Anchorage Daily News

WASHINGTON -- Prosecutors wrapped up their case Wednesday against U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens with a methodical presentation of dozens of e-mails showing Stevens was regularly briefed about the remodeling of his Girdwood home.

Rather than the disinterested husband whose wife ran the "teepee," as Stevens' attorney said in his opening statement to jurors, Stevens received as many as four or five e-mails a week from his friend and Girdwood neighbor Bob Persons on the status of the work. Persons, owner of Girdwood's Double Musky restaurant, frequently reported that much of the work was being done by employees from the oil-field service company Veco. He continually praised Veco's foreman, Rocky Williams, and had good words to say about other Veco workers.

Stevens replied to many of the e-mails and forwarded others to his wife, Catherine, with comments.

Stevens, the Senate's longest serving Republican and an Alaska political icon, is charged with seven felony counts of failing to disclose more than $250,000 in gifts, mainly from Veco and its chief executive, Bill Allen.

On the eighth day of testimony in his trial in U.S. District Court in Washington, the last scheduled prosecution witness, South Dakota-based FBI agent Michelle Pluta, went through seven years of Stevens' Senate disclosure statements year by year, starting with 1999.

For each year, she produced e-mails and other records showing Stevens knew the source of gifts and services he received. For each year, Pluta displayed the page on the disclosure where Stevens was required to report the gifts.

While Stevens listed presents he received as Senate President Pro Tem from King Abdullah of Jordan, the president of Azerbaijan and other world leaders -- things like carpets and serving sets that Stevens passed on to the Senate -- the alleged gifts from Allen and Veco were never reported.

E-MAILS FROM VECO WORKERS

Pluta's testimony also summed up and organized the evidence from former Veco employees and Veco-hired contractors who took the stand starting Sept. 25.

For instance, there was a $6,300 backup generator. Veco employees earlier testified they bought and installed the generator in Stevens' house in 1999. Then they testified they moved and reinstalled it again when Veco designed, managed, and partially constructed the expansion that doubled the house's size in 2000.

Pluta revealed an Oct. 19, 1999, e-mail from Stevens to friend Bob Penney, an Anchorage real estate developer and sportfishing advocate, inviting him and his wife to dinner at the Double Musky. "Incidentally," Stevens added, "I asked Bill Allen to hook up a generator at our house for Y2K," referring to fears at the time that the start of the new millennium would bring widespread computer failures and chaos, including power outages.

Persons regularly wrote Stevens after design work and construction began on the addition in late summer 2000. In one, on Aug. 23, 2000, Persons told Stevens his house had been jacked up and construction was beginning on the new first floor, then told an anti-Semitic joke about a Jewish shoe store owner who sold worthless sneakers. Stevens didn't reference the joke in his reply.

On Sept. 10, 2000, Persons once again praised Williams. "i can't emphasize enough how much and how well rocky does, bill has a true gem there the guy works 7 days a week on bill's projects."

On Sept. 16, 2000, Persons told Stevens that Allen was determined that he would transform Stevens' home into a "grand chalet." The next day, he reported another Veco worker, Dave Anderson, was at the house every day.

SLED DOG REVALUED

The e-mails continued long after the major construction was finished and touch-ups and repairs were needed. On Sept. 24, 2002, Persons wrote Stevens that he and his wife Catherine "will love" the changes Allen was making.

In early May 2004, when Stevens was preparing his 2003 Senate disclosure, he apparently realized that a sled dog he obtained as a gift during a charity auction had a value that exceeded the then-$285 limit for gifts. The way he explained it in a series of e-mails, Penney and Allen bid up the price for the dog during an auction for the Kenai River Sportfishing Association, a group led by Penney.

When the auction hammer came down, Penney and Allen both agreed to pay their bid, then gave the dog to Stevens, making the value of the gift in excess of the limit. Stevens asked Penney to change the nature of the transaction, suggesting that the two bids be considered donations to the association rather than a bid for the dog, and that the dog be considered a gift from the association to Stevens with a value of $250.

That was the way he reported the dog when he signed his disclosure on May 17, 2004. The government says Stevens failed to disclose the real value of the dog -- $1,000, based on the auction price.

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