Anchorage Daily News

Jim Clark, the chief of staff to ex-Gov. Frank Murkowski, agreed Monday to plead guilty to a single felony charge of conspiring to commit fraud in the latest case brought by the federal government in the Alaska corruption scandal.Clark admitted asking officials of the now defunct oil-field service company Veco to secretly spend $68,550 on polls and a political consultant's fees for Murkowski's failed re-election bid in 2006. The undisclosed payments represented an illegal campaign contribution to Murkowski by Veco and illegal expenditures by Murkowski's campaign, the government charged.

The charges said that Murkowski was the only gubernatorial candidates in the large field in 2006 to support the oil tax scheme and gas pipeline deal that Veco and the North Slope producers were pushing for the state. Gov. Sara Palin beat Murkowski handily in the Republican primary.

The conspiracy Clark joined was one in which Veco and Murkowski would benefit, the government charged. Veco hoped to curry favor with the producers and get contracts to build a gas pipeline, and Clark would get Veco's assistance in re-electing Murkowski, who by then was famously unpopular.

Murkowski wasn't named as a conspirator in the charges. Messages left on Murkowski's cell phone weren't returned.

"How much did Frank Murkowski know about what Jim Clark was doing?" said House Speaker John Harris, R-Valdez, echoing the words of others in the Capitol Monday as word of Clark's plea quickly spread.

The charging documents and Clark's plea were filed late Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Anchorage. Clark is expected to formally enter his plea before U.S. District Judge John Sedwick Tuesday afternoon.

Clark worked as an attorney and lobbyist before and after his four years as Murkowski's chief of staff, mainly representing timber firms.

He's the first member of the executive branch to be charged in the wide-ranging FBI investigation that has resulted in convictions of three former Alaska legislators, pending charges against a fourth, and guilty pleas by a lobbyist and two of Veco's top officials.

In a document describing the facts that Clark was pleading to, the government said that it was "merely" summarizing some of Clark's illegal conduct, "but not all." Clark is required by his plea deal to join a growing list of cooperating government witnesses required to testify before grand juries and at trials. The government is seeking to delay his sentencing at least six months because of the complexity of the ongoing probe.

Additional legislators and U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young are among those being investigated.

The charging documents said that even with his cooperation, Clark is facing more than three years in prison and a fine of up to $75,000.

As Murkowski's chief of staff, Clark cheated Alaskans out of honest government, the charges said. Clark conspired with ex-Veco chairman Bill Allen, ex-Veco vice president Richard Smith and other unnamed conspirators to secretly get Veco money on behalf of Murkowski's re-election effort.

The illegally undisclosed payments and expenditures resulted in the public being deceived, "thereby depriving the citizens of the State of Alaska of the honest services of Clark and others," the charging documents said.

The charging documents used letters to shield the identify of the two polling companies and the out-of-state consultant receiving the Veco money. But testimony at the trial of former House Speaker Pete Kott last fall revealed that one of the polling companies is Dittman Research Corp. of Alaska. Owner David Dittman testified to receiving $20,000 for the poll - the same amount cited in the government's charging documents - and he said the poll was initiated by Clark or Murkowski.

Clark denied it in a statement to the Daily News at the time, but Dittman said he had proof.

Daily News reporters Sean Cockerham in Anchorage and Wesley Loy in Juneau contributed to this story.

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