Anchorage--
Kim Murphy has two nice pieces today in the Los Angeles Times on the federal probe into Alaska public corruption. One sketches the overall story of "POLAR PEN" with a focus on the prosecutorial mistakes and/or misconduct that blunted the investigation's impact. Murphy quotes an unnamed attorney talking about the delays in wrapping up the seemingly unending probes of the probers: "Are they waiting for another prosecutor to commit suicide?"
The other story by Murphy looks at the case of Bruce Weyhrauch, a former Alaska legislator who spent almost five years charged with multiple felonies in the corruption probe. The article has Weyhrauch's lawyer Doug Pope digging through the statute books to find the obscure misdemeanor that his client ultimately pleaded guilty to at the end of the case. Weyhrauch is also writing a book entitled "It Could Happen to You."
You should read each of these, and maybe we will get more from Murphy on these topics.
Showing posts with label Investigation Status. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Investigation Status. Show all posts
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Jim Clark and the State of Play
Anchorage—
District Court Judge John Sedwick has ordered the prosecution to appear at a closed hearing tomorrow morning and persuade him not to make Jim Clark—former Chief of Staff to ex-Governor Frank Murkowski—to start serving his sentence. Clark pleaded guilty more than 17 months ago to a single count of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and he has been kept out of prison since then because he is cooperating with the federal investigation into public corruption on the Last Frontier.
But Judge Sedwick seems to be getting tired of the delays in Clark going off to prison, just as the judge recently showed even more impatience with the slowness in sentencing former VECO executives and admitted bribers Bill Allen and Rick Smith, who have been cooperating just short of three years now. As the judge’s order says, he needs to figure out “how best to accommodate the tension between defendant Clark’s assistance in on-going investigations and possible up-coming trials with the need to bring the case against Mr. Clark to a conclusion.”
One of the considerations in this closed-door talk-turkey discussion tomorrow morning is just how much those investigations are actually going on and likely to produce more defendants and thus potentially more trials. One of the factors in that decision on future prosecutions, in turn, is the possibility that the Attorney General or other higher-ups in the Department of Justice will conclude that the best way to use the major failures demonstrated in some of the POLAR PEN prosecutions on the Last Frontier is to make them a teachable moment for federal prosecutors by closing up shop on the probe.
That teachable moment brought by ending the investigation would be the message that federal prosecutors who make glaring mistakes in providing evidence to the defense—a process lawyers call “discovery”—will not only face severe career consequences but also see their work go up in ashes. (Note that the six prosecutors currently under investigation about their work on the Ted Stevens trial have already faced some repercussions. All six have had to spend time with expensive defense attorneys whose bills will almost certainly only be partially paid by the federal government, but two of those prosecutors have been sent to the Justice Department’s version of Siberia. Joe Palazzolo of www.mainjustice.com reported in June that Nicholas Marsh and Edward Sullivan have been transferred from their plum assignments at the Public Integrity Section to the Office of International Affairs, where they are presumably advising the State Department on treaties and coordinating international extraditions while staying far away from the courtroom.)
There have been some big screw-ups by government lawyers uncovered in the case against former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens. It also looks bad for the way the cases against ex-State Reps. Pete Kott and Vic Kohring were handled that the feds have agreed to let those two convicted former state legislators go free while new teams of prosecutors review the way discovery was done before those trials.
But commenter Howard Weaver is correct: It is beyond odd to the point of exquisite irony that some people—so far all Republican office-holders—who did seamy things are escaping punishment because a Republican-run (and apparently highly
politicized) Department of Justice blundered terribly.
Speaking of odd, two other points stand out:
1. It is passing strange that former State Rep. Tom Anderson is the only person sitting in prison tonight due to this investigation. While the evidence at trial showed his guilt, he is hardly the most culpable person uncovered by this probe.
2. It would be even weirder if the federal government got Bill Allen and Rick Smith to plead guilty to bribing former State Senate President Ben Stevens and then never charged Ben Stevens with any crime.
District Court Judge John Sedwick has ordered the prosecution to appear at a closed hearing tomorrow morning and persuade him not to make Jim Clark—former Chief of Staff to ex-Governor Frank Murkowski—to start serving his sentence. Clark pleaded guilty more than 17 months ago to a single count of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and he has been kept out of prison since then because he is cooperating with the federal investigation into public corruption on the Last Frontier.
