The report was ordered April 2009 by the Emmet G. Sullivan who was the judge in the case. The report, dated November 14, 2011, was written by Henry F. Schuelke III and William Shields and was released today, despite an appeal by one of the prosecutors investigated, Edward Sullivan, to not release it.
I have had enough time to scan the table of contents - 16 pages worth - and and the Summary of Findings, but not much more. Here is the Summary of Findings and below I've uploaded the whole report to Scribd so that I could make it more easily readable here for anyone with time on their hands and/or a burning interest. I'll try to go through it in the next few days.
Executive Summary
The investigation and prosecution of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens were permeated by the systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence which would have independently corroborated Senator Stevens’s defense and his testimony, and seriously damaged the testimony and credibility of the government’s key witness. Months after the trial, when a new team of prosecutors discovered, in short order, some of the exculpatory information that had been withheld, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) moved to set aside the verdict and to dismiss the indictment with prejudice.
The Government recently discovered that a witness interview of Bill Allen took place on April 15, 2008. While no memorandum of interview or agent notes exist for this interview, notes taken by two prosecutors who participated in the April 15 interview reflect that Bill Allen was asked about a note dated October 6, 2002, that was sent from the defendant to Bill Allen. The note was introduced at trial as Government Exhibit 495 and was referred to as the "Torricelli note." The notes of the April 15 interview indicate that Bill Allen said, among other things, in substance and in part, that he (Bill Allen) did not recall talking to Bob Persons regarding giving a bill to the defendant. This statement by Allen during the April 15 interview was inconsistent with Allen's recollection at trial, where he described a conversation with Persons about the Torricelli note. In addition, the April 15 interview notes indicate that Allen estimated that if his workers had performed efficiently, the fair market value of the work his corporation performed on defendant's Girdwood chalet would have been $80,000. Upon the discovery of the interview notes last week, the Government immediately provided a copy to defense counsel.
Defendant Stevens was not informed prior to or during trial of the statements by Bill Allen on April 15, 2008. This information could have been used by the defendant to cross-examine Bill Allen and in arguments to the jury. The Government also acknowledges that the Government's Opposition to Defendant's Motion for a New Trial provided an account of the Government's interviews of Bill Allen that is inaccurate. See Opposition at 42-43 (Dkt. No. 269).
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Case 1:09-mc-00198-EGS Document 84 Filed 03/15/12 Page 49 of 525
Stevens, Motion of the United States to Set Aside the Verdict and Dismiss the Indictment with Prejudice, April 1, 2009, at 1-2 (Dkt. No. 324).
Our investigation revealed that, in addition to the failure to disclose Mr. Allen’s statements on April 15, 2008, that he did not recall speaking with Mr. Persons about Senator Stevens’s requests for bills and that the value of VECO’s work on Senator Steven’s home in Alaska was $80,000 (and not $250,000 as alleged in the indictment), other, significant Brady/Giglio information was intentionally withheld, including the following:
• Mr. Bottini and Mr. Goeke withheld and concealed significant exculpatory information which they obtained from Robert “Rocky” Williams, a prospective government witness, during pre-trial witness preparation interviews in August and September 2008;
• Mr. Bottini and Mr. Goeke withheld and concealed significant impeachment information regarding Mr. Allen, their key witness against Senator Stevens, which was obtained from Bambi Tyree by another federal prosecutor during an unrelated prosecution in July 2004; and
• Mr. Bottini failed to correct materially false testimony given by Mr. Allen during his cross-examination in Stevens which Mr. Bottini knew at the time was false.
The information withheld from the defense would have significantly corroborated the trial testimony of Senator Stevens and Catherine Stevens, his wife, on the central issue in the case, supported defense attempts to expose Mr. Allen’s CYA testimony as a recent fabrication, and provided additional grounds to impeach his credibility and to question the integrity of the prosecution itself. See United States v. Boyd, 55 F.3d 239, 241 (7th Cir. 1995)(“The gravity of the prosecutors' misconduct . . . may support, but it can never compel, an inference that the prosecutors resorted to improper tactics because they were justifiably fearful that without such tactics the defendants might be acquitted.” (citations omitted); United States v. Remington, 191 F.2d 246, 251 (2d Cir. 1951)(“Evidence of efforts to suppress testimony of evidence in any form like the spoilation of documents is affirmative evidence of the weakness of the prosecution's case.”)(footnote omitted).
Sen Ted Stevens Trial Misconduct Report
Since I sat through most of the three trials in Anchorage that led up to the Stevens trial in DC, I have some thoughts about the four prosecutors I witnessed here who are the subject of the report - Joseph W. Bottini, James A. Goeke, Nicholas A. Marsh, and Edward P. Sullivan. The other two, Brenda K. Morris and William M. Welch III, were not involved in the Anchorage cases. I am getting more than the normal number of hits today for my post on Nicholas Marsh's death and also for observations on Mary Beth Kepner, the FBI agent in charge of the investigation.
I am calling on the DOJ to investigate every case that had similar criminal tactics to get a conviction or a plea. Constitutional violations, Due Process violations, can not be tolerated.
ReplyDeleteRobert Rivernider