ADN Story: Fed's Eye [Ted] Stevens' Home Remodel

Someone said the other day that there are so many FBI agents in Anchorage working on the investigations of corruption that they keep bumping into each other.

Today the Anchorage Daily News (ADN) published another episode in the unfolding story - this is the first one that directly names the senior Republican US Senator Ted Stevens. Rich Mauer writes among other things:

How the Girdwood home fits in with the broader investigation, or what possible crimes are being investigated, is not clear. There was a brief, unexplained reference to residential remodeling in the government's statement of facts that accompanied Allen's and Smith's guilty pleas. The sentence, preceded by a listing of a dozen Veco-related enterprises around the world, said: "Veco was not in the business of residential construction or remodeling."

Asked whether that line related to the construction at Stevens' Girdwood home, Persons first said, "I'm sure it does." When pressed, he said he wasn't certain.

Bill Allen and Rick Smith are the two VECO, a key oil-field services company that has made significant political contributions, executives who have confessed to bribery, extortion and other misdeeds that were captured on tape in their Juneau hotel suite last year. One sitting and two very recent state legislators have been indicted and two state senators are mentioned in the indictments as Senators A and B. These are generally assumed to be John Cowdery and Ben Stevens, Ted's son.

Person's is a Stevens friend and neighbor who oversaw the construction while Stevens was in DC.

Augie Paone, owner of Christensen Builders Inc. of Anchorage, said in a recent interview that it was Bill Allen who hired him to complete the framing and most of the interior carpentry at Stevens' home. Before he could send a bill to Stevens for work in progress, he was directed to provide it first to Veco, where someone would examine it for accuracy, he said. When Veco approved the invoice, he would fax it to the Stevenses in Washington, he said.

Paone said that as far as he knew, Stevens and his wife, Catherine, paid his bills themselves. He said he sent at least $100,000 in invoices to the Stevenses in Washington. They paid him from what he said appeared to be a checking account opened for the project. The checks, imprinted with the couple's names, had single- and double-digit serial numbers, he said.

The project involved jacking up the existing one story house and building a new foundation and new first floor and then lowering the original house onto the newly built first floor. But there were problems in the construction.

Paone said he was called in late that summer to rescue the project.

"Bill Allen and some of the Veco boys, some of the Veco guys, were the ones that approached me and wanted to know if I could give them a hand," Paone said. "I did it more as a favor, you know. It's one of those things when somebody is the head, and packs that much power and asks you for a favor, it's kind of hard to say no."

Paone said that by the time he finished his work in late October or early November, he had sent Stevens more than $100,000 in invoices for his own work.

As I mentioned above, up to now we knew that the FBI was investigating VECO, the oil field support company, for bribery and extortion of Alaska legislators. The two top VECO executives have confessed and one sitting and two recent legislators have been indicted. Another former legislator was indicted last fall, but on what seems a separate issue. We also know that two more state senators have been investigated, but not indicted. These indictments are expected soon. One of the two is Ben Stevens, Ted's son.

In September 2005, Rich Mauer wrote

State Sen. Ben Stevens held a secret option to buy into an Alaska seafood company at the same time his powerful father, U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, was creating a special Aleutian Islands fishery that would supply the company with pollock worth millions of dollars a year.

And since Bill Allen, the head of VECO, has confessed to various counts and worked out a deal with the FBI, we can assume that he also may have talked to them about who paid for remodeling Ted's Girdwood house.

And finally, since this is a Republican administration in DC, the skeptics can't say it is a Democratic witch hunt.