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Alaska
Department of Corrections
July 14, 2005 Anchorage Daily News
A corporate shake-up appears to have killed controversial plans to put a boys'
psychiatric treatment center in the MacKay Building annex on downtown's eastern
flanks. Texas-based Cornell Cos., which underwent an upheaval last month,
has withdrawn its application to operate a 60-bed psychiatric center for teenage
boys in the three-story building on Fourth Avenue between Cordova and Denali
streets. Cornell officials did not return phone calls from the Daily News
on Wednesday. But news accounts say that an investment firm, Pirate Capital,
which owns 15 percent of Cornell, was unhappy with the company's financial
performance and took control of the board of directors in June.
Alaska Legislature
Cornell, VECO
November 27, 2007 Anchorage Daily News
State Sen. Lesil McGuire was accused Tuesday of making veiled threats to
dissuade a lobbyist from testifying in the corruption case against her husband,
former state Rep. Tom Anderson. The surprising information came up during the
sentencing hearing of Bill Bobrick, a once-prominent lobbyist who began
cooperating in September 2006 with the FBI in its investigation of corruption in
Alaska politics. In an interview after the hearing, McGuire denied making any
threats and said Bobrick was deflecting attention from himself onto her "on the
day of his reckoning with the public." Bobrick, 52, pleaded guilty in May to
conspiring with Anderson to push the interests of a private prison firm in
exchange for money. He funneled nearly $24,000 to Anderson, money put up by a
prison consultant who was working undercover for the FBI. In all, Anderson
received nearly $26,000. The prison company, Cornell Cos., didn't know about the
scheme, federal officials have said. U.S. District Judge John Sedwick ordered
Bobrick to serve five months in prison, followed by five months of house arrest
on the felony conspiracy conviction. That's the minimum sentence under federal
guidelines, which are advisory. It's far less than the two years to 30 months
that Bobrick would have faced if he didn't cooperate. And it's much less than
the five years that Sedwick sentenced Anderson to serve. The Republican who
represented East Anchorage in the Legislature for two terms also initially
cooperated with the FBI, then decided to fight the charges against him. He was
indicted in December 2006 and a jury convicted him in July of seven felony
counts including bribery and money laundering. Anderson reports to a federal
prison on Monday in Oregon.
November 22, 2007 Anchorage Daily News
Once-prominent lobbyist Bill Bobrick almost surely is going to prison. But not
for long. His sentencing on a single felony charge of conspiracy, part of an
ongoing federal investigation of political corruption in Alaska, is set for
Tuesday morning before U.S. District Judge John Sedwick. Bobrick has been
cooperating with the government, so will get much less time than the five years
slapped on the only other defendant sentenced so far in the corruption probe,
former state Rep. Tom Anderson. "I take full responsibility for my crime,"
Bobrick, 52, said in a brief telephone call on Wednesday. "I can never apologize
too much to my fellow Alaskans for the damage I have done to our political
system." Prosecutors are asking that he be sentenced to a year and a day, which
triggers a rule that requires he do all the time in prison, less only good time.
With good behavior, he could be out after about 10 1/2 months. They also want
two years of probation, prosecutors wrote in a memo to the judge. The defense
wants a sentence of less than a year and is asking that Bobrick be allowed to
serve at least part of it under house arrest or in a halfway house. That would
allow him to do community service as he's serving his time, which is what his
attorney said he really wants. Federal prisoners don't get "good time" for
sentences of less than a year. "Bobrick is not pleading for mercy," his
attorney, Doug Pope, wrote in his sentencing memorandum. "He is requesting that
the court credit him with providing substantial assistance to the government,
and give him a chance to atone for his crime." If he hadn't cooperated, he'd be
facing two years or longer for the conspiracy conviction under sentencing
guidelines. Bobrick is married and has lived in Alaska for 32 years. His wife is
in her third year of medical school. Pope filed in court more than 50 letters of
support, many trying to convince the judge to fashion a sentence that puts
Bobrick to work doing community service rather than serving time in prison. At
least six former Anchorage Assembly members and several law enforcement
representatives are among the dozens who wrote in. Bobrick's not the type to get
in trouble again, his supporters said. Many mentioned good work he's done as a
volunteer for years. They said he apologized to his friends, clients and
colleagues one by one long before his case became public. "I believe that Bill
Bobrick knows that his actions were wrong and that he is full of remorse about
the choices he made," wrote Jane Angvik, a former Anchorage Assembly member. She
met him in 1986 through political activity and has served on boards with him.
She wrote that she's talked with him about the crime and he wept as he described
his regret. "He said he had 'lost his way,' that he has changed, and that he is
prepared to accept whatever punishment the court deems appropriate." Bobrick
pleaded guilty in May to conspiring with Anderson to push the interests of a
private prison firm in exchange for money. He became one of the main government
witnesses against Anderson in a trial this summer. A consultant to Cornell Cos.
funneled $24,000 to Bobrick in the scheme, and Bobrick eventually passed almost
all of it on to Anderson. The consultant, former state Corrections Commissioner
Frank Prewitt, was working undercover for the FBI and Cornell knew nothing of
the bribes, officials have said. Until he was caught up in the ongoing,
multipronged FBI investigation last year, Bobrick was a powerful player in the
city. He didn't lobby the state Legislature but was active politically and
served as executive director of the Alaska Democratic Party in the late 1980s.
He then registered as a lobbyist in the municipality. For years, he had more
clients than anyone with city business. He's lost all that now. The FBI
confronted him in late September 2006 with secretly recorded telephone calls and
meetings about the scheme with Anderson. He began cooperating on Sept. 28, 2006.
