It wasn't supposed to be a way "to bribe Tom Anderson or channel him funds. But it certainly ended up that way," Bobrick testified.
Ultimately, its only real purpose was to disguise payments to Anderson, he told jurors. Anderson never did any real work for the Web site and received the money "for being a legislator," Bobrick said. The Web site never got off the ground.
Prosecutors rested their corruption case against Anderson on Tuesday afternoon after calling eight witnesses over four days. The trial began June 25 with jury selection, which lasted 2 1/2 days.
Prosecutors contend that Bobrick's Web site business was used to funnel payments from a Cornell Cos. consultant to Anderson so that he would do the company's bidding on halfway houses, a juvenile treatment center and a private prison. Anderson faces seven felony counts.
Bobrick has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and said he is cooperating with the government in the hope of getting a lighter sentence.
In all, Anderson received a total of $25,838, based on testimony about various checks.
That's much more money than was previously disclosed. The charges list $12,838 in payments to Anderson. The FBI actually provided the money. Cornell was unaware of any scheme, the government has said.
Bobrick, a main witness for the prosecution, appeared drained but calm during hours of testimony and then aggressive cross-examination.
Defense attorney Paul Stockler on Tuesday pushed Bobrick on whether he turned on Anderson to save himself, the same approach he used the day before with the other star witness, Frank Prewitt, a former corrections commissioner who then became a Cornell consultant.
"I lost my career of 20 years. I lost my standing in this community," Bobrick said. And he may go to prison even yet.
"My life is pretty much wrecked because of my stupid, reckless actions," Bobrick said. He said he made $200,000 a year as a lobbyist before the Anchorage Assembly, but no more.
Bobrick began cooperating with the FBI soon after agents called him in last September, he said. They were in front of his house and came in to play recordings of conversations. Prewitt had secretly made recordings as a "confidential source" for the FBI.
"I realized I had done something wrong and I needed to do the right thing," Bobrick said as prosecutor Joe Bottini questioned him. He said later that he had made "tremendous errors in judgment." When he thought the Web site would be a legitimate business with Anderson, he was "in denial," he said.
He also said he wore a wire, but prosecutors didn't introduce any of those recordings. His agreement with the government requires him to cooperate and "testify truthfully," he said.
Based on how he does, prosecutors may ask U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick to give him less than the estimated sentence of 24 to 30 months for conspiracy. But the way his life is going, "I fully expect to be hit pretty hard," Bobrick said.
During the investigation, he said, the FBI would "check up on me to make sure I had not killed myself."
THE BOGUS WEB SITE
The idea with the Web site or electronic newsletter was to have stringers all over Alaska writing about their communities, Bobrick told jurors. Companies like Cornell or the developers of the Pebble mine might buy subscriptions or pay to advertise on it. State and federal issues would be aired too. Anderson could give the view from Juneau.
Wasn't it a real project, with Anderson being paid for real work? Stockler asked time and again.
"I wanted the Web site to be real," Bobrick said. "... I didn't wake up one day thinking, 'I'm going to bribe Tom Anderson.' "
But Anderson never produced any work, Bobrick said: no stories, no advertising contracts, no invoices, nothing.
Anderson had to have known he was being paid for his influence as a legislator, not for the Web site, Bobrick testified. "At the end of the day, that's all he had," said Bobrick.
Bobrick said he did pay two people to get the project going. A legislative aide to Anderson was paid to research communities as a first step to finding stringers.
And Ken Erickson, now the Web master for the House Republican majority, received $1,000 as a partial payment to design and build the Web site.
Erickson testified Tuesday that his main contact on the project was Bobrick. But he admitted under questioning by Bottini that Anderson requested a detailed invoice after the fact. In September 2005, he said, he submitted one backdated to Dec. 27, 2004.
He said he designed the site so that people without technical skills could easily submit their stories. But the only story that ever ended up on the site was one written by state Sen. John Cowdery, R-Anchorage, that Erickson said he put on the site just to show it worked. He checked back two or three times a year, but no one had contributed.
"I figured the project was dead or moribund," Erickson said.
Out of 100 or so Web sites that he's designed for people over the years, this is the first one that fizzled after money was invested, though maybe half die during the talking stage, Erickson said.
PUSHING CORNELL'S INTERESTS
Also on Tuesday, prosecutors asked witnesses about Cornell's push to open a residential psychiatric treatment center in Anchorage for emotionally troubled kids.
Bobrick, who was a lobbyist for Cornell on the project, told jurors that he asked Anderson to testify at a Nov. 17, 2004, public hearing about the project.
Anderson signed in on behalf of himself and never acknowledged his financial relationship with Cornell, David Pierce, with the state Department of Health and Social Services, told jurors.
Twice in his testimony that day in 2004, Anderson said he had no connection to the competing groups seeking to open a treatment center. But he said he could endorse Cornell because he had met the administrators and knew how they worked.
The trial resumes Thursday. The defense gets its chance to call witnesses.
Find Lisa Demer online at adn.com/contact/ldemer or call 257-4390.
Anderson trial at a glance
THE DEFENDANT: Tom Anderson, 39, represented East Anchorage in the state House from 2003 until this year. He did not run in 2006.
THE CHARGES: Three counts of money laundering, two of extortion and one each of bribery and conspiracy.
THE CONSPIRACY: Federal prosecutors say Anderson participated in a scheme in which he agreed to do the bidding of the private prison firm Cornell Cos. in exchange for money.
THE CO-CONSPIRATOR: Lobbyist Bill Bobrick pleaded guilty in May to a single count of conspiracy. He set up a company reportedly to produce a political Web site for which Anderson would write. Prosecutors say it became a sham used to funnel payments to Anderson.
THE TRIAL SO FAR: The trial began June 25 with jury selection. The prosecution rested its case Tuesday after calling eight witnesses over four days. Main government witnesses: Bobrick and Frank Prewitt, Alaska corrections commissioner in the 1990s and then a Cornell consultant. Working undercover for the FBI, Prewitt made about a dozen audio and video recordings involving Bobrick, Anderson or both. He testified that Anderson knew he was being paid to do what Cornell wanted.
THE DEFENSE: Defense lawyer Paul Stockler spent hours cross-examining Bobrick and Prewitt. His defense appears to be that the FBI entrapped Anderson, the government witnesses are just trying to save themselves, and the actions Anderson took for Cornell were the kinds of things that legislators do. He portrays Anderson as an eager-to-please legislator who wasn't the one who kept talking about money.
COMING UP: The trial resumes Thursday, with the defense case. Stockler indicated Anderson hasn't decided whether to testify.
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