Anchorage Daily News

WASHINGTON - One of the nation's best-known retired Army generals, Colin Powell, described Sen. Ted Stevens in court today as a "trusted individual" and a man with a "sterling" reputation.

"He was someone whose word you could rely on," said Powell, secretary of state in President Bush's first term, who self-deprecatingly described himself as someone who retired as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and then "dabbled a bit in diplomacy."

Stevens, on trial for lying about gifts on financial disclosure forms, has the right to ask character witnesses to speak on behalf of his "truthfulness and veracity." The first such character witness, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, spoke Thursday. Another three are set to testify on Stevens' behalf, but the highest-profile witness, by far, will be Powell.

The former secretary of state said he had known Stevens for 25 years, mostly in the senator's role as the top defense appropriator on a Senate defense appropriations committee. In Stevens, "I had a guy who would tell me when I was off base, he would tell me when I had no clothes on, figuratively, that is, and would tell me when I was right and go for it," Powell said. "He's a guy who, as we said in the infantry, we would take on a long patrol."

When asked outside of the courtroom after his testimony whether Stevens asked him personally to testify to his character, Powell said he couldn't recall if it was the senator or one of his lawyers. But he didn't think twice about testifying, Powell said.

"Not at all," he said, snapping his fingers to signify it was a snap decision.

Powell's endorsement followed a morning of testimony from people who worked on Stevens' home and were paid by Stevens and his family, or were aware of gifts he had received.

The former chairman of a nonprofit in Alaska testified that he was directed by a close friend of Stevens to "create a paper trail" that would show a husky puppy given to the senator was worth one-fourth what the friend paid for it.

Stevens, 84, faces charges of failing to disclose more than $250,000 in gifts between 1999 and 2006. Most of that total involved a major renovation project that doubled the size of Stevens' home in Girdwood, with much of the work allegedly done for free by an oil-field service company run by Stevens' friend Bill Allen.

The testimony Friday morning, on the 10th day of trial, was only about a dog, but it's also part of the case against Stevens.

Ronald Rainey, a retired utility worker from Soldotna, was called by Stevens' defense to discredit a prosecution contention that the blue-eyed husky was a $1,000 dog -- a value far in excess of the $285 gift limit in effect for the Senate that year.

Rainey testified that the Kenai River Sportfishing Association gave the dog to Stevens, not the man who bid $1,000 for it at the group's annual charity auction. The bidder was Bob Penney, an Anchorage real estate developer, the founder of the association and Stevens' good friend.

But if Penney bought the dog with his $1,000 bid, why did Stevens report it in his 2003 Senate disclosure as a gift from the association with a value of $250?

According to Rainey, Penney bid up the value of the dog. When the auction hammer came down, he was the last bidder.

"It was a joke," Rainey said. "We knew he got stuck with something he didn't want."

Rainey described Penney as the founder of the association. He still had huge sway over the group, Rainey said. Penney proposed donating the dog back to the association; the association would then give it to someone who wanted it, Rainey said. That would be Stevens and his wife, Catherine, he testified.

But the document prepared by the association the night of the auction, shown to the jury earlier as a prosecution exhibit, showed Penney won the bid and took the dog. The statement listed the dog's fair market value as $500 and the paid-in-full bid as $1,000.

On Wednesday, the government introduced an e-mail written by Stevens to Penney on May 2, 2004, 10 months after the auction, in which he complained he was filling out his "GD disclosure form" and had a problem with the dog. Penney couldn't give him the dog because it was worth more than $285, Stevens said. He said the gift instead should be a present from the association.

"In May of 2004, Bob Penney asked you to create a paper trail concerning the sled dog?" asked prosecutor Nicholas Marsh.

"That's correct," Rainey said.

An e-mail introduced Friday from Rainey to Penney on May 6, 2004, said the association considered the dog was a "thank-you" to Stevens for all his work on its behalf.

"You did this because Bob Penney asked you to create a paper trail?" Marsh said.

"Yes," said Rainey. But he said the documentation reflected the association's intent at the time of the auction.

Earlier, the defense provided the names of 10 character witnesses it hoped would testify for Stevens. But the judge said he would only allow five, a more usual number.

Another proposed witness, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., is probably too ill to testify, the defense said. The defense said it would like to call Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, former Transportation Secretary William Coleman, former District of Columbia council member John Ray, Olympic medalist and sportscaster Donna DeVerona and a fellow veteran from Stevens' World War II Army Air Corps unit, Leroy Parramore.

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