The defense expects the government to agree that his help "has been as broad and
as extensive as the government requested, that his assistance extended beyond
the 'Cornell Corrections conspiracy' which was the subject of the Anderson
indictment and trial, and involved actively assisting in collecting evidence,
including recording conversations." Bobrick was vaguely threatened before the
Anderson trial, according to Pope. He described it as "contacts implying threats
of economic injury." "Those threats were credible," Pope wrote. "It is
reasonable to conclude that they were an attempt to influence Bobrick's
testimony or to dissuade him from testifying at all." Pope didn't provide
details but indicated in his memo that more information was in another filing,
which was not made public. The government is seeking a $5,000 fine. But Bobrick
no longer can make a living and should not be fined, Pope wrote.
November 13, 2007 AP
A former Alaska lawmaker convicted of seven counts of conspiracy and bribery
will begin his five-year federal prison sentence next month. Former Rep. Tom
Anderson on Monday told Anchorage television station KTUU that he will report to
a federal prison south of Portland, Ore., on Dec. 3. Anderson, 40, a two-term
Republican from Anchorage who chose not to run for re-election in 2006, was
convicted in July of taking nearly $24,000 he thought was coming from a private
prison firm, Cornell Industries Inc., in exchange for his assistance on
legislation. The money was supplied by the FBI through an informant under
contract to Cornell, Frank Prewitt, a former Alaska Department of Corrections
commissioner. Prewitt secretly recorded his conversations with Anderson and a
co-conspirator, lobbyist Bill Bobrick, between July 2004 and March 2005. Cornell
Industries was not aware of the bribery scheme or investigation. The 60-month
sentence fell within the presentencing report guidelines of 51 to 63 months.
Anderson was the first of four former Republican Alaska lawmakers arrested on
federal corruption charges. Former House Speaker Pete Kott was convicted in
October of conspiracy to solicit financial benefits, extortion and bribery. He
will be sentenced Dec. 7. Former state Rep. Vic Kohring was convicted earlier
this month of bribery, conspiracy to commit extortion and attempted interference
with commerce by extortion. He was acquitted of another count of interference
with commerce by extortion. Sentencing was set Feb. 6. The corruption trial of
former state Rep. Bruce Weyhrauch has been delayed.
November 7, 2007 UPI
The Alaska Public Offices Commission is coordinating with the U.S. Justice
Department to probe what Veco Corp. illegally did to benefit Alaska politicians.
The commission, which investigates campaign-finance violations, is focusing on
matters such as polls the oil-services company may have illegally bought for
legislators, as well as illegal Veco campaign contributions, The Anchorage Daily
News reported. The Justice Department, the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service
are conducting a widespread investigation into alleged political corruption of
lawmakers in the Alaska Legislature, focusing in particular on lawmakers'
official actions in connection with the oil industry, fisheries and private
corrections industry. Former Alaska lawmaker Pete Kott, accused of trading his
legislative influence for bribes, was convicted of corruption charges in the
scandal Sept. 27. Veco founder and Chief Executive Officer Bill Allen and Vice
President for Community and Government Affairs Rick Smith pleaded guilty May 7
to charges of bribery and conspiracy. Because of the chances of overlap between
the state and federal probes, the state commission is cooperating closely with
the Justice Department, particularly on the issue of subpoenas, the newspaper
said.
October 9, 2007 KTUU
For the first time since facing federal corruption charges, former Anchorage
Representative Tom Anderson is publicly admitting he broke the law. Anderson was
convicted on bribery and conspiracy charges in July. His admission comes about a
week before his sentencing. In a memo filed with U.S. District Court yesterday
(Monday), Anderson says "I accept full responsibility for the choices I've made
and the damge I've done...." Anderson's lawyer says he is seeking leniency -
specifically, no more than 33 months behind bars. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe
Bottini says prosecutors will likely request a sentence of 5 to six years.
Bottini says it's too late for Anderson to acknowledge he did wrong, since he
could have pleaded guilty before the trial. Anderson was found guilty for taking
money he thought was coming from a private prison company. The nearly $26,000
actually came from an FBI informant who secretly recorded conversations with
Anderson and former municipal lobbyist Bill Bobrick.
September 19, 2007 KTUU
Cornell Cos. claims it will no longer attempt to sell projects here in Alaska.
The company has made big headlines in Alaska over the last several months as the
private prison firm used a decoy by government informant Frank Prewitt in
crafting a bribery scheme with former Anchorage lobbyist Bill Bobrick and former
Anchorage Rep. Tom Anderson. Both Anderson and Bobrick have been convicted of
corruption and bribery in the scheme. Cornell has tried building a private
prison in Alaska three times -- in Delta junction, Kenai and Whittier -- and has
been unsuccessful in each instance. Now Cornell CEO James Hyman said he's done.
"We understand how the [Department of Justice] had to use bait to get what they
needed. We are a little chagrined to be that bait," Hyman said. Although the
government successfully used Cornell as bait to take down Anderson and Bobrick,
the company was not involved in the kickbacks and knew nothing of Prewitt's
arrangement with federal agents. Instead, Cornell was simply part of an FBI
cover in order to keep the bribery framework it was monitoring with Anderson and
Bobrick believable. Unbeknownst to Cornell, Prewitt sought Anderson's help on
matters key to the company's future plans, including muscling through the
complex bureaucracy to prove to the state those projects were needed. During the
Anderson trial, Prewitt told the court he made an illegal campaign contribution
utilizing money from a former Cornell executive. After hearing that, Hyman said
the company wanted to ensure its activities in Alaska had all been above board.
Hyman said the company talked to current and ex-employees to try and discover
any wrongdoing. He said he is confident there have been no issues since he took
over in 2005 and said there's no evidence it happen in prior years either. Among
the projects Cornell was pursuing in Alaska, and Prewitt was using to snare
Anderson, was a new juvenile residential treatment facility for Anchorage. The
project suffered from poor community support for the Downtown location it chose
for a detention facility in addition to the paperwork and bureaucratic snags.
