The younger Kott, who is also named Peter, testified Tuesday that $7,993 in cash he received from his father was just an advance for future flooring work. That's not so, said the Veco executives. They said the money was a payoff to allow Kott's son to take time off and work on Kott's re-election campaign.
The Veco executives testified earlier in the trial that it was a bribe they gave the elder Kott so his son would have money to work as his campaign manager.
Jurors will have to decide whom to believe, either the executives who have pleaded guilty to bribing Kott and other legislators or the politician's son who was clearly defensive of his father.
The younger Kott's testimony dominated the trial Tuesday as the defense scrambled to shoot holes in the corruption case against the former state House speaker from Eagle River. The defense also tried to use Kott's son to explain away a political poll Veco funded for his dad's campaign.
Former House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz also spent time on the witness stand Tuesday, subpoenaed to testify on Kott's behalf.
Berkowitz said Kott didn't trick him into getting fellow Democrats to vote the way Veco wanted, even though Kott had boasted to the Veco executives during a drinking bout that he had done so.
"I didn't have the authority to trade votes," Berkowitz said.
Kott's son, who testified right before Berkowitz, talked comfortably under questioning by defense lawyer Jim Wendt about both the poll and his salary.
Wearing a diamond-patterned gray sweater, the younger Kott came across as clean-cut and likable. He spoke in a clear, strong voice. He looks like his sister Pamela, not his dad.
But when prosecutor Nicholas Marsh, from the U.S. Justice Department's Public Integrity Section in Washington, D.C., pushed him during cross-examination, he hesitated and by the end seemed deflated.
Kott said that he served as his dad's campaign manager in 2006 but that his title just as easily could have been gofer.
He helped on his father's first campaign in 1992 but hadn't done much political work in the years since. In 2006, he jumped in because his father was facing a tough primary challenge from fellow Republican Anna Fairclough, who would ultimately win the primary and the seat. The younger Kott wasn't happy she was running and presenting his father with his first tough challenge in years, he said.
The father and son operated a business called Kott's Hardwood Flooring. Working on his father's campaign meant the younger Kott had to take a break from the flooring business and he testified that by the end of July he was running out of money.
"I basically told my dad 'if you want to keep me on I have to have some kind of income,' " testified the younger Kott, who said he has two children still at home and a wife who does not have a job.
Sometime around the second week of August, he testified, his father brought $7,993 in cash to his home and gave it to him. The younger Kott told the jury it was understood it was to be an advance for flooring work. He said he needed to refinish the Brazilian cherry floors he did in 2002 for former Veco executive Rick Smith and also had a job for a woman he identified only as Sharon Durant.
Kott testified that the idea of getting an advance so he had money to work on his father's campaign came up in a discussion at "Mr. Bill Allen's place" in July. He said Allen, the chief executive of Veco, during a conversation involving both Kotts, offered to give him cash without any need to do work.
"I said no, no, no," Kott said, adding that he and his father were not about to compromise themselves by doing something illegal.
He said the solution of getting an advance for flooring was his idea.
He said he intended to do the flooring jobs after the Aug. 22 primary election. But his father lost the primary and he never did the work for Smith. Kott said Smith was supposed to call him but never did.
He testified that after the FBI raided the offices of his father and other legislators on Aug. 31 and Veco was mentioned in the news coverage, he didn't press the issue of finishing up Smith's floor.
He didn't say in court what happened to the "Sharon Durant" job and didn't return a phone call later Tuesday seeking comment. He also did not explain why her job would have been included in a $7,993 invoice paid by Allen or, for that matter, why Allen would be paying for Smith's flooring job.
When prosecutor Marsh got his turn to ask the younger Kott questions, he clearly wanted jurors to know he found the story unbelievable.
If he never did the job for Smith, wouldn't he want to pay the money back? Marsh asked him.
"I will give it back," Kott said.
But you haven't, Marsh said. Kott conceded that was true.
When Smith testified last week for the prosecution, he said the story about the flooring job was just a cover. The idea was to just get money to the son so he could keep working on the campaign, Smith told jurors.
Smith testified that he met with then-Rep. Kott at the Rendezvous bar in Juneau on July 31, 2006, to figure out a way to do so without anyone knowing.
"I thought it was illegal," Smith testified.
Anyway, his floors didn't need to be redone, Smith said.
Former Veco chief Allen also has testified he didn't think Smith's floors needed to be redone.
"They didn't need to because you go into Rick's house and you have to take your shoes off," he testified last week.
Allen agreed with Smith that the payment for Kott's son wasn't meant to be an advance.
The federal prosecutor, Marsh, wondered aloud Tuesday why it would be necessary for Kott to get an advance on flooring work to stay on his dad's campaign instead of just drawing a salary. Jurors saw documents that showed Rep. Kott's campaign finished with a $15,000 surplus and the younger Kott did get paid $3,000 from the campaign funds.
Marsh also asked him why he didn't just ask his father for money. He answered that he didn't want him to have to tap into his retirement fund.
Would it surprise him to know his father had enough money? Marsh asked. Kott first said it would surprise him a little, then said he was indifferent.
Earlier in his testimony, the younger Kott had tried to deflect the charge that Veco illegally paid Dittman Research $2,750 to do a poll for his father's 2006 campaign.
He told jurors that neither he nor his father ever wanted the poll done. They did not ask for it and didn't pay for it.
"No polls. We do not believe in polls," he said.
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