First batch of papers delivered

Attorneys for former Reps. Pete Kott and Vic Kohring said they received the first packages of fresh material from the Justice Department in express shipments Friday.

"I got an amazing amount of stuff," said Kohring's attorney, John Henry Browne of Seattle. "I was expecting maybe four, five to 10 pieces. And I got volumes of stuff that they think we should've had and were not given."

Browne and Kott's Seattle attorney, Sheryl Gordon McCloud, declined to provide details about what they received. They said they agreed to abide by protective orders drafted by the Justice Department to prevent disclosure of the material, some of which may involve privacy matters, grand jury testimony, or other investigations.

"I'm about a tenth of the way through the material that I got, and all of it is material that we should have had and would've been helpful to Vic's defense, and did not have," Browne said.

On Thursday, attorneys representing the Justice Department in Kott's and Kohring's appeals on corruption convictions told the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the department had discovered information that should have been disclosed to the defendants before trial. They asked the appeals court to send the cases back to district court in Anchorage to determine how to proceed next.

Until the matter is resolved, the government said, it wouldn't object to releasing Kott and Kohring from prison on their own recognizance.

Kott, a former House speaker from Eagle River, is serving a six-year sentence and Kohring, who represented Wasilla in the state House, is serving 3½ years. Both men were convicted in 2007 and appealed their cases to the 9th Circuit. An appeals panel heard oral arguments April 14, but that was before the government acknowledged it had failed to turn over potentially relevant information.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the criminal contempt investigation of the prosecutors who took Sen. Ted Stevens to trial inched forward Friday. The issue in the Stevens case is similar to that of Kott and Kohring -- whether prosecutors failed to turn over favorable evidence to Stevens' lawyers in violation of orders by the trial judge, Emmet Sullivan. Four of the Stevens prosecutors also tried the Kott and Kohring cases; the other two supervised.

Stevens was found guilty on seven counts of failure to disclose goods and services, but the Justice Department dropped all charges in April.

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility began an internal investigation of the prosecution team before the Stevens trial ended in October. As part of its investigation, it took statements from the six prosecutors and others.

When Sullivan appointed special prosecutor Henry Schuelke to determine if the Stevens prosecutors should be held in criminal contempt, he directed the Justice Department to turn over its internal investigative files.

The six prosecutors themselves have not had access to the material, including their own statements. On Friday, the Justice Department sought to remedy that situation by asking Sullivan to sign a secrecy order that would allow it to give the material to the six prosecutors, their attorneys and to witnesses on condition they not disclose it to anyone else. It said uncontrolled disclosure of the material "could impact the rights of innocent third parties and the privacy interests of individuals and entities, impede ongoing investigations," and reveal secret information presented to a grand jury or obtained from wiretaps.

The Justice Department said the proposed protective order was not opposed by Schuelke.