Anchorage Daily News

WASHINGTON -- The trial of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens began Monday morning with the start of jury selection and a glimpse of some of the people who may be testifying over the next four weeks.

Among the potential witnesses are four U.S. senators, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Alaska Gov. Bill Sheffield, Stevens' wife, Catherine, and three of his children. Also: the manager of a Fairbanks strip club and a woman with whom the lead witness, former Veco chairman Bill Allen, was reported to have had sexual relations when she was underage.

In all, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan read more than 200 names of potential witnesses for Stevens' trial on seven felony counts of failing to disclose more than $250,000 in gifts he received from 1999 to 2006.

The naming of witnesses to the pool of potential jurors is a normal part of a criminal trial -- it allows jurors to disclose whether they know anyone who will be testifying. But the range of witnesses from the powers of Washington to the underworld of Alaska was breathtaking.

It also included such current and former heavyweights in the Alaska Native community as Cook Inlet Region Inc. chairman Margie Brown, former Cook Inlet Region Inc. president Carl Marrs and the former chairman of the Arctic Slope Regional Corp., Oliver Leavitt.

Jury selection got started in a large ceremonial courtroom more than an hour late as jurors stuck in traffic or unable to find the courthouse straggled in. The court summoned 150 District of Columbia residents for the trial, from which a dozen plus alternates will be selected.

After the pool was sworn, Sullivan gave them a short pep talk on the importance of service and asked the two sides to introduce themselves. Stevens, called by his full first name, Theodore, during the formal parts of the trial, was sitting at the defense table when he was introduced by his chief counsel, Brendan Sullivan.

The jurors were presented with a 21-page questionnaire seeking general information about their lives ("What Internet sites or blogs do you regularly visit?"), and knowledge or opinions they might have of Congress, Alaska ("What comes to mind when you think of Alaska?") and people involved in the trial.

That was Judge Sullivan's purpose in reading the witness list. He acknowledged that a large number of them won't be called -- if they were, the trial would never end by Election Day on Nov. 4, which was Stevens' goal in seeking a speedy trial.

'WHO'S WHO' LIST OF WITNESSES

Steven, 84, is the longest serving Republican senator ever and is seeking his seventh full term in November. He said he hopes to be acquitted by the time Alaska voters go to the polls.

The judge didn't say which side would call any particular witness, and it's possible some were placed there by both the government and the defense. He read them rapidly and only spelled out a few, and the list wasn't available from the court or either side. That left other observers guessing about the spelling of some of the names and the affiliation of most of them.

But some were clear, such as Powell and the four senators: Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont.

Bill Allen, 71, the chairman of the now-defunct oil field services company Veco, was on the list and is expected to be the star witness. Allen and Veco are alleged in the indictment to have provided most of the gifts to Stevens, including the remodeling of Stevens' official Girdwood residence, and to have gotten favors back. Allen has pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges and his testimony has already led to convictions of two Alaska legislators.

Allen's son Mark, of Roswell, N.M., is also on the list, as is his ex-wife Jeanette. Bill Allen's plea deal with the government grants immunity to his family. Bill Allen's estranged nephew, Dave Anderson, and his son, a carpenter, are also on the list. Both worked on Stevens' house in Girdwood.

Other former top Veco officials are on the list: the former president, Pete Leathard; the former chief financial officer, Roger Chan; and Tom Corkran, who was deeply involved in the sale of Veco last September to the Denver-based engineering company CH2M Hill.

And so was Bambi Tyree, the crack-cocaine-addicted woman whose testimony was crucial in a sordid Anchorage case four years ago that led to convictions of a hardware store owner and two drug dealers. They were found guilty of trading drugs to underage girls in return for sex.

Tyree, then in her 20s, was accused of obtaining the young girls for the ring. But she had her own encounters with men while she was underage. The Daily News reported earlier this year that she had told a boyfriend that one of those men was Bill Allen, and that she was 14 or 15 when she had her first sexual encounters.

Anchorage police investigated, but that case has not gone anywhere.

Besides Tyree, the Anchorage detective who has investigated that case, Kevin Vandegriff, is one of the potential witnesses. So is the former boyfriend, Vince Blomfield, the manager of a Fairbanks strip club. If they testify, it is likely they'll be called by the defense in an effort to discredit Allen, though their testimony might also lead jurors to wonder about the kinds of friends Stevens associated with.

The witness list includes some of Stevens' Alaska pals. Besides Marrs, the former CIRI president, those include Anchorage real estate developer and sportfishing advocate Bob Penney and his son Henry, and restaurateur Robert Persons and his wife, Deanna. Persons lives above his Girdwood restaurant, the Double Musky, and looked after Stevens' home when Stevens was in Washington, including during the remodeling.

Stevens' wife Catherine and their recently married daughter, Lily Becker, are potential witnesses. The charges against Stevens includes an allegation that Allen subsidized the purchase of a Land Rover Discovery for Lily when she was in college in California in 1999.

Judge Sullivan also issued an order Monday allowing Stevens to duck in and out of the trial if he has Senate business to attend to. It's not clear whether he can leave to campaign in Alaska against his Democratic opponent, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich.

Contact the reporters: rmauer@adn.com and ebolstad@adn.com

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