30 was after Kott had lost his Republican primary reelection bid. In that tape Bill Allen asks him if he is ok. It also sounds like Allen now knows his phone is tapped. He asks Kott questions about how he got reimbursed :

Bill Allen: Did Rick get it done for you?

Peter Kott: Yeah.

BA: How'd he do it? Can you tell me?

PK: Laughing. Shit, what we talked about with you 4-5 weeks ago - add an extra to your bill or something.

The trial should be starting back now. I'll try to report more later.

Sunny Day in Juneau

DELTA Meeting in Juneau, Alaska

I'm here in Juneau for a steering committee meeting for DELTA, a Center for Disease Control (CDC) funded project to do an assessment of the needs and resources in Alaska for Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) prevention and to develop a state plan. I've posted on two previous meetings here and here. We've met a couple of times as a steering committee already. We now have an initial draft of the needs and resources assessment. There really is relatively little good data for evaluating much more than the actual incidence of intimate partner violence - and what we have there is a low count, data on people who report incidents.

A key problem is confidentiality. In small Alaskan villages just a couple of pieces of demographic data can identify someone, so attempts to get enough data to develop correlations between violence and other factors is very difficult.

Another issue we discussed and have discussed before is the dividing line between prevention and intervention. CDC money now is focused on prevention, but it seems there is a loosening of the resolve to create absolute separations. Intervention is seen is work done after there is a problem, prevention is work to prevent incidents in the first place. But if you work with children in a family where there was violence is that prevention (keeping the kids from repeating their parents' behaviors) or intervention (working the kids through the traumas they have experienced as witnesses)?

But I'm encouraged (again) by the wide experience, knowledge, and general reasonableness and understanding of the various group members, who represent different levels of prevention work - from the immediate village/urban prevention activities to policy makers and researchers.

Jocelyn was here from Atlanta to see what we were doing and to offer insights from the CDC perspective of what we're doing. According to her, we're well along on our project and that our initiative is impressive. We have to talk to people from the other DELTA project states and see if she tells them the same thing

Baranof Suite 604

Since I'm in Juneau I'm missing the Kott trial. ADN's coverage said that yesterday the jury heard the opening statements.

Kott even says on one of the tapes, "I sold my soul to the devil," Marsh said.

I did stay at the Baranof last night and took this picture of the room number where the tapes were recorded.

Juneau Pictures 2 - Biking to Mendenhall Glacier

Jonathan on the bridge.

Mendenhall Glacier through the spokes.

The path got a little wet part of the way.

Biking through the moss.

Talking to tourists at the Glacier.

Juneau Pictures 1

Sky and his mom walking the rainy night streets when I got in.

We stopped by at the youth center where Michel works.

Then in the International Hostel that Michel manages.

Downtown Juneau, the cruise ships are the biggest buildings in town.

Walking Juneau - this is a house across the street from the Governor's house.

Michel showing me the land he's building his house on.

Fairchild 24G at Anchorage Airport

It was raining in Anchorage when Joan dropped me at the airport. Good prep for Juneau. As I had lots of time, I did some walking around and saw this plane I hadn't looked at carefully before. I've put a picture of the sign for those who are interested in such things. I left it a fairly large file in case you want to click on it and read it. Also, the airport is designed so that on a clear day, Denali (Mt. McKinley to non-Alaskans) is framed exactly in the window at the end of this terminal.

Asiemut - Biking from Mongolia to Calcutta

Last night we got a lot more than we expected. We thought we were going to see a movie about a bike ride from Mongolia to Calcutta, India. We didn't know that the film makers - and bike riders - would also be there.



A delightful young couple from Quebec, they introduced the movie, and then a couple of times in the middle they talked about their trip and used the movie to help illustrate their points. The name - AsieMut - is a combination azimuth (azimut, I think in French) and Asie (Asia in French). It was a fun evening and a reminder that we can do much more than we think we can.

Blog Office

It's September already. Soon this office will have to be closed until spring. But in the meantime, it's my favorite place to work.

Kott Trial Day 3 - Behind the Scenes

After the trial was recessed til Monday, I went up to the clerk's office to see if I could find the ruling about press being able to bring their cell phones past security and to use their computers in the courtroom. I couldn't.

They even leave the lobby with the computers open while the office is closed for lunch. I wasn't able to find the order I was looking for. But the docket is full of motions and orders. It looks like this:





I left this a pretty big file so you could click on it and enlarge it if you actually wanted to read it. There are 18 items on the docket just since September 1. Here are the last few.


