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.'