Ben Stevens has been told he's off the hook in the rapidly fading Alaska political corruption investigation, according to people with knowledge of the case.
Family friends of Stevens, the former Alaska Senate president and son of the late U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, say he's recently received a letter from federal prosecutors that he won't face charges. A government source who spoke only on background confirmed that the letter was sent and that the long-running investigation has concluded without an indictment.
At the door of their family home in South Anchorage on Wednesday, Stevens' wife, Elizabeth, reviewed a draft of this story and said Stevens would have no comment.
Stevens, 52, was one of six state legislators whose offices were raided by the FBI on Aug. 31, 2006. Four were eventually charged and convicted.
In 2007, Stevens was identified as the recipient of bribes in the charges to which two officials of Veco Corp., Bill Allen and Rick Smith, pleaded guilty.
While Stevens served in the Legislature, he disclosed that Veco, an oil field services company long active in Alaska politics, paid him $243,250 between 2002 and 2006 for "consulting." But he never would say what work he did for the money, even after a citizen complained to the Alaska Public Offices Commission that the fees were thinly disguised bribes.
On the witness stand in the 2007 trial of former House Speaker Pete Kott, Smith, a Veco vice president, was asked which state senators he had bribed.
"That would be Ben Stevens and John Cowdery," Smith testified. (Cowdery pleaded guilty to conspiracy in 2008.)
Federal authorities also investigated Stevens over the hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees paid to him by fishing interests that benefited from legislation promoted by his father in Congress.
This is devastating news for Alaskans, like myself, who have been working to see the corruption in this state cleaned up.
Ben Stevens was considered by most of us to be a slam dunk for the FBI. He had his fingers in everything, and was considered one of the most egregious of the "Corrupt Bastards Club."
With the dropping of Stevens investigation, and Pete Kott and Vic Kohring starting to wriggle out of the grasping fingers of justice, it appears that there will be NO real deterrent to prevent the Republican party from continuing in the future to take kickbacks from oil companies, ensure sweetheart deals for their donors, and keep right on screwing over the people of Alaska.
As some of you may remember the investigation against Rep. Don Young was dropped last year, but as surprising as that was, having Ben Stevens walk away from this whole thing smelling like a rose is almost unthinkable.
Of all of the corrupt bastards the FBI was after, Stevens seemed like the easiest case to make. Hell, essentially EVERYBODY had sold him out!
Personally I find this very unsettling. And for those of you who were still holding out hope that the long rumored federal investigation against Sarah Palin might bubble to the surface in the near future, I would suggest that you not hold your breath on that one either.
This state is filled with awe inspiring beauty, but there is a great ugliness running through our politic system, and apparently for the time being it is here to stay.
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