But Judge Sedwick seems to be getting tired of the delays in Clark going off to prison, just as the judge recently showed even more impatience with the slowness in sentencing former VECO executives and admitted bribers Bill Allen and Rick Smith, who have been cooperating just short of three years now. As the judge’s order says, he needs to figure out “how best to accommodate the tension between defendant Clark’s assistance in on-going investigations and possible up-coming trials with the need to bring the case against Mr. Clark to a conclusion.”
One of the considerations in this closed-door talk-turkey discussion tomorrow morning is just how much those investigations are actually going on and likely to produce more defendants and thus potentially more trials. One of the factors in that decision on future prosecutions, in turn, is the possibility that the Attorney General or other higher-ups in the Department of Justice will conclude that the best way to use the major failures demonstrated in some of the POLAR PEN prosecutions on the Last Frontier is to make them a teachable moment for federal prosecutors by closing up shop on the probe.
That teachable moment brought by ending the investigation would be the message that federal prosecutors who make glaring mistakes in providing evidence to the defense—a process lawyers call “discovery”—will not only face severe career consequences but also see their work go up in ashes. (Note that the six prosecutors currently under investigation about their work on the Ted Stevens trial have already faced some repercussions. All six have had to spend time with expensive defense attorneys whose bills will almost certainly only be partially paid by the federal government, but two of those prosecutors have been sent to the Justice Department’s version of Siberia. Joe Palazzolo of www.mainjustice.com reported in June that Nicholas Marsh and Edward Sullivan have been transferred from their plum assignments at the Public Integrity Section to the Office of International Affairs, where they are presumably advising the State Department on treaties and coordinating international extraditions while staying far away from the courtroom.)
There have been some big screw-ups by government lawyers uncovered in the case against former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens. It also looks bad for the way the cases against ex-State Reps. Pete Kott and Vic Kohring were handled that the feds have agreed to let those two convicted former state legislators go free while new teams of prosecutors review the way discovery was done before those trials.
But commenter Howard Weaver is correct: It is beyond odd to the point of exquisite irony that some people—so far all Republican office-holders—who did seamy things are escaping punishment because a Republican-run (and apparently highly
politicized) Department of Justice blundered terribly.
Speaking of odd, two other points stand out:
1. It is passing strange that former State Rep. Tom Anderson is the only person sitting in prison tonight due to this investigation. While the evidence at trial showed his guilt, he is hardly the most culpable person uncovered by this probe.
2. It would be even weirder if the federal government got Bill Allen and Rick Smith to plead guilty to bribing former State Senate President Ben Stevens and then never charged Ben Stevens with any crime.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Light Memorial Day Linking
Anchorage—
Here’s a Memorial Day thank you to the veterans, both alive and dead, who have served and preserved this country’s freedoms.
The Anchorage Daily News published a story by Rich Mauer yesterday asking whether the feds have pulled the plug on the Alaska public corruption probe and getting some good government spokespeople to say that shouldn’t happen. It’s called “Is Alaska corruption investigation still alive?” You can find it at http://www.adn.com/news/politics/fbi/story/806449.html on the Internet.
Here’s a Memorial Day thank you to the veterans, both alive and dead, who have served and preserved this country’s freedoms.
The Anchorage Daily News published a story by Rich Mauer yesterday asking whether the feds have pulled the plug on the Alaska public corruption probe and getting some good government spokespeople to say that shouldn’t happen. It’s called “Is Alaska corruption investigation still alive?” You can find it at http://www.adn.com/news/politics/fbi/story/806449.html on the Internet.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Corrections on the C-SPAN Program
Thanks again to everybody who commented on my C-SPAN appearance, and welcome to all those of you brought to this site by that program.
After watching the program and reviewing the transcript, I wanted to correct two inaccuracies in what I said.
1. The first point I want to correct came where in response to a question I said “Everyone charged at this point has been a Republican.” (This statement appears at page 5 of the transcript.)
This statement was too broad. I should have said that at the time of the interview all seven of the people charged in this investigation into Alaska public corruption who were public officials at the time of their alleged crimes are Republican.
There is one person charged in this investigation—lobbyist William (Bill) Bobrick—who is shown currently in public records as a non-partisan. (Bobrick was in the past the executive director of the Alaska Democratic Party before he became a lobbyist.)