Cornell currently operates six halfway houses across the state, including three
here in Anchorage. A company executive announced that is where its focus will
remain for the foreseeable future. "We are not interested in the juvenile sector
here. We are not interested in building a private prison here or operating a
private prison here. That is not where we are going to focus," Hyman said.
Alaska Department of Corrections Commissioner Joe Schmidt said the department's
relationship with Cornell is still strong. "Right now, they want to work with us
instead of against us, and I think we have a pretty good partnership right now,"
Schmidt said. The possibility of constructing a private prison in Alaska was
taken off the table three years ago when the state legislature passed a bill
requiring any prison expansion in the state to be state-run and state-operated.
July 30, 2007 Anchorage Daily News
Federal law enforcement agents are currently searching the Girdwood home of
Alaska U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, an FBI agent said. "All I can say is that agents
from the FBI and IRS are currently conducting a search at that residence," said
Dave Heller, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Anchorage
office. The search began this afternoon, he said. It's the only such search
warrant currently being served, he said. He directed other questions to the U.S.
Justice Department's Public Integrity Section in Washington. A spokesman there
had no comment. Federal investigators and a grand jury looking into public
corruption in Alaska have been asking questions about a 2000 remodeling project
at Stevens' home, particularly the involvement of the oil field services firm
Veco. Three contractors who worked on the project told the Daily News that their
records had been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, and others connected with
the work and with Stevens had been interviewed. One of the contractors who
worked on the job said he was hired by Veco CEO Bill Allen for the job, and
while his bills were paid by Stevens and his wife, Catherine, invoices were
reviewed first by Veco. Allen and a Veco vice president pleaded guilty in May to
bribery, extortion and other charges connected with paying off state
legislators.
July 10, 2007 KTVA TV
Cornell Cos., whose lobbyist became the federal government's chief witness in
the corruption case against former Anchorage Rep. Tom Anderson, wants it known
it had nothing to with the bribery scheme. The Texas-based corrections company
runs five halfway houses across the state. It hired lobbyist Frank Prewitt to
help advance its interest in those and other areas, including developing a
privately run prison in Alaska and a juvenile treatment facility in Anchorage.
Cornell says while Prewitt may have told now-convicted co-conspirators Bill
Bobrick and Anderson that the bribe money he had to offer was coming from
Cornell, in reality, the company says they had no knowledge of what was going
on. The company also claims it had no idea Prewitt was an FBI informant.
However, Prewitt did admit under oath that he had been implicated but not yet
charged in an illegal contribution scheme involving a Cornell Cos. executive in
2003. Prewitt testified he helped funnel $3,000 from that executive to an Alaska
politician that same year. The FBI has acknowledged the money Prewitt used in
the bribe scheme involving Anderson came from them and not Cornell. Cornell Cos.
Consultant Charles Seigel said the company does not support bribery.
July 10, 2007 KTVA TV
Alaska Senator Ted Stevens says he's worried about how a corruption
investigation could affect his run for re-election next year. The 83-year-old
Republican has drawn Justice Department scrutiny over a renovation project in
2000, that more than doubled the size of his home in Girdwood. The remodeling
was overseen by Bill Allen -- a contractor who has pleaded guilty to bribing
Alaska state legislators. Allen is founder of VECO Corporation -- an
Alaska-based oil field services and engineering company that has reaped tens of
millions of dollars in federal contracts. Allen is cooperating with the FBI. It
appears investigators are looking at whether VECO got anything in return for the
home improvement help. Alaska's senior senator is caught up in a larger probe
that included FBI raids last summer at offices of six Alaska legislators. Those
legislators include Stevens' son, Ben, who was then the president of the state
Senate. Ted Stevens told The Associated Press recently that, "The worst thing
about this investigation is that it does change your life in terms of employment
potential... "It doesn't matter what anyone says, it does shake you up. If this
is still hanging around a year from November, it could cause me some trouble."
Monday, a federal jury convicted former state Representative Tom Anderson on all
seven counts in a corruption trial in Anchorage. Anderson was charged with seven
felonies, including conspiracy, bribery, money laundering and interfering with
commerce, a charge connected to a demand for payments. Prosecutors said he
conspired to take money he thought was coming from a private prison firm,
Cornell Industries, Incorporated. The conspiracy called for Cornell to invest in
a Web-based public affairs newsletter that Anderson would write for, something a
private prison firm would not normally sponsor, as a way to pay off Anderson.
July 10, 2007 Anchorage Daily News
Federal jurors said they relied on former state Rep. Tom Anderson's own
words to convict him Monday of conspiracy, bribery and other charges related to
political corruption. Eleven jurors returned seven guilty verdicts around 1:30
p.m., finding Anderson, 39, guilty of all felony charges against him. Witnesses
testified Anderson took money to do the bidding of a private prison firm. In
all, Anderson received $25,838 in 2004 and 2005, witnesses said. The money was
supplied by the FBI through Frank Prewitt, a consultant for Cornell Cos., who
secretly recorded his conversations with Anderson and a co-conspirator, former
lobbyist Bill Bobrick. Juror No. 9 was dismissed Monday after a closed hearing
for reasons that weren't explained. Both sides agreed to go forward with fewer
than 12. Jurors at first were split over whether Anderson had been entrapped by
the government, said several reached after the verdict. Jury forewoman Wendy
Gilbert of Valdez said the key evidence came from a July 28, 2004, recording of
a conversation among Anderson, Prewitt and Bobrick -- the first after the
conspiracy began, according to the government. Jurors asked for it to be
replayed on Monday and found that Anderson had an idea of what was expected of
him from the start. "They started talking about what he could do for Cornell,"
juror Travis Gardner of Chugiak said. And when Anderson was asked about his
credentials, Gardner said, the first thing he said was that he's a legislator.
