Traffic Cop in the Subarctic Summer: Pete Kott's Trial Scheduled for Aug. 8; Impoverished Vic Kohring Gets Court-Appointed Lawyer

Anchorage--

A conflict kept me from attending a pre-trial hearing yesterday in the case of U.S. v. Victor Kohring, but fortunately Richard Mauer of the Anchorage Daily News did show up at that proceeding regarding the former Republican member of the Alaska State House from Wasilla. Mauer's article covers both that hearing and some procedural events in the case of former State Rep. Pete Kott, R.-Eagle River. You can find Mauer's story here.

Nuggets from Mauer's piece:

1. The court has set Kott's trial to start August 8 in Anchorage.

2. Despite what you may heard from other media sources, the question of whether retrials of Kott and Kohring will actually happen is still up in the air. Mauer's article says that Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Feldis told him that "the Justice Department hadn't yet decided whether it would retry Kohring, but as in Kott's case, prosecutors were moving ahead as if it would. The decision would be made by a high-level official in Washington, Feldis said."


The higher up that decision-maker, the less likely Kott and Kohring will be retried. I maintain my previously expressed prediction that those two disgraced ex-officeholders will not face trial again on these public corruption charges.


3. Vic Kohring is still poor. The famously broke former legislator announced yesterday that he came to court in a borrowed vehicle carrying a borrowed $40. In a successful bid to get a court-appointed defense attorney, Kohring testified that his four bank accounts hold less than one dollar combined.