And here are the official minutes for today.

I'm going to miss the first two days of the actual trial because I'm going to a meeting in Juneau of the statewide steering committee for the Delta project on preventing intimate partner violence in Alaska. So check out www.adn.com for the latest news of the trial. Lisa Demer is there almost all the time.

Kott Trial Day 3 - Jury seated, Trial Resumes Monday

U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska
Court Calendar for Friday, September 7, 2007

9:00 AM 3:07-CR-00056-01-JWS

Judge Sedwick Anchorage Courtroom 3
USA vs. PETER KOTT
TRIAL BY JURY - DAY 3

I didn't get to the courtroom til 11:15am today. By then there were twelve or thirteen people sitting in the jury seats - just two two men, one African-American, a few who might be Alaska Native or Hispanic or Asian, most white - and twenty five more sitting in the audience. They were selecting the alternates. The basic questions they were answering were about where they lived, jobs, hobbies, bumper stickers, have they written letters to the editor, kids, prior jury duty, education level.

When they were done, each side had two peremptory challenges left. They gave them to the clerk who then showed the opposing attorneys. My notes are confusing here. I think four names were read. Two people sitting in the jury box were excused and two who had just been interviewed as alternates. Of the later two, the older woman with the GED was excused and the truck driver with the Marine Corps stickers was excused. Then three or four more names were picked randomly to fill in the 12 jurors and 4 alternates. A lot of the jury pool had been eliminated before I got there. It appeared to me that woman who said yesterday that shea nd her husband were friends of Ben Stevens was gone.

Then the judge gave an overview to the jury. This is a criminal case brought by the government. The indictment is only a set of charges and does not indicate guily.

Government must prove its case byond a reasonable doubt. Not beyond all possible doubt. The jury must be convinced by the evidence or lack of evidence.

The government has the burden to prove that the defendant is guilty.

The defense has no obligation to prove innocence - they need not present any evidence if they so choose.

There will be opening statements - Monday. These are not evidence, but rather they will describe what evidence they will show and why it is relevant. The government will will direct examine the witnesses, the defense can cross examine, and possibly more.

After the government, the defense may present, but is under no obligation.

Then closing arguments. Again, this is not evidence. Since the government must prove its case, it goes first, then defense, and the government last.

The decision of the jury must be unanimous. You are the sole determinants of the facts. The law will be given by the court, you determine the facts. And only from the evidence given, not from other sources. Don't consider anything heard outside the courtroom. Avoid contact with the news media. If you want to read the sports section, have someone else go through the paper and pull out anything about the trial. The media are doing their job, but it isn't what they think, but what you think that matters. Don't do any other research, all must make their decisions based on the same evidence.

You can judge what the witnesses say based on their ability to see, hear, or know things they talk about, their memory, their manner, their interest in the outcome, whether they contradict themselves or are contradicted by others.

No remark I make should be interpreted as my opinion. If I admonish a lawyer, you should have no prejudice against the lawyer.

Don't worry about the sentence, only whether the defendant is guilty or not. My job is to deal with the sentence.

Don't discuss the case with anyone, even the other jurors, until you begin deliberations.

We'll run from 9am to 4:30pm, with 10-15 minute breaks in the morning and afternoon. We'll break for lunch as close to noon as we can. Jury should be back at 1:15 and we resume at 1:30.

Pay close attention. There is no written transcript. You must rely on your memories. You may take notes, but keep them to yourself until you're in the jury room. You'll leave your notes in the court when you go home. We'll provide paper and pens.

(I'm sure I left some minor details out, and I hope this fairly represents what the judge said.)

Q: I live in Kodiak, can I go home this weekend? A: Yes [My question - who pays for transportation and housing for jurors who have to travel to Anchorage?]
Q: How long will the trial take? A: At longest, til the end of the month. My estimate is two weeks or less.

At 11:50 am the jury was excused til Monday morning.

After the jury left, there was discussion among the attorneys and the judge.

The government is going to provide evidence that Dave Dittman conducted political polls for Kott that were paid for by Bill Allen and/or Rick Smith. The defense wants to present as evidence that Allen and Smith paid Dittman for polls about a number of other candidates they were interested in and this was a legitimate business interest of theirs. They did this as individuals and not as Veco. The government argued this was irrelevant. They are supposed to either resolve this or submit motions.

