Ben Stevens' Nemesis Asks to Speak at Allen/Smith Sentencing

Fairbanks--

From Mark Regan:

Thursday afternoon, Judge Sedwick issued an order in both Bill Allen’s and Rick Smith’s cases:

“The court has received a letter dated October 21, 2009, from Ray Metcalfe who describes himself as a former legislator. Mr. Metcalfe asks to speak at the sentencing hearing scheduled for October 28, 2009, in this case. He makes the request on the basis that there are 650,000 victims (which the court interprets to be a reference to all the residents of Alaska) for whom he apparently believes he should be the spokesman. In the letter Mr. Metcalfe accuses entities and persons who are not parties to this litigation of crimes. For this reason, the copy of the letter is being filed under seal separately. The parties are directed to file a memorandum explaining why the court should or should not treat Mr. Metcalfe as a victim or victim's representative who has a right to speak at the sentencing hearing in this case. The parties may file separate memoranda or join in a single joint memorandum. The joint memorandum or separate memoranda shall be filed not later than Noon Alaska time on October 27, 2009, and may not be filed under seal.”

Conceivably one of the people Ray Metcalfe’s letter would have accused of crimes would have been Ted Stevens’s son Ben Stevens, against whom the former “Disco Ray” crusaded for years. Metcalfe sponsored a recall petition against Ben Stevens in 2005 which was thrown out by the Division of Elections, acting on the advice of the state Attorney General’s office. The principal complaint: Ben Stevens was being bribed by VECO. Bill Allen’s testimony at the Kott trial, years later: one of the people he had been bribing was Ben Stevens. Bill Allen’s current argument, made at pages 20-23 of Wednesday’s sentencing memo: his payments to Ben Stevens were legal. Partial proof of their legality, according to Allen’s memo: the AG’s office had okayed them in its 2005 advice about Ray Metcalfe’s recall petition.

It doesn’t sound like Judge Sedwick particularly wants to hear from Ray Metcalfe, but you can certainly understand why Ray Metcalfe wants to be heard.

--Mark Regan