WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department has moved to dismiss former Sen. Ted Stevens' indictment, effectively voiding his Oct. 27 conviction on seven counts of filing false statements on his U.S. Senate financial disclosure forms.
"After careful review, I have concluded that certain information should have been provided to the defense for use at trial," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement released this morning. "In light of this conclusion, and in consideration of the totality of the circumstances of this particular case, I have determined that it is in the interest of justice to dismiss the indictment and not proceed with a new trial."
The Justice Department filed its motion to dismiss the case this morning.
Stevens, who is 85, lost his re-election bid in November to the former Anchorage Mayor, Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska.
Since Stevens' conviction, the former Alaska senator's lawyers have filed several motions to outright dismiss his original indictment or to grant Stevens a new trial. Their motions have been based in part on allegations in a whistle-blower complaint by an Anchorage FBI agent, and other allegations of prosecutorial misconduct that were released after Stevens' conviction.
But the decision to dismiss the case appears to be based on a matter that came up during the trial: a discrepancy in the courtroom statements of the star witness, Bill Allen, the former oil services company CEO who plied Stevens with gifts, including home renovations that doubled the size of the Alaska senator's residence.
The Justice Department recently discovered notes from an April 15 interview prosecutors conducted with Allen, wrote Paul O'Brien, who has been handling post-conviction matters in the case since some members of the original trial team were cited by a judge with contempt for turning over documents.
In the interview, Allen was asked about a 2002 note Stevens sent him, thanking Allen for his work on "the chalet," his home in Alaska.
In the note, Stevens told Allen not to be "P.O.'d," but said that he needed to have a conversation with one of Stevens' neighbors in Girdwood, Bob Persons, a close friend of both who helped oversee the renovation of the senator's home. It "has to be done right," Stevens wrote.
"You owe me a bill," the letter from Stevens said. "Remember Torricelli, my friend. Friendship is one thing, compliance with the ethics rules entirely different."
Allen said on the witness stand he was unaware at the time what Stevens meant by "Torricelli." But Stevens was apparently referring to former Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., who in 2002 was investigated by the Justice Department for accepting improper gifts from a donor. The investigation closed, but the Senate Ethics Committee reviewed the Justice Department files and issued a public letter of admonishment to Torricelli, who then abandoned a re-election bid and left the Senate.
Allen testified that he didn't send Stevens a bill or invoice after the note, but as promised in the letter, he did have a conversation with Persons. Allen testified that Persons told him, "Don't worry about getting a bill, Ted's just covering his ass."
