Anchorage Daily News

Late last week, just days before his scheduled sentencing on corruption charges, former state Rep. Vic Kohring accused the federal judge presiding over his case of bias and asked that a jury's guilty verdicts be thrown out.

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Vic Kohring

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On Monday, U.S. District Judge John Sedwick asked another judge to decide if he should step aside.

Sedwick postponed Kohring's sentencing until U.S. District Judge Russel Holland issues a ruling in the matter. Sentencing had been set for Feb. 11.

Prosecutors say Kohring's efforts to dismiss the case or get a new trial are unwarranted.

Kohring says he didn't get a fair trial because of a bitter public feud with the judge's wife, Deborah Sedwick, a former state commissioner whose agency budget he tried to cut and whose department and job he said he eliminated.

In a telephone interview Monday evening, Kohring said he didn't connect Judge Sedwick to former Commissioner Sedwick until Deborah Sedwick showed up for closing arguments at his trial.

"What is my worst political rival and enemy doing at my trial here, at the courtroom?" Kohring said he wondered. He said he didn't even know the Sedwicks were related but researched public records and news archives and found out they were married.

"Once I made this connection, I was sickened. My heart sunk into my stomach, and I was just stunned by what I learned," Kohring said.

A federal jury convicted Kohring in November of bribery, conspiracy and attempted extortion. Executives with the former Veco Corp. testified they bribed him to push an industry-backed version of an oil production tax on profits.

Kohring said a series of rulings by Sedwick "crippled my ability to win in court." He maintains he never took bribes.

According to Kohring's attorney, John Henry Browne of Seattle, a bill by Kohring did away with Deborah Sedwick's high-level state job and cost the couple at least $10,000 a year because of her reduced salary.

That's what Browne said in court papers filed Friday.

But as it turns out, Deborah Sedwick did not lose her job. She remained a commissioner with a revamped agency. And her salary went up over the years, not down, according to state officials.

In his order handing the issue to Holland, Judge Sedwick wrote that he doesn't recall ever talking with his wife or otherwise hearing about actions Kohring took as a legislator against her.

While Kohring talks about eliminating two state departments in "one of the most significant pieces of legislation in the history of this state," others say the two agencies were simply merged.

Judge Sedwick wrote that his wife became commissioner of the combined department.

That's exactly what happened, said Mike Black, deputy commissioner of what's now known as the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development.

"Commissioner Sedwick survived all that," Black said.

Efforts to reach Deborah Sedwick were unsuccessful. The judge declined to be interviewed.

The details about what actually happened eluded Browne for a while.

In the motion filed Friday, Browne wrote: "It is beyond comprehension that the antagonistic relationship between Ms. Sedwick and the defendant was not the subject of conversation between Judge Sedwick and his wife at the time of her conflicts with Mr. Kohring."

"It is even more unlikely that this was not discussed ... at the time Representative Kohring was charged. This is particularly true since Mr. Kohring's legislation actually eliminated Ms. Sedwick('s) job, greatly reduced the budget of her department and eliminated at least $10,000 annually from the Sedwick household income."

MANIPULATING FACTS

But that distorts the facts, according to Black and other state officials.

Browne also noted that Sedwick lives across the street from former Veco chief executive Bill Allen, one of the government's star witnesses, and that he went to high school with former Veco vice president Rick Smith.

All of that should have been aired before the trial, Browne said. It's no different from jurors having a perceived conflict of interest, he said.

Prosecutors aren't buying it.

"From what I have read thus far, I imagine that we are going to oppose this as completely unwarranted," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Bottini. Prosecutors are seeking a five-year prison term for Kohring.

In the late 1990s, Kohring, an anti-tax Republican from Wasilla, and Commissioner Sedwick, a Knowles appointee, went after each other publicly.

In a "Budget Alert" in April 1998, she called his budget-cutting proposals "draconian" and "devastating," Kohring says in a sworn statement filed in court recently.

He responded with a press release that said state employees were spending like "drunken sailors."

His bill that year would have downgraded Deborah Sedwick's department to a division and cut her pay to roughly $74,000, Kohring says in his affidavit.

But his proposal didn't pass.

The next year, Kohring tried again with a different bill, which got through. But as the two departments merged into one, Sedwick came out on top. She remained commissioner until she resigned shortly after the November 2002 election that brought Republican Frank Murkowski into office.

Browne said Monday that he didn't understand those nuances until he talked again with Kohring.

Kohring said he still believes lingering bad feelings contributed to rulings against him that kept evidence of his innocence from the jury.

For example, Sedwick limited cross-examination of Allen, preventing questioning about allegations of sexual misconduct that could have damaged Allen's credibility, Kohring said.

"The whole thing is really starting to stink," Browne said.

Find Lisa Demer online at adn.com/contact/ldemer or call 257-4390.