Bill J. Allen's Statement in Court

I've just gotten back from the Allen and Smith sentencing. I've got lots of notes, but most is probably up on other sites. But let me post first Allen's statement to the Court. [For the rough, rough transcript I typed at the court of the whole session click here.]

Afterward, the judge sentenced him to three years in prison and $750,000. I'll cover that in detail later.

[NOTE: This was from typing as he spoke in court. While he spoke a lot slower than did the attorneys, he also didn't speak loudly. This is the best I could do. Not every word is here, but I don't think I've distorted what he said enough to change the meaning of the effect.]


Bill Allen: I can’t talk fast. I started. . . went to Alaska in 1968, it was good timing, They needed people like me to develop the Cook Inlet. Oil companies wanted me to go in and I did, I went , I was really wanting to do oil pipeline. I didn’t know anything about politics at that time. I could see we weren’t going to get any pipeline.

Boom in North Sea. I went there. 1000 people in platforms, So it came along pretty good. I also had VECO. Hard to take care of VECO here in Alaska and company in North Sea, Tough time doing both. I think we got the oil pipeline about ‘75 and so I started trying to sell my part of the company in the North Sea. I was successful. I took that money back to Alaska and put it on the Slope. I went up there, Done it myself. Took me a year to get all the shops set up. It was successful. So I both the timing was great. When I seen that we were going to produce about 2 million barrels a day. I thought, boy Alaska really needs to make sure that they keep that. I think Prudhoe producing about 2 million, about 20 % of the oil used in the Lower 48. From that Alaska really, good deal for Alaska. Look at all the buildings, libraries, roads. When I come up to Alaska in ‘68, they thought it was great, but some of the media didn’t like oil for some reason. I don’t understand why.

When I got . . and decided if i could help with oil, I hired a lobbyist. He said the best thing I could do is fundraisers for guys who have the same minds I have to protect oil and we have a pretty good tax here. It was really balanced. Anyway those fundraisers, we did a lot of good people, legislators About that time lobbyist and I parted ways and I got more personally involved in the political process. We needed ….. and that is the reason I thought about that time I hired Rick Smith to help with the fund raisers. He’s good at that. A little more than 2 years. Big war between Times and Anchorage Daily News. Had a bigger . . .than I had. . . I had [Anchorage Times] for about 15 years. What they thought - conservative people think When Murkowski was elected. I think he done a good job. Hard headed. Other than that he done a good job. Got the three producers together. Really got together I thought man I can really… All they wanted was clarity on their oil taxes and they would build the natural oil pipeline. And they would put more money in oil - heavy oil big job, West ??/, Almost as much oil as Prudhoe but hard to produce.

So we had a . . . between oil companies and state, They need to be married. It got close. Tried to push it too far, over the line. But I did. When they nailed me in 2006, it was a 30 Aug. 2006. They give me a tape that really embarrassed me. I can’t talk anyway. When they were taping it, hell I could tell I was half drunk. I didn’t like looking at myself.

I made two decisions. I was going to do the right things. I quit drinking. I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since 2006. I’m not an alcoholic, but you do a lot of drinking. Not as good as it should be.

I’d like to apologize to you, to the people here in Alaska. Instead of me really helping them. I pushed them down really. I thought I was. I worked with the govt. 2 years. It was like a job. We probably done five to seven days a week trying to get ready for all these trials. I couldn’t [work?] full time, because of what I had to do to help them. It was hard a lot of people who were my friends. So your honor, I respectfully, go ahead and sentence me. Try to remember I tried.


[To get earlier glimpses of Bill Allen in court, you can look at my posts on the Pete Kott Trial. There are quite a few posts and I think Day 6 was Allen's first appearance. So you'll have to scroll back a few pages to get there. Or go directly to Day 6.]