As best as I could tell, some of the tapes have been 'minimized' which from the discussion, I understood to mean, the recordings were turned off and there are missing portions. There was already a stipulation that FBI agents who did the recording would be available to the defense. But the defense wanted them to be there for six or seven sections so they could explain why the tapes were turned off, what rules they had for what to record or not record. It was suggested by the judge, I think, that the defense was free to call them as witnesses for the defense. Attorney Wendt said he did not want to call the FBI as witnesses. The judge said he couldn't tell the government whom to call as witnesses. They will file motions tonight and tomorrow so the judge can rule before the opening statements on Monday.

The court recessed around 12:20pm until Monday at 9am. After I asked Lisa Demer if the government had said whether they were going to call Bill Allen and Rick Smith of Veco as witnesses. She said, no, they have until 4:30 to file that.

Alaska Action Research Consortium Meeting

I went to a meeting of the Alaska Action Research Consortium today at Akeela House. The group 's sparkplug is Jim Sellers, the director of Akeela House in Anchorage. The intent is to get funding for research that can have an immediate, positive impact on Alaskan social and health problems. He's paired up with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, PIRE, a national research non-profit which helps get expertise and funding to supplement what's available in Alaska. Brian Saylor, one of the participants today said that PIRE was unique among the Outside research institutes that do research in Alaska. The others tend srtip Alaskans of their expertise and understanding of local conditions, and then write up the research as their own. But PIRE's Alaskan partners play an integral role in the work as well as the citations and grant monies.

A number of PIRE's outside researchers were at the meeting. They are up here for an all day Symposium at UAA tomorrow. Below is a description from the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services' website but doesn't seem to be too comprehensive, but it is free to the public from FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 staring at 8am.

“Prevention Research in Alaska: Scientific and Community Experiences in Preventing Youth’s Use of Inhalants & Other Harmful Legal Products.” Hosted by the University of Alaska Anchorage. Sponsored by the Alaska Action Research Consortium. Friday, September 7, 2007 - 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 pm at the UAA Consortium Library, Room 307a. For information contact Kristen Ogilvie via e-mail at kogilvie@pire.org.

Kott Trial Day 2 - Judge Sedwick

Judge Sedwick at 4pm today was still asking jurors questions. He'd started at 9am and this was continued from yesterday morning. And he still was talking in a very patient and understanding voice as though he hadn't been asking the same questions all day. He manages to be respectful of each juror (and each attorney). He is able to translate the legal jargon into understandable prose without it sounding like he is talking down. He even injects humor now and then without diminishing the seriousness of the situation. He sets up fairly complicated hypotheticals - "I have no idea how the jury will vote, but suppose, theoretically, that they vote Kott not guilty of one or two counts, or all counts, and I'm not saying they will or should happen, would your being on the jury impact your relationships with your law enforcement friends?" - that are painstakingly impartial and easy to understand. I'm very impressed with how he runs the court room.

That said, someone had told me that some attorneys don't like to go to Federal Court because the judge plays such a large role in jury selection. And it is taking a long, long time. But since Weyhrauch was split out of this trial, and they agreed not to begin opening arguments until Monday, there should be plenty of time.

Kott Trial Day 2 - Jury Selection, Down to 60 or so

U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska
Court Calendar for Thursday, September 6, 2007




9:00 AM 3:07-CR-00056-JWS
Judge Sedwick Anchorage Courtroom 3
USA vs. PETER KOTT
TRIAL BY JURY - DAY 2

I figured at the pace they did individual jury questioning yesterday, about what they knew about the case (in court without others from the jury pool in the room), that it was going to take at least seven more hours. It was all pretty repetitive and I had another meeting to go to at noon today, so I didn't think I'd miss much.

I got there at 3:30 pm. The observers' seats were packed with jurors. I found a seat in the back next to Lisa Demer, ADN reporter, who was taking notes on her laptop. (Along with cell phones, the recent order also permitted credentialed journalists to bring laptops into the courtroom. The mainstream journalists suggested I print up a business card that identifies me as a blogger. I'll have to decide whether it's worth the hassle. But if the building is wireless I could blog live. I don't even know how to do that on blogger. We'll see.)

I did a quick headcount and figured there were about 60 jurors still there. Later Lisa said the attorneys had said 65 were left. If they are supposed to be representative of Alaskans, it was clearly way overrepresented by women and overweight folks. It looked pretty white as well, but ethnicity is more difficult to determine visually. There were a few African-Americans; others who might have been Asian or Alaska Native or Hispanic.

The judge was asking questions when I got there.

