Anchorage Daily News

A former Veco employee backed away from an assertion in an interview published in Sunday's Daily News that some labor costs for the 2000 renovation of Sen. Ted Stevens' home in Girdwood were borne by an oil company.

David Anderson, who supervised the project for Veco, an oil field service company implicated in the government's corruption investigation in Alaska, said he submitted the time slips for the shop electricians who worked on the Stevens house.

But on Sunday, he said he couldn't be sure how Veco accounted for the labor costs on its books.

Last week, Anderson said some of the labor charges were passed on to an oil company that was paying Veco to build a North Slope module in its shop at the time, probably BP, though not necessarily with the knowledge of the oil company. He affirmed that Saturday.

But on Sunday, Anderson said he was mistaken and only knew for sure that Veco covered the costs, not that they were passed through to a Veco client.

That accounting took place in a Veco office outside the scope of his job, he said Sunday.

Stevens was charged last week in a seven-count indictment with failing to disclose more than $250,000 worth of gifts from Veco, mostly related to renovations of his residence in Girdwood starting in 2000.

The indictment said Stevens failed to reimburse Veco for labor, materials and furnishings it provided Stevens from 2000 to 2006.

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