Anchorage Daily News

Alaska Attorney General Talis Colberg said his office assigned lawyers to closely watch former-state Rep. Pete Kott's trial in federal court over the past two weeks as it revealed other possible criminal acts by politicians and Veco Corp. executives.

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Harry Crawford

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Colberg said the attorney general's office isn't ignoring the revelations. But he said the state has to proceed carefully before pursuing its own criminal charges. The broad federal investigation into corruption in Alaska politics doesn't appear to be close to finished. The feds don't want interference from the state, according to Colberg.

"They've made it clear enough that they appreciate us not stepping into the middle of something that's ongoing," Colberg said.

He said the federal government has also declined to share the results of its investigation with the state.

Jurors on Tuesday convicted Eagle River Republican Kott on federal charges of conspiracy, bribery and extortion. Next up are federal trials of former Republican state Reps. Vic Kohring and Bruce Weyhrauch. It's clear the federal government is investigating other Alaska politicians as well, including U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens.

The state is under a lot of pressure to act instead of relying on the FBI to clean up corruption here. The Alaska Public Offices Commission, a state agency known as APOC, has decided to investigate political polls Veco and possibly other companies bought for candidates.

APOC Executive Director Brooke Miles said the commissioners determined that, with all the public scrutiny and seeming unhappiness with APOC's lack of action, they wanted to find out the facts.

There was testimony at Kott's trial that Veco routinely paid for candidate's political polls, including a $20,000 poll for then-Gov. Frank Murkowski last year before he was a declared candidate for re-election. One of the federal charges against Kott was that Veco illegally bought him a poll.

It's not clear what APOC will do with the findings of its investigation into the other polls paid for by Veco. APOC says it is hindered by the one-year statute of limitations in state law on imposing civil penalties for campaign violations. The polls brought up at Kott's trial are more than a year old.

There is no one-year statute of limitations on criminal charges. APOC doesn't have the authority to pursue criminal matters but could refer its findings to the state attorney general's office. Miles, the APOC director, said that's a possibility.

APOC has only a single investigator. The attorney general's office, while lacking the manpower of the FBI, could call on state troopers and criminal prosecutors for a corruption probe.

MORE THAN JUST POLLS

A pair of Democratic legislators from Anchorage, Les Gara and Harry Crawford, wrote APOC and the state attorney general this week to urge action. They said the state must investigate the polls and other apparent criminal acts that came up in Kott's trial and related federal indictments.

"The scope of this misconduct is unprecedented, and taking no action simply condones this conduct," their letter said.

Gara and Crawford said the illegal acts weren't limited to polls. They pointed to federal indictments in which Veco executives Bill Allen and Rick Smith pleaded guilty to paying "more than $10,000" in expenses for candidate fundraisers, knowing the money would be ultimately recorded as legitimate corporate expenses.

That violates the ban in state law on corporate contributions to candidates, Gara and Crawford said.

The indictment does not mention which fundraisers were illegal. But former Veco executive Smith testified that he organized many fundraisers, including the annual pig roast for Alaska Congressman Don Young.

'SPECIAL BONUSES'

Smith and Allen also testified about Veco's "special bonus program," where the company would reimburse Veco executives for campaign contributions.

That's also against Alaska law. Gara said that not all the former Veco executives involved in the program are under federal indictment, and maybe they should be under state indictment.

The state should also investigate what legislators besides those charged by federal prosecutors benefited from Veco in violation of state law, he said. So far, all legislators indicted have been Republicans.

"There's a lot the state can do," Gara said.

Gara said the state could pursue criminal charges on issues like illegal polls without interfering in the much broader federal investigation. Gara said, at this point, it looks like the state is doing nothing.

Colberg said he could not comment on any proposed or ongoing investigation. Colberg did not rule out the idea of the state going after side issues such as political polls without messing up the federal probe.

"We do not overlook the idea there is something they may not pursue that we may be able to," the attorney general said.

Find Sean Cockerham online at adn.com/contact/scockerham or call him at 257-4344.