It didn't matter if Anderson would have taken the same actions anyway, such as
getting on key budget committees, because he accepted money for doing so, said
Gardner, 23. Another juror said she felt prosecutors presented a "substantial
amount of evidence." Asked what was key in their decision, juror Marie Gieryic
of Eagle River replied in an e-mail: "the recorded conversations of Anderson and
others." Those conversations, along with other evidence, showed "Anderson
understood he was taking part in illegal activities," wrote Gieryic, a mother of
three who works in a child care center. MESSAGE TO JUNEAU The verdict should
help "reinject ethics" into the Legislature and send a message "that there is a
significant price to pay for abusing the public's trust in this manner," she
wrote. Legislators need to think twice before they sell out. Anderson and his
attorney seemed stunned by the verdict. When the jury left the room, Anderson
uttered a weary sigh. "I'm devastated," he said. He said he'd appeal. "The
prosecution has criminalized being a legislator over this past year. And I think
I fell victim to that," Anderson said. Anderson's attorney, Paul Stockler said
Anderson will need to think over what to do next after consulting with his wife,
state Sen. Lesil McGuire, and a circle of advisers. "I'm speechless right now,"
Stockler said. "But when you go up against the government, you risk losing."
Anderson never tied the payment of money to any official acts as a legislator,
Stockler said. "He was always willing to help, and it had nothing to do with
money." For the reading of the verdict, the courtroom quickly filled with FBI
agents, prosecutors and staff members. McGuire wasn't there. She and other
friends and family came to the trial but couldn't get to the federal building in
downtown Anchorage in time after jurors announced they had reached a verdict,
Anderson said. McGuire was not accused of wrongdoing. In fact, prosecutors used
the fact that Anderson hid the payments from her as further evidence of a shady
deal. NO ENTRAPMENT With seven counts and an entrapment defense, the case was
particularly complex, said Gilbert, the jury forewoman. "There's a lot on the
line and a lot on your shoulders, and you want to make sure you do the right
thing," said Gilbert, a pipeline lab technician and mother of three. A common
thread for jurors was that none knew much about the case beforehand from news
coverage. In the end, jurors concluded Anderson had not been lured to commit
crimes by a government agent. He was not "entrapped." Juror Gardner, who works
for a trucking company, said the case was a lesson in Alaska politics. "I didn't
even know what lobbying was," he said. But it didn't make him cynical, he said.
Businesses should have a way to get their interests heard -- just not by paying
legislators, he said. The public corruption case against Anderson provided the
first real test for the FBI and prosecutors in their ongoing investigation of
Alaska state legislators. Three other politicians are awaiting trial, though the
schemes alleged in those cases are different. Those cases involve allegations of
bribes paid by executives with oil field services contractor Veco. Lawyers for
indicted former Reps. Bruce Weyhrauch and Pete Kott, whose trial is set for
Sept. 5, said the guilty verdict won't have any impact on their strategy because
the facts are so different. State Rep. Vic Kohring, whose trial is set for Oct.
22 and who is stepping down from his post next week, said he was saddened for
Anderson but that his own resolve to fight the charges against him had not
waned. Nick Marsh and Joe Bottini prosecuted the case against Anderson. They
didn't comment on the verdict, nor did the FBI in Alaska. The only government
statement came out of Washington, D.C. "Anderson has been held accountable for
his crimes thanks to the hard work of federal prosecutors and FBI agents, and
the Department of Justice will continue its pursuit of public corruption at all
levels of government," U.S. Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher said in a
written statement. KEY WITNESS One of the government's main witnesses was former
lobbyist Bobrick. Gardner said jurors didn't find Bobrick that believable.
Bobrick pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy in the scheme and agreed to
cooperate with the government in the hope of getting a lighter sentence. Bobrick
told jurors about a series of checks he wrote to Anderson or his consulting
business that went far beyond the initial payments revealed before the trial:
$3,000 on Feb. 14, 2005, $1,500 on Feb. 25, 2005, and more, on into June 2005.
In all, Bobrick passed nearly $24,000 through to Anderson, and Prewitt gave him
another $2,000 directly, according to their testimony. Bobrick testified he had
an idea for a political Web site that he had hoped would become a real business
with Anderson, but it never did. Anderson was paid "for being a legislator,"
Bobrick told jurors. But, as jurors indicated, Anderson's own words were most
damaging. On a Nov. 16, 2004, recording of a meeting in his Anchorage
legislative office, Anderson brought up money and told Prewitt he didn't want to
split the next payment with Bobrick. Anderson served in the state House from
2003 to this year. He didn't run in 2006. U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick
set sentencing for Oct. 2. Anderson faces certain prison time and significant
fines.
July 6, 2007 Anchorage Daily News
On June 13, 2005, an FBI agent left a message on then-state Rep. Tom Anderson's
cell phone asking for his views on an upcoming federal appointment because he
had been such a friend of law enforcement in the past. But when Anderson showed
up at the FBI building in downtown Anchorage the next day, he discovered that
was just a ploy. He was the target of an undercover FBI investigation. Huge
blown-up pictures from a five-hour-long Prince William Sound sailing trip on the
boat of Cornell Cos. consultant Frank Prewitt were on the wall. Agents played
secretly made recordings of his conversations with Prewitt and lobbyist Bill
Bobrick. The agents wanted to get Anderson to cooperate in its ongoing
corruption investigation. And for a time he did, prosecutors said. The defense
in Anderson's corruption trial wrapped up Thursday after five quick witnesses.
