Stevens defense accuses prosecutors of subterfuge

Stevens' lawyers asked for a mistrial and accused prosecutors of failing to tell them everything they knew about a Veco worker named Robert "Rocky" Williams, who oversaw renovations at the Stevens Girdwood home in 2001.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said there was no basis for a mistrial, but he said he was "flabbergasted" with how prosecutors had sent Williams home without alerting him or defense attorneys that he was no longer scheduled to be a witness. Sullivan scolded prosecutors from the bench but out of earshot or view of the jury.

"I find it very, very disturbing that this has happened, and concerned about the appearance of propriety, or impropriety," Sullivan said, stopping short of accusing government prosecutors of misconduct or a lapse in ethics but threatening sanctions.

"After all, this is the search for the truth, and people ought not to forget about that," said Sullivan, who asked lawyers to give him briefs outlining what had happened. "This is a serious one; we're all officers of the court."

The jury heard none of the dispute, meaning that it may not have a bearing on the outcome of the trial.

Stevens, 84, faces seven felony counts of failing to report on his U.S. Senate disclosure forms more than $250,000 worth of gifts and home renovations, chiefly from Veco Corp. and its chief executive officer, Allen. The Alaska Republican, who is up for re-election Nov. 4, asked for a speedy trial so he'd have the opportunity to clear his name before then.

Williams, who worked for Allen, was originally set to be a government witness, but prosecutors decided in the opening days of the trial not to use him. It remains unclear why they no longer want him to testify, although he spent extensive time in Washington, D.C., with Justice Department lawyers in preparation for the trial.

Lawyers from both sides discussed the issue with the judge privately but did not elaborate in open court. Prosecutors did allude to Williams being "two weeks overdue" for something in Alaska, and in court filings, Stevens' attorneys refer to health issues that include "coughing episodes."

Williams got in touch with Stevens' attorneys - at the direction of prosecutors - after they released him as a witness and sent him home to Alaska. The conversation they had over the weekend with Williams "casts the government's decision to send him home - on the eve of Bill Allen's testimony - in a very different light," Stevens' lawyers wrote in their filings.

Stevens' lawyers say there's evidence Williams worked far less on the Girdwood home remodel than other company employees have suggested in their testimony, including one of the company's bookkeepers who took the stand Friday.

Such evidence could help Stevens knock holes in the government's theory that the Veco work done on his home was so extensive that he must have known he was getting benefits above and beyond the $160,000 his lawyers said he paid a separate contractor for the work done to double his home in size.

"We got lucky," said one of Stevens' lawyers, Robert Cary. "We got his lucky that he changed his prior position of not wanting to talk to us."

In court filings, Cary said that "Mr. Williams informed defense counsel that he spent nowhere near eight hours per day, six to seven days per week, on the Girdwood home renovation project - in direct contrast to the timesheets that the government has placed in evidence to support its central theory that the unpaid cost of the project to Veco was $188,000."

No one answered the door or the phone this morning at Williams' trailer in South Anchorage. A pair of pickup trucks sat in the driveway, and what sounded like a TV could be heard playing from behind the door.

Prosecutors said they didn't intend to give the impression they were hiding information and apologized - but they were caught off balance by the judge's ire.

"We're distressed that we're being accused of this," said the prosecutor who bore the brunt of the judge's scolding, Nicholas Marsh.

"This was not a decision that came easily," said Brenda Morris, the lead prosecutor in the case.

"It would have been very easy to get me on the phone," Judge Sullivan said.

The judge offered Stevens' lawyers a chance to re-question Cheryl Boomershine, the Veco bookkeeper who testified Friday about how much money the company spent renovating the home in Girdwood. Boomershine was still in Washington this morning and available to come to court.

Jurors weren't told why there was a delay, although Sullivan had half-jokingly suggested to lawyers on both sides before the jury came in that he would tell them "the government hid the ball."

Instead, Sullivan joked about the Redskins win on Sunday and told them simply that additional information was available that wasn't available last week. Because Boomershine was still in D.C., they were able to bring her back to the stand to allow attorneys to ask her more questions.

When Boomershine took the stand, Cary walked her through the time cards Williams filed in connection with the project, trying to establish that all the time and money he spent on the Girdwood project may not have been 100 percent devoted to overseeing renovations at the Stevens home.

"You don't know whether Mr. Williams spent time working on other projects for Mr. Allen that had nothing to do with Girdwood?"

"No," Boomershine said.

Prosecutors continued to build their case by bringing to the stand a series of tradesmen who worked on Stevens' home.

A carpenter who was paid by Veco to build a deck testified he was told to be discreet about the project when the chief executive of an oil services company, Bill Allen, hired him in 2002.

"He said a certain amount of discretion would need to be used because it was the senator's house," and the company was actually an oil services firm, not a general contractor, testified Brian Byrne, who oversaw the deck construction.

Prosecutor Joe Bottini asked Byrne why he thought Allen would have said that.

"I'm not really sure, other than the appearance of impropriety I believe is what he was concerned about," Byrne said.

Stevens showed a rare smile during the proceedings when Cecil Dale, an electrician, testified about how the senator had given him a cigar the one time he met him.

"How was the cigar?" asked Beth Stewart, one of Stevens' lawyers.

"I never smoked it," Dale said.

Kyle Hopkins of the Anchorage Daily News contributed to this report.