• Is there anyone who has experience with the judicial system? A few people had been involved in court cases or had relatives who had.
• Have you or anyone close to you worked as a lawyer?
• My husband is a lawyer. Q: Can you be impartial? Yes.
  Q: Do any of the attorneys have a question? No.
• Have you or anyone close to you been a legislator in Alaska or another state? Nobody.
• Have you or anyone close to you run for political office?
• An older gentleman had run for sheriff in Eugene, Oregon, in the 60s, but he'd been beaten by a Democrat
• Mom was on the School Board in Rural Alaska. Q: Did you help in her campaign? Well it was in a village. She said, they know me and will vote for me. There was no campaign.
  
• My brother ran for something local, not sure what, lost to Mystrom before he was anybody
• I guess this is a good time to disclose this now. My husband and I are good friends with Ben Stevens. The men fished together in the 70s. Q: Stevens isn't a defendant and won't be a witness, but his name will be mentioned. If the jury were to have a verdict (either guilty or not guilty) that could reflect badly on Stevens, would that affect your relationship with the Stevens family? I don't think so. I could handle it, I would hope he could. Q: Do you have any reservations? More because I have a teenage daughter. Q: Attorneys, any questions? No. She went back to her seat.
  
• Have you or anyone close to you worked for the legislator? Nobody.
• Have you or anyone close to you worked on Kott's campaign? Nobody. (Remember these are people who have already said they haven't been biased by news reports. Many have said they don't know much or anything about the issues, though a fair number knew Ben Stevens' name and that he's been implicated. Getting his jury, if it comes to that, will be even more difficult. But this group was not likely to have people active in politics.)
• Have you or anyone close to you worked in a campaign against Kott? Nobody.
• Have you or anyone close to you been an officer in a political party?
• A younger man got up and started talking about police officers. The judge clarified it as political officers.
• The man who ran for sheriff in Oregon had been an officer in a political party there. Q: What about the Republican party in Alaska? Or maybe you switched parties so you could win? No politics in Alaska.
• Do you hold strong opinions about politicians in general?
• The young man who had family members in the police department came to the mike again. Q: Positive or negative opinions? In between Q: Can you explain? A lot of family members work for government and I want to work for government. I'd be more likely to vote with the government. Q: Because it would affect your father? Maybe. Police and fire fighters in the family. Q: Would this affect your decisions? It would always be in the back of my mind. OK, EXCUSED for jury duty.
• Have you or anyone close to you served as a law enforcement officer?
• There were several people who had or still were in corrections or had relatives in corrections. One had a brother-in-law in corrections in New York state. He talked to him twice a week. Brother-in-law worked with white collar criminals. He himself had been a military police officer and said he wasn't sure he could be impartial. EXCUSED.

It was now 4:37pm and the jury pool was dismissed. It appeared the judge still had more questions for the whole group. There were still about 60 jurors. This still has to be whittled down to 12 plus alternates. After the jurors were gone the judge asked if there was other business to be settled among the attorneys.

Kott's attorneys asked about how many preemptions they still had now that Weyhrauch was not part of the trial. Judge Sedwick said he'd intended to give each defendant 6, but since there was now only one, he'd give Kott 11. Lisa said the government had 6. So, assuming that they don't knock off the same jurors, that still leaves over 40 in the pool.

Then they discussed what the government was going to have in the audio tapes concerning Kott's medication. This had been excluded and yesterday the ADN had published the story that Allen had given Kott two pills at one point and the defense had gotten this excluded. The government said that they had edited out the main discussion of this, but it was referenced in another clip and they didn't think they could edit it out, but that it really was just a passing reference that shouldn't be an issue. There was also something about hats that the government was planning to have. Not clear what that was about.

And then I left.

Kott Trial - Day 1 - Morning Review & Jury Selection

Attorney Doug Pope talking to press after his client Bruce Weyhrauch's case was split from Peter Kott's. When asked when he thought the case would be heard, he said probably 2009.



I checked the court schedule before going to bed and so discovered there was an 8am pre-trial meeting scheduled. The ADN website already had its morning article on the case, saying that the government was appealing the ruling disallowing them to argue that state laws required Kott and Weyhrauch report that they were negotiating for jobs with Veco. It seemed like a pretty important point, so I struggled to get there by 8am. When I did get there ADN reporter Rich Mauer was outside the courtroom as were others. Already, just 15 minutes in, there was a recess as the attorneys were deciding which cards to play.

The government wanted to appeal Judge Sedwick's decision to the 9th Circuit, but only for Weyhrauch. Thus, if the two defendants remained in a single case, the case would have to be postponed. The defendant's attorneys, who had previously asked to split the cases and had their motion rejected, had prepared for a joint case. So what should they do?

