Jurors convicted the Eagle River Republican of conspiracy, bribery and extortion. They acquitted him of a fourth felony charge, wire fraud, that was based on a single cell phone conversation that went across state lines.
As the verdicts were read around 3 p.m. on the trial’s 15th day, Kott sat silent and still between his defense lawyers. He left the courtroom looking tired and drawn. He had little to say about the verdict.
“I’m disappointed,” Kott said. He didn’t want to talk about what’s next for him or the specifics of how he thought his corruption trial went. “It came,” he sighed. “It went.”
Kott walked out of the Federal Building with his girlfriend, Debora Stovern, on one arm, daughter Pamela on the other and lawyer Jim Wendt just ahead. They faced a barrage of television cameras and reporters asking questions that Kott wouldn’t answer.
Wendt said Kott almost surely would appeal. He and his co-counsel, Meg Simonian, hadn’t worked out all the potential grounds but he suggested the instructions the judge gave the jury could be one factor. “The jury instructions were a little ambiguous regarding the bribery and extortion charges,” Wendt said.
Then Kott’s group piled into a Dodge truck and drove away. ‘deal-maker,’ prosecutors said
During the trial, prosecutors Nicholas Marsh and James Goeke portrayed Kott as a deal-maker who plotted with former Veco executives Bill Allen and Rick Smith to secure the oil tax rate sought by North Slope oil producers during the 2006 regular session and special sessions that summer. They played nearly five dozen secretly made recordings during the trial.
The defense painted Kott as a hard worker with a drinking problem, an Air Force veteran, a man who got on his hands and knees laying hardwood floors but who didn’t ask his wealthy friends at Veco for handouts.
This is the second victory for prosecutors in the ongoing public corruption investigation, and the first involving oil field services contractor Veco. The company was sold to Denver-based CH2M Hill just before the trial.
Deliberations began at 12:30 p.m. Monday. Most of the jurors seemed “gung-ho” and ready to convict Kott that same day on at least a couple of charges, said Donna Riley, juror No. 1. She wanted to slow things down and sent the judge a note first thing Tuesday saying she had felt pressured the day before.
“And I’m like, man, you guys need to go over it,” Riley said after the verdict. “I need to understand. This is someone’s life, you know? I need to make sure I understand everything about it to have a clear conscience.”
Jurors were talking over each other on Monday when they finally got a chance to say what they thought after more than two weeks of trial, said juror Susan Pollard. By Tuesday morning, the jurors went out of their way to “cool it” and make sure Riley was included, juror Dale Hartzler said.
Riley, a custodial worker at Stevens International Airport, said she related to Kott since both do physical labor. She was moved, too, by a speech he gave on the witness stand.
“It kind of got to me when he said he was embarrassed and felt bad … for his family,” Riley said.
The defense was “trying for any emotional leverage they could get,” Pollard said.
In the end, what struck Riley as particularly important: the testimony and recordings about the promise of a job to Kott and the financial rewards, especially the inflated flooring invoice through which Veco executives funneled $7,993 to Kott.
She said she went home Monday night and prayed on what to do. By Tuesday, the situation in the jury room was calmer, she said. Their decision was the right one, she said.
Pollard, a former contract manager for the federal government, said it was Kott’s own testimony on the stand that left the biggest mark. Kott tried to explain to jurors that he just was telling Allen and Smith what they wanted to hear when he told them he’d push the tax rate they wanted.
Kott was saying ‘I’ll lie to my friends but I do have my principles,’ ” Pollard said. “How can you believe anything he says after that?” As to the inflated flooring invoice, she said she was very skeptical of the defense story that the money was for future flooring work. Why were invoices created by Stovern, Kott’s girlfriend, bookkeeper and a defense witness, after the fact? Why did none mention future flooring work?
Juror Hartzler said his vote to convict was a no-brainer given the evidence. Kott and his defense team couldn’t blunt the FBI audio and video, he said.
The defense didn’t ring true, said Hartzler, a systems analyst for Alaska Communications Systems. He said the whole tenor of the defense was just “flying in the face of the intercepts” recorded by the FBI. He gave the example of Kott’s son, who was also his campaign manager, claiming on the witness stand that the campaign didn’t use political polls. The defense was trying to refute the charge that Kott received a poll illegally paid for by Veco.
Hartzler said the defense claim was contradicted by a recording of Kott talking about the poll with a Veco executive, as well as poll questions the FBI found on a computer device at Kott’s residence. As for the drinking, Kott didn’t seem drunk in all of the late night recordings. Hartzler pointed to one in which Kott told Veco chief Allen that he wanted to be a lobbyist. It just seemed like a real, casual conversation, he said.
The evidence on the wire fraud charge just was too thin to support a conviction, Pollard said. It was based on a March 10, 2006, cell phone call that Kott made from Washington, D.C., to Smith. Kott, who was having drinks with a Marathon Oil lobbyist, told Smith he wanted to “take care of Marathon in this deal.” But Smith said that Marathon had dumped Veco as a maintenance contractor. “You know where my allegiance is,” Kott told Smith.
The verdicts come just before next month’s special session on oil taxes called by Gov. Sarah Palin. “I am more committed than ever to seeking a fair, untainted solution to our petroleum tax system,” the governor said in a written statement.
The evidence was compelling, said state Sen. Fred Dyson, R-Eagle River, who helped the FBI in its investigation and sat in on much of the trial. The recordings of people laughing and swearing about “jerking the public process around” generate a gut level impact.
Kott is likely facing more than four years in prison, according to what prosecutors have estimated under sentencing guidelines. But he could be looking at even more time, as much as 6 1/2 years, if the judge determines he did not testify truthfully and obstructed justice, said prosecutor Joe Bottini, who didn’t try the case but sat in on much of it. He is part of a four-person team of federal prosecutors handling Alaska public corruption cases.
U.S. District Judge John Sedwick set sentencing for Dec. 7.
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