The case is expected to go to the jury today after closing arguments. Anderson
is charged with seven federal felonies, including bribery, extortion and money
laundering. Defense lawyer Paul Stockler maintained that Anderson never took any
legislative actions for money. He tried to portray Anderson as a man who had no
inclination to do anything shady but was lured in to doing questionable things
by the FBI. Anderson didn't take the stand. After court ended for the day on
Thursday, Anderson said he trusted Stockler's judgment in directing his defense.
With the case about to go to the jury, he said he felt anxious but didn't want
to say much. Earlier in the trial, Bobrick testified that he created a business
that was supposed to produce a Web site about Alaska politics. But he told
jurors that it ultimately became a sham used to funnel illegal payments from
Prewitt to Anderson. Prosecutors assert that the money was used to get the
legislator to do Cornell's bidding on halfway houses, a juvenile treatment
center and a private prison. Though Anderson was supposed to have produced
material for the Web site, witnesses have testified that he never did. Bobrick
has pleaded guilty and Prewitt worked undercover for the FBI, making recordings
"as a cooperating witness."
July 4, 2007 Anchorage Daily News
On the stand for a second day in federal court Tuesday, former lobbyist Bill
Bobrick told jurors that his idea for a political Web site started as a real
business venture in 2004 with then-state Rep. Tom Anderson. It wasn't supposed
to be a way "to bribe Tom Anderson or channel him funds. But it certainly ended
up that way," Bobrick testified. Ultimately, its only real purpose was to
disguise payments to Anderson, he told jurors. Anderson never did any real work
for the Web site and received the money "for being a legislator," Bobrick said.
The Web site never got off the ground. Prosecutors rested their corruption case
against Anderson on Tuesday afternoon after calling eight witnesses over four
days. The trial began June 25 with jury selection, which lasted 2 1/2 days.
Prosecutors contend that Bobrick's Web site business was used to funnel payments
from a Cornell Cos. consultant to Anderson so that he would do the company's
bidding on halfway houses, a juvenile treatment center and a private prison.
Anderson faces seven felony counts. Bobrick has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and
said he is cooperating with the government in the hope of getting a lighter
sentence. In all, Anderson received a total of $25,838, based on testimony about
various checks. That's much more money than was previously disclosed. The
charges list $12,838 in payments to Anderson. The FBI actually provided the
money. Cornell was unaware of any scheme, the government has said.
July 2, 2007 AP
Government informer Frank Prewitt had plenty of
chances to call off a scheme to funnel payments to former state Rep. Tom
Anderson but did not, Anderson's attorney contended in federal court Monday. In
a second day of questioning of the prosecution's star witness in the corruption
case against Anderson, defense attorney Paul Stockler hammered away at
conversations secretly recorded by Prewitt and his motives for doing so. Prewitt
is a former Corrections Department commissioner and a consultant for a private
prison company, Cornell Industries Inc. At least 10 times, Stockler said,
Anderson or the man he's accused of conspiring with, Bill Bobrick, posed
questions to Prewitt as to his comfort level with their plan to have Cornell
spend money on their proposed Web-based public affairs newsletter. Prewitt,
cooperating with an FBI investigation, acknowledged he did not halt their plan.
"My role was not to advise them as to what was and wasn't illegal ... My role
was to have conversations and see where they went," Prewitt said. Anderson was
arrested Dec. 7 and charged with single counts of conspiracy and bribery, three
counts of money laundering and two counts of interfering with commerce, a charge
connected to a demand for payments. He's accused of conspiring with Bobrick, a
former municipal lobbyist in Anchorage, to solicit and obtain money for
Anderson's influence as a lawmaker. According to prosecutors, the newsletter
company was a front for Cornell to pay Anderson money that could not be traced
directly to Cornell. Prewitt testified that Cornell, whose entire business in
Alaska comes through government contracts, had no use for advertising in a
newsletter or sponsoring it. Bobrick in May pleaded guilty to bribing Anderson.
Following testimony by Prewitt and former Corrections Commissioner Marc Antrim,
Bobrick took the stand for the last half hour of proceedings Monday. Stockler
contends Prewitt cooperated with investigators because Prewitt himself also was
being investigated, and that Prewitt steered recorded conversations with
Anderson to payoffs. In his cross examination of Prewitt, Stockler's questions
followed several themes: — Prewitt never gave his opinion that Cornell's
payments would be illegal or directly tied Anderson's help to them. — Even
before the alleged conspiracy, Anderson supported Cornell's interests. —
Anderson's interest in shielding his link to Cornell was connected to his
re-election and not offending corrections constituents whose jobs could be
threatened if Cornell's private prisons were built. Stockler also closely
questioned Prewitt on his instructions for recording conversations from the FBI,
and whether he was instructed to lie. Prewitt acknowledged one lie — his promise
to run the newsletter and payment scheme "up the flagpole" to the principles at
Cornell. He never did. "So that was a lie?" Stockler asked. "I guess that would
be true," Prewitt said. But Prewitt kept his composure as he methodically
responded to Stockler's other questions. He acknowledged that other lawmakers,
including Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, had intervened for Cornell, even
fielding "talking points" composed by Prewitt for making Cornell's case. The
difference was, Hawker did not receive payments, Prewitt said. In some
instances, Bobrick's concern that Prewitt might consider the arrangement over
whether Prewitt considered the scheme a "bad idea" or "sleazy" was because
Bobrick was afraid it would jeopardize his own $5,000 per month annual contract
with Cornell, Prewitt said. In another, Bobrick expressed concern that Prewitt
would experience "sticker shock" over the amount of money requested — three
payments of $8,000. Under a questioning by Nicholas A. Marsh, a trial attorney
in the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, Prewitt said
that acknowledging the illegality of the payments to Anderson or Bobrick would
have defeated the purpose of the investigation. "That would have had an
immediate chilling effect on the inquiry," Prewitt said. He denied that he was
ever told by the FBI that he had to "bag a state legislator." Marsh asked
whether Anderson had "many times" acknowledged that Cornell had no interest in
the newsletter and knew it was a sham. "No question about it, the purpose of
this arrangement was not the Web site?" Marsh asked. "No question," Prewitt
replied. In the half hour he was on the stand, under questioning from Assistant
U.S. Attorney Joseph W. Bottini, Bobrick had time only to lay out his background
as a construction worker, union official, director of the Democratic party and
legislative aide. Bobrick said he befriended Anderson in 2001 when Anderson was
a member of the Anchorage School Board and they eventually discussed going into
business. Anderson, a moderate Republican, would lobby in Juneau and Bobrick,
then a Democrat, in Anchorage. Anderson approached him in early 2004 and told
him he needed money. He asked Bobrick if he could find him contract work. "He
was my friend and I wanted to help him out," Bobrick said. He is scheduled to
continue testifying Tuesday.