Doug Pope, Weyhrauch's attorney argued that there was a 1979 case that set a precedent here. (Sorry, it sounded like Loudrock, but I couldn't figure out the spelling.) If the government were appealing to delay the case, the district judge could just dismiss the case. The government said there were other aspects to the case that were in its favor. Kott's attorney, James Wendt, when asked, said they wanted to continue with their trial, but given the changes and the possible severing of the two cases, needed more time to prepare witness questioning strategy. He requested that if the Kott only trial continued, that the opening arguments not start before Monday, that government reveal if they are going to call Bill Allen and Rick Smith as witnesses, and if they are, when.

Government agreed to those requests, except they said they couldn't predict what day they would appear, if they appeared. The agreed to disclose the witness order. Then there was another recess as the judge went to read the cases.

So this led to waiting around in the Federal Building until the judge was ready. In this picture, KTUU Reporter Bill McAllister is calling in.

And in this picture, there's an unidentified KTUU Cameraperson, Bill Roth of the ADN, Lisa Demer of the ADN, and Michael Carey waiting for the attorneys and defendants to return to the courtroom. I'm a little shy about taking pictures of people without at least their tacit approval. The news folks didn't object and I figure they ought to be on the other side now and then.

I reported the decision to split the cases in an earlier brief post. (There were two public use computers in the Federal Building cafeteria.) There was another break after Weyhrauch's side was taken out of this trial.


Jury selection began around 11:10. The whole jury pool was brought into the courtroom. Those of us still there were asked to move to the front as about 80 jurors came in. There was to be a two part questioning. The judge apologized several times for the lengthiness of the jury selection, but given the extensive publicity in this case, he wanted to be sure none of the jurors was already biased.

So most of the jury, after some explanation and swearing in, was excused back to an early lunch, except for ten. These ten, randomly selected, were individually questioned, without any other jurors in the room, about what they've read or heard about the case and their feelings about the defendant. It took the first ten from 11:30am to 12:30pm. Only seventy left to go. There were only four or five of us in the audience still left and after the first ten, I decided I didn't need to stay longer. At this rate it will be noon tomorrow til they're finished with this part, and will begin the regular jury questioning.

Kott and Weyhrauch Cases Severed

The judge came back into court at 10:30am after reading the cases and decided that the Government could appeal his ruling to the 9th Circuit and that this would require the cases be severed. The Kott case jury selection begins next.

Kott-Weyhrauch Pre-Trial 4 - Sparring over Technical Matters

The government's attorneys have said they now want to split the two cases so they can appeal the judge's ruling not to include the claim that Kott and Weyhrauch were required by state law to disclose that they were negotiating with VECO for jobs.

Weyhrauch had tried to sever the cases before and the government opposed it. Now the government wants them severed so they can appeal the ruling in Weyhrauch's case, but not Kott's. They have lots of other things on Kott.

Weyhrauch's attorney, Doug Pope, argued that a case in the 9th circuit allowed the judge to dismiss charges if he found the Government was using the appeal as a delaying tactic. So things are in recess as the judge reads the related cases.

On another note, I mentioned that John McKay is the attorney for KTUU and the Daily News who are 'interested parties' in the case. One thing he's gotten for them is that journalists can now bring the cell phones past the security.

More later.

Kott/Weyhrauch Pre-Trial 3 - The Charges

[Note: I'm not an attorney. If I get something wrong here and you are an attorney or otherwise know this stuff, please leave a comment to correct it. I'll try to qualify everything as I write. This is all "as I understand it" and as best as I can read my notes.]

From the Case Summary in the Court Computer System (available free in the Clerk's Office 2nd Floor of the Anchorage Federal Building and from the May 3, 2007 indictment)
Count 1: 18:371 Conspiring to commit extortion under color of official right, bribery, and honest services mail and wire fraud. (As I understand this from the Anderson trial, 'color of official right' relates to the defendants having been public officials and thus were doing things in that capacity.)

Count 2: 18:1951(a) and 2 Interference with commerce by extortion induced under color of official right.

[The Summary skips from Count 2 to Count 4. The May 5 Indictment has "(Kott)" written at the end of Count 2 and adds Count 3. Count 3 is the same as Count 2 except a) it has 'Attempted" at the beginning and "(Weyhrauch).