Here are the people charged, their role at the time of the offenses charged, their legal status, and their known partisan identification as shown in state registration records (note that Bev Masek was charged and--John Cowdery was sentenced--after the taping of the interview):
Individual / Role / Legal Status Now / Known Party ID
Ted Stevens / U.S. Sen. / Convicted at trial; awaiting sentencing / Republican
Pete Kott / State Rep. / Serving sentence / Republican
Vic Kohring / State Rep. / Serving sentence / Republican
Tom Anderson / State Rep. / Serving sentence / Republican
Bev Masek / State Rep. / Convicted on plea; awaiting sentencing / Republican
Bruce Weyhrauch / State Rep. / Case on pre-trial appeal / Republican
John Cowdery / State Sen. / Convicted on plea; sentenced/ Republican
Jim Clark / Chief of Staff to Governor / Convicted on plea; awaiting sentencing / Republican
Bill Allen / Power Broker / Convicted on plea; awaiting sentencing / Republican
Rick Smith / Power Broker/ Convicted on plea; awaiting sentencing / Republican
Bill Weimar / Power Broker / Serving sentence / Unknown (was Democratic
candidate for legislature in 1970s)
Bill Bobrick / Lobbyist / Has served prison portion of sentence / Non-partisan (previously excutive director of the Alaska Democratic Party)
As to Weimar, he moved from Alaska to Montana around 1999. The Alaska Division of Elections told me this morning that all records of Weimar’s record of registration have a voter have been purged due to his not participating in the last two election cycles, and an elections official in Montana told me this afternoon that the State of Montana does not keep records of voters by party identification.
2. I made a slip of the tongue when I said at page 6 of the transcript that it was “the end of August 2000” that a state senator delivered Bill Allen into the hands of the FBI, thereby beginning Allen’s work as a cooperating witness for the federal government. That “flipping” of Allen actually occurred at the end of August of 2006. My repeated comments on pages 5 and 8 of the transcript that the federal investigation into Alaska public corruption started no later than April of 2004 should make it clear to the viewer that my single reference to “August of 2000” was incorrect.
After watching the program and reviewing the transcript, I wanted to correct two inaccuracies in what I said.
1. The first point I want to correct came where in response to a question I said “Everyone charged at this point has been a Republican.” (This statement appears at page 5 of the transcript.)
This statement was too broad. I should have said that at the time of the interview all seven of the people charged in this investigation into Alaska public corruption who were public officials at the time of their alleged crimes are Republican.
There is one person charged in this investigation—lobbyist William (Bill) Bobrick—who is shown currently in public records as a non-partisan. (Bobrick was in the past the executive director of the Alaska Democratic Party before he became a lobbyist.)
Here are the people charged, their role at the time of the offenses charged, their legal status, and their known partisan identification as shown in state registration records (note that Bev Masek was charged and--John Cowdery was sentenced--after the taping of the interview):
Individual / Role / Legal Status Now / Known Party ID
Ted Stevens / U.S. Sen. / Convicted at trial; awaiting sentencing / Republican
Pete Kott / State Rep. / Serving sentence / Republican
Vic Kohring / State Rep. / Serving sentence / Republican
Tom Anderson / State Rep. / Serving sentence / Republican
Bev Masek / State Rep. / Convicted on plea; awaiting sentencing / Republican
Bruce Weyhrauch / State Rep. / Case on pre-trial appeal / Republican
John Cowdery / State Sen. / Convicted on plea; sentenced/ Republican
Jim Clark / Chief of Staff to Governor / Convicted on plea; awaiting sentencing / Republican
Bill Allen / Power Broker / Convicted on plea; awaiting sentencing / Republican
Rick Smith / Power Broker/ Convicted on plea; awaiting sentencing / Republican
Bill Weimar / Power Broker / Serving sentence / Unknown (was Democratic
candidate for legislature in 1970s)
Bill Bobrick / Lobbyist / Has served prison portion of sentence / Non-partisan (previously excutive director of the Alaska Democratic Party)
As to Weimar, he moved from Alaska to Montana around 1999. The Alaska Division of Elections told me this morning that all records of Weimar’s record of registration have a voter have been purged due to his not participating in the last two election cycles, and an elections official in Montana told me this afternoon that the State of Montana does not keep records of voters by party identification.
2. I made a slip of the tongue when I said at page 6 of the transcript that it was “the end of August 2000” that a state senator delivered Bill Allen into the hands of the FBI, thereby beginning Allen’s work as a cooperating witness for the federal government. That “flipping” of Allen actually occurred at the end of August of 2006. My repeated comments on pages 5 and 8 of the transcript that the federal investigation into Alaska public corruption started no later than April of 2004 should make it clear to the viewer that my single reference to “August of 2000” was incorrect.
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