July 1, 2007 Anchorage Daily News
A former deputy corrections commissioner whose name came up Friday in the
Tom Anderson corruption trial was working as an informant for the FBI in 2004
when he asked a prison company consultant for money, an FBI spokesman said
Saturday. Former Cornell Cos. consultant Frank Prewitt testified Friday that he
worked with deputy commissioner Don Stolworthy that year to develop a compromise
on competing bills to build a new prison. One measure could have led to a
Cornell-run prison in Whittier. The other, supported by the Murkowski
administration, pushed a state-run prison in the Valley. Prewitt, a state
corrections commissioner in the 1990s, testified Stolworthy told him he was
worried about losing his job because of union opposition to a private prison.
Prewitt said he assured Stolworthy that “people would be there for him” if that
happened. Prewitt told jurors that Stolworthy eventually began seeking money, as
a sort of insurance policy, if he lost his job. But he only did that because the
FBI asked him to, FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez said Saturday. Stolworthy was
working for the FBI as a “cooperating witness,” he said. “We approached him out
of the blue,” Gonzalez said. “We asked for his help and he said he’d be glad to
help us.” Stolworthy “was squeaky clean,” Gonzalez said. The fact that
Stolworthy was working undercover for the FBI never came up during the trial on
Friday. Prewitt testified that he was shocked that Stolworthy was asking for
money and read him the ethics act. The FBI won’t discuss what evidence it may
have collected on Prewitt through Stolworthy. But in his opening statement on
Wednesday, federal prosecutor Joe Bottini said that Prewitt may have tried to
improperly influence a state corrections official. The matter came up because
Prewitt is the government’s star witness in the corruption case against
Anderson, a former state representative. Defense attorney Paul Stockler
cross-examined Prewitt on Friday about possible illegal activities in his
background and pressed him on whether he was just testifying against Anderson to
save himself. Efforts to reach Stolworthy Saturday were unsuccessful. When the
state issued a statement announcing his resignation in January 2005, it said he
accepted a job for the U.S. Justice Department as warden of a prison in Iraq.
Anderson’s trial resumes Monday as Stockler’s cross-examination of Prewitt
continues.
June 28, 2007 Anchorage Daily News
Prosecutors say Tom Anderson was a debt-ridden politician who sold his office
for $12,838 and knew exactly what he was doing. The defense says the real
culprit is former state corrections commissioner Frank Prewitt, who was under
investigation himself and exploited Anderson to save himself. Anderson was a
hard-working legislator who never took any official actions in exchange for
money, said defense attorney Paul Stockler. Jurors on Wednesday heard those
contrasting views as the two sides gave opening statements in the public
corruption trial of Anderson. The first witnesses will be called today.
Anderson, a two-term state representative who didn't run again in 2006, is
fighting seven felony charges including bribery, extortion and money laundering.
A jury of eight women and four men, plus four alternatives, was seated Wednesday
afternoon. They were picked from a pool of 102 after hours of questioning by
U.S. District Judge John Sedwick and lawyers spread over three days. Some
scribbled notes as the lawyers gave their opening statements. A small crowd of
spectators came to hear. A friend of Anderson's who has been collecting money
for his defense sat in, but Anderson's wife, state Sen. Lesil McGuire, didn't
attend. Jurors will be asked to absorb complicated information over the next few
days, prosecutor Joe Bottini told them. Neither of the central figures in the
case against Anderson -- Prewitt and former lobbyist Bill Bobrick -- are
"squeaky clean witnesses," Bottini acknowledged. Bobrick has pleaded guilty to a
conspiracy charge in the case and has agreed to testify against Anderson.
Bobrick came up with a scheme to create a phony company and use it to funnel
payments from the private prison firm Cornell Cos. to Anderson, prosecutors
assert. Cornell didn't know about the scheme, and after the FBI got involved it
provided the payments. PREWITT'S PAST: The other key witness will be Prewitt,
whose own flaws the prosecutor discussed at length. Prewitt, who became a
consultant to Cornell after leaving his state post, was being investigated for
various actions when the FBI confronted him in April 2004, Bottini said. He
agreed to help the FBI in its "broad public corruption investigation," the
prosecutor said. Anderson is one of four legislators or former legislators
indicted in the past seven months. Cornell had been trying for years to open a
private prison in Alaska, and Prewitt may have tried to improperly influence a
state corrections official regarding it, the prosecutor said. He also was being
investigated for a practice in political campaigns known as "conduit
contributions" in which someone gives money to other people to pass on to
candidates. That is done to bypass campaign contribution limits. Bobrick also
was involved in "conduit contributions," Bottini said. In addition, while
Prewitt was state corrections commissioner, he accepted $30,000 from a friend
who had business with the department, Bottini said. The government has no deal
with Prewitt that he won't be charged with any crime in exchange for his help,
but certainly he's hoping for a break, the prosecutor said.