Count 4: 18:666(a)(1)(B) [Some might think Devil worshipers wrote this part of the code] Bribery concerning programs receiving Federal Funds. (I think this refers to grants and other government programs receiving a minimum amount of federal funding. I think in the Anderson trial it was $10,000 - and that was why they kept asking witnesses how much federal funding their agencies received.)

[In the May 5 indictment Count 4 ends with "(Kott)" and Count 5 is identical except "(Weyhrauch)" is at the end.]]

Count 6:18:1343, 1346 an 2. Honest Services Wire Fraud.
Again - Count 6 is for "(Kott)" and Count 7 is for "(Weyhrauch)" in the indictment.


The Indictment Basically covers:

Introductory/Summary Material (P.1-2)

• NAMES OF ALL THE ATTORNEYS
• LIST OF DEFENDANTS AND BRIEF SUMMARY OF CHARGES
  

INDICTMENT (P. 2)

COUNT ONE (P. 2-21)

• General Allegations (pp. 3-4 lists key players/entities in case)
• Peter Kott
• Kott's Hardwood Flooring
• Bruce Weyhrauch
• Company A [clearly VECO]
• Alaska State Legislature (of which Kott and Weyhrauch were members and which had business with Company A)
• Company [A] CEO [Bill Allen]
• Company [A] Vice President [Rick Smith]
• State Senator A [Confirmed this week by Judge Sedwick as Ben Stevens]
• Political Polling company with offices in Anchorage [Some blogs and Wikipedia I assume this is as Dittman Research but I couldn't find a more solid source for this.]
• Suite 604 of a Juneau Hotel [The Baranof] rented by Company A CEO and VP and others.

• Alaska's Intra-State Natural Gas Pipeline (pp. 4-5)

[Discusses the legislative battle over the pipeline and Company A's interest in this.]

• The Conspiracy (pp. 6-7)
• (A) Kott and Weyhrauch "unlawfully obtain[ed] ... money and other property... in agreement for the performance of official acts, in violation of Title 18..."
• (B) 'corruptly solicit ..anything of value ...for KOTT and WEYHRAUCH ... while an agent for the State...an entity that received more than $10,000 in federal funding [the minimum necessary amount under the charge] ...with the intent . . . would each be influence and rewarded ..."
• (C) "to devise...a scheme...to defraud...the State of its intangible right to honest services and for the purpose of executing the scheme . . . to ...transmit . . . writing and sounds . . .in communications in interstate commerce by means of wire...in the US mails in violation of Title 18..."
• Objects of the Conspiracy (pp. 7-8)
• To provide Kott with money and future employment when he left the legislature for legislative favors
• To provide Weyhrauch with money for legislative favors
• For both to use the US mails to carry this out
• Manner and Means of the Conspiracy (pp8-9)
  
• Both (1) 'voting in favor of versions of the PPT [Petroleum Production Tax] bill supported by Company CEO...VP, Company A, and the oil producers
• Both (2) "lobbying other elected public officials to support versions of the PPT bill that [Company A and friends] favored; and"
• Both (3) "offering to assist and help [Company A and friends] by providing official support for the natural gas pipeline legislation and the PPT bill."
• For Kott, additionally, that he got some illegal payments through invoices for flooring work through Kott Hardwood Flooring.
• For Weyhrauch, that he got extra contractual legal work from Company A.
• Overt Acts (pp. 9-21)
• [Each paragraph in the indictment is numbered. As you can see there are 13 pages listing overt acts, starting with paragraph #23 - 75, for over 50. They sound like this:]
• "24. On or about September 26, 2005. . .in discussing the PPT tax issue and the natural gas pipeline legislation KOTT again told COMPANY VP, 'I just want to be the warden in Barbados' to which COMPANY VP replied that he wanted the 'gas pipeline.'"
• "27. On January 10, 2006, in a telephone call, KOTT assured COMPANY CEO that KOTT would deliver the gas pipeline legislation for COMPANY CEO as follows,
  

• KOTT: I'm going to get this fucking gas line done so I can get out of here.
• COMPANY CEO: Get the gas, get the gas.
• KOTT: That's my commitment to you, so...

• "32. On or about March 29, 2006, KOTT met with COMPANY VP and COMPANY CEO in Suite 604 and described how KOTT had attempted to gain everage over another member of the alaska State Legislature by placing a "hold" on a bill that was important to that state legislator, and how KOTT hoped to use that leverage to get support for COMPANY A's preferred version of the PPT tax bill.
  

• "72. On or about July 31, 2006, COMPANY CEO and KOTT discussed how to come up with a "foolproof" plan to get KOTT the additional money."

• COUNT TWO