In a stunning reversal, the Justice Department on Wednesday moved to drop all charges against former Sen. Ted Stevens, saying his jury conviction for lying on financial disclosure forms to conceal gifts and home renovations was so riddled with impropriety that it should be dismissed “in the interest of justice.”
Prosecutors had been adamantly fighting efforts by the Alaska Republican’s defense team to have his conviction thrown out. But Atty. Gen. Eric Holder disclosed in a statement that he had personally decided to reverse course and, in effect, wipe away not only Stevens’ conviction but the underlying federal charges.
Stevens largely disappeared from public view after his conviction in October, after which he was narrowly defeated for re-election. On Wednesday, he said Holder’s decision will allow him to get on with his life.
More Top Picks Best K9 First Aid Kits For Working Dogs
“I always knew that there would be a day when the cloud that surrounded me would be removed,” said Stevens, 85. “That day has finally come. It is unfortunate that an election was affected by proceedings now recognized as unfair.”
The high-profile case against Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, had been criticized frequently by the presiding federal judge for missteps by prosecutors in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity section. Holder said that he was reserving judgment on whether they committed any actual misconduct, but that he has ordered a full internal review of the Justice Department’s handling of the case.
In the meantime, Holder said he took such dramatic action in part because of prosecutors’ repeated failure to provide important and potentially exculpatory information to Stevens’ defense team. That included one incident that came to light in a court filing Wednesday that raised questions about the testimony of Bill Allen — Stevens’ contractor, former friend and the government’s key witness against him.
“In light of this conclusion, and in consideration of the totality of the circumstances of this particular case, I have determined that it is in the interest of justice to dismiss the indictment and not proceed with a new trial,” Holder said in the statement. Justice Department officials said they could not elaborate on Holder’s decision, citing U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan’s decision to schedule a hearing for Tuesday, at which he is expected to approve the government’s request.
In a court filing Wednesday, Justice Department officials said they had found that one key piece of previously undisclosed evidence had been kept from the defense — portions of an April 15, 2008, interview between authorities and Allen, an Alaska oilman and former chairman of the now-defunct VECO company. Allen testified at trial that he decided not to send a bill for all of his work after meeting with an intermediary for Stevens named Bob Persons. He said Persons left him with the unmistakable impression that he was not supposed to charge Stevens for the work on the senator’s Alaska chalet, even though the senator had sent him a note requesting a bill. Allen said he was told to ignore Stevens’ note because it was sent only to provide a false record to protect the senator.
But in their post-trial investigation, the new team of prosecutors discovered that although “no memorandum of interview or [FBI] agent notes” existed for the April 2008 interview with Allen, two prosecutors who were there did take notes. And those notes indicated that Allen said he “did not recall talking to Bob Persons regarding giving a bill to the defendant,” according to the motion seeking that the verdict be set aside.
Stevens’ chief defense lawyer, Brendan Sullivan Jr., was critical of the prosecutors, saying the attorneys and at least one FBI agent had engaged in a level of misconduct that was so “stunning” that it amounted to a case of government corruption.
Sullivan praised the judge in the case for forcing prosecutors to turn over evidence to the defense that they had withheld, as well as Holder and a new team of prosecutors brought in to replace the original team after the judge held them in contempt recently. The judge and the lawyer are not related.
He said the new team of prosecutors disclosed even more potentially exculpatory evidence just last week, and that “we were sickened by it, because it clearly told the story of government corruption, as they were hellbent on convicting a United States senator.”
“Not only did the government fail to provide evidence to the defense that the law requires them to provide, but they created false testimony that they gave us and they actually presented false testimony in the courtroom,” Sullivan said.
Some current and former Justice Department officials and legal experts disagreed, saying that Holder stopped far short of clearing Stevens. They said Holder, a former Public Integrity prosecutor himself, appears to have acted on a totality of circumstances, including the discovery problems and other misconduct, as well as Stevens’ old age, fragile health and loss of political office.
———-
‘Absolutely disgusting’
Read comments from readers and post your own at chicagotribune.com/stevens A blow to Justice unit
Case is latest hit to once-venerated section: chicagotribune.com/integrity