June 22, 2007 Juneau Empire
Former state Rep. Tom Anderson, R-Anchorage, goes on trial Monday in
Anchorage, in a case which may be linked to the ongoing political corruption
investigation involving VECO Corp. executives and other state legislators. Also
involved, likely without her knowledge, may be Anderson's wife, Sen. Lesil
McGuire, R-Anchorage. Regardless of VECO's involvement, Anderson's attorney has
already begun preparing for a trial under increased public scrutiny of political
corruption cases. Paul Stockler, an Anchorage attorney representing Anderson,
has already asked a federal judge for permission to question potential jurors
about how much they know about "this and other well publicized cases." He also
wants to be able to ask about what they know about Anderson "or the other well
publicized witnesses." The FBI investigation in Alaska, led by the U.S.
Department of Justice's Office of Public Integrity became publicly known in
August of 2006. At that time FBI agents served search warrants on the offices of
six members of the Alaska Legislature, though not Anderson, as well as VECO and
other offices. Three of the six legislators and two top VECO executives have
been indicted on corruption charges. The executives have pleaded guilty, while
the legislators have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial. A series of
indictments, guilty pleas and legal maneuverings have kept those VECO-related
issues in the news for months. According to documents filed by U.S. attorneys to
outline their case, the investigation had been in the works for more than two
years before the raids. It was in the summer of 2004 that an unnamed lobbyist
with ties to Anderson approached a confidential source working undercover for
the FBI with a scheme to bribe Anderson, the documents say. The confidential
source's "efforts at the time were directed to other, unrelated investigative
matters," the DOJ documents said. It did not specify whether those matters
involved VECO. The charges against Anderson accuse him of using his position as
a legislator, including the chairmanship of the Administrative Regulations
Review, to benefit Cornell Companies, a Texas-based firm which operates private
prisons. In Alaska Cornell was seeking state approval to build a private prison
and a juvenile psychiatric treatment facility, as well as regulatory changes to
help its Alaska operations, which include a string of halfway houses around the
state. The court documents allege that Anderson pressured state officials, such
as former Department of Corrections Commissioner Mark Antrim, to benefit
Cornell. He also advocated for Cornell at a public meeting in Anchorage, but
said he was there not on the company's behalf but as chair of the regulatory
review committee. Cornell is not accused of any wrongdoing, federal and Cornell
officials have previously told the Empire. Prosecutors said they expect to take
a week to present their case.
June 19, 2007 KTUU TV
New details are emerging in the government's corruption probe against former
state Rep. Tom Anderson as attorneys prepare for his trial Monday. The
government has filed a trial brief laying out who is involved, how the pitch was
made and the meetings and actions it says Anderson took. Anderson's attorney
wouldn't comment on the details, but said he is outraged at the inclusion of
what appear to be references to Anderson's wife, Sen. Lesil McGuire. The brief
also makes it clear that other, unrelated investigations were underway when the
federal government's unnamed source was approached to participate in a bribery
scheme. Based on court records and sources close to the investigation, Channel 2
News believes the confidential source who allegedly recorded every move is
former lobbyist Frank Prewitt. Prewitt worked for Texas-based Cornell Companies,
a private firm looking to open a private prison in Alaska and a juvenile
treatment facility in Anchorage. The company also runs halfway houses throughout
the state. Anderson is accused of taking money from the government source on
behalf of Cornell in exchange for official acts. Another lobbyist, Bill Bobrick,
has already entered a guilty plea in connection with the scheme. He is expected
to testify at Anderson's trial. In the trial brief, prosecutors cite a recording
in which Bobrick tries to convince the informant the scheme was worth the money,
suggesting Cornell would have two legislators working for them in Juneau because
of Anderson's romantic involvement with another lawmaker. "Cornell would get two
legislators," Bobrick is quoted as saying. "You know, chair of labor and
commerce, and chair of judiciary ... That's the minimum we're going to have next
year." At the time, Anderson was dating Rep. Lesil McGuire, chairwoman of the
House Judiciary Committee. The couple went on to wed during the summer of 2005.
In its filing, the government goes on to cite a recorded conversation between an
unnamed state representative and the Cornell lobbyist. In it, the representative
talks about contacting a state commissioner overseeing regulations Cornell
needed help with. "Tom called me on the phone and he said, ‘I don't care what
you are doing, I need you to get on the phone right now ...'" states the brief.
The representative said Anderson asked for calls to be placed to the lobbyist
and the Cornell representative and goes on to say, "I was on the phone because
of Tom." During late 2004 and early 2005, Anderson joined subcommittees key to
Cornell's interests and, according to the government, pushed Cornell's agendas
without disclosing he was being paid. Anderson's attorney, Paul Stockler,
maintains Anderson's innocence and said they are ready to clear his name at
trial. Stockler also added that no allegations have been made against Anchorage
Sen. Lesil McGuire, and there is no indication she has done anything
inappropriate. There has been no public link between the prison case and other
corruption cases, including the VECO bribery claims. However, VECO Corp. and
Cornell do have a relationship -- in 2003, VECO and Cornell Companies teamed up
on trying to get a private prison built in Whittier.
June 19, 2007 AP
State Rep. Vic Kohring said today he will resign after nearly 13 years of
public service so he can concentrate on defending himself against federal
bribery and extortion charges. He told The Associated Press that he will leave
office July 19. "I take the job as a legislator very seriously, but my life is
on the line, so I have chosen to defend myself so I can prevail in court,"
Kohring said. "It's a very, very ugly decision to have to make, frankly."
Kohring said he plans to disclose his decision during a luncheon at the Greater
Wasilla Chamber of Commerce later today, as he previously announced. "The easy
route would be not face the people who supported me and not to face those people
who oppose me," said Kohring, a Wasilla Republican. "I could just issue a press
release and be done with it, but that’s not the right way to do it." Kohring and
two former state lawmakers were indicted May 4 on bribery and extortion charges
related to alleged dealings with Anchorage- based oil field services company
Veco Corp. Also charged were former Republican Reps. Pete Kott and Bruce
Weyhrauch. All have pleaded not guilty and have had their original July trial
dates pushed back to the fall. Federal prosecutors accuse the lawmakers of
selling their votes to Veco officials while they were considering a rewrite of
the state’s petroleum production tax, which could have levied a 20 percent tax
on profits and a 20 percent credit on capital investments.
June 17, 2007 Anchorage Daily News
A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., heard evidence last month about
the expansion of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens' Girdwood home in 2000 and other matters
connecting Stevens to the oil services company Veco Inc. As the far-reaching
federal investigation into corruption in Alaska politics spreads to Washington,
Stevens family friend and neighbor Bob Persons was ordered to appear before a
grand jury in Washington on May 25. The government directed him to produce
documents related to the work on Stevens' Girdwood house, especially to work
that might have been performed by Veco and contractors who were hired or
supervised by Veco. Another close associate of Stevens, Anchorage businessman
Bob Penney, testified two weeks ago before the federal grand jury in Anchorage
that has been gathering evidence in the corruption cases. The house expansion
project, first reported in the Daily News on May 29, more than doubled the size
of the home. The Stevenses had asked Persons, who lives above the Double Musky
restaurant he owns in Girdwood, to help them oversee the addition while they
were in Washington. The existence of the Washington grand jury investigation is
the strongest indication to date that Stevens himself has become a subject of
the wide-ranging federal probe that surfaced with FBI raids on state legislative
offices last August. Former State Sen. Ben Stevens, Ted Stevens' son, was among
the legislators whose offices were searched. Ben Stevens has denied wrongdoing.
The FBI said at the time that it also had executed a search warrant in Girdwood,
among other places, although the location of that search has never been
disclosed. VECO GUILTY PLEAS: The investigation by the FBI and the Justice
Department's Public Integrity Section has so far led to guilty pleas by former
Veco chief executive Bill Allen, former Veco vice president Rick Smith and
private-prison lobbyist Bill Bobrick. Four current or former state legislators
have been indicted and are awaiting trial on corruption charges, three for
taking bribes or attempting to take bribes from Veco, the other for taking
bribes from the private prison interest. How the Girdwood home fits in with the
broader investigation, or what possible crimes are being investigated, is not
clear.
May 29, 2007 Anchorage Daily News
The FBI and a federal grand jury have been investigating an extensive remodeling
project at U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens' home in Girdwood that involved the top
executive of Veco Corp. in the hiring of at least one of the key contractors.
Three contractors who worked on the project said in recent interviews with the
Daily News that the FBI asked them to turn over their records from the job. One
said he was called to testify about the project before a federal grand jury in
Anchorage in December. The remodeling work, which more than doubled the size of
the house, occurred in the summer and fall of 2000. The four-bedroom home, about
two blocks from the day lodge parking lot at the Alyeska ski resort, is Stevens'
official residence in Alaska. An old friend of Stevens in Girdwood, longtime
Double Musky restaurant owner Bob Persons, has been questioned by the FBI about
the project. He monitored the remodeling for Stevens and his wife while they
were in Washington, D.C. "I will be testifying. That's all I can tell you,"
Persons said in a brief interview last week. "It is an ongoing investigation
that I'm not supposed to talk to or see anybody about it." Persons would not
elaborate on whether he meant that he would testify before a grand jury, at a
trial, or both, or for whom. He said he believed Stevens did nothing wrong. Ted
Stevens and his wife, Catherine, declined to answer questions about the Girdwood
house. In a prepared statement issued by his office, Stevens said: "While I
understand the public's interest in the ongoing federal investigation, it has
been my long-standing policy to not comment on such matters. Therefore, I will
withhold comment at this time to avoid even the appearance that I might
influence this investigation." The FBI and the U.S. Justice Department's Public
Integrity Section, which are in the midst of a broad investigation of corruption
in Alaska, would not comment. "This is a pending investigation and we're just
not going to confirm or deny any aspect, any rumors, any allegations out there,"
said FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez.
May 7, 2007 Anchorage Daily News
Bill Allen, a welder who took the Veco Corp. from a small Kenai oil-field
company to a billion-dollar international contractor and a major political
force, pleaded guilty Monday to bribing at least four Alaska legislators,
including former Senate President Ben Stevens. In a plea bargain with the
U.S.Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, Allen and Rick Smith, Veco’s
vice president for community and government affairs, each pleaded guilty to
three identical felony charges — bribery and two counts of conspiracy. Both men
accepted responsibility for making more than $400,000 in illegal payments and
benefits to public officials or their families. More than half the money went to
Stevens in the form of phony “consulting” fees, the government charged. Stevens,
son of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, has not been charged. He was named in the plea
documents as “State Senator B,” but his identity was unmistakable. In return for
special consideration at sentencing, Allen, 70, and Smith, 62, agreed to
cooperate in the ongoing federal investigation. The government also promised to
not seek charges against Allen’s son Mark, a Veco official, his daughter Tammy
Kerrigan, or any other relative. The federal plea bargain doesn’t bar state
prosecutors from seeking additional charges against Allen and Smith. Both men
acknowledged violating state campaign finance laws in their plea. The plea deals
were formalized in secret last week and opened in U.S. District Court Monday
morning in unannounced back-to-back hearings before Judge John Sedwick, each
lasting about 40 minutes.
May 6, 2007 Anchorage Daily News
The chairman of a key state House committee was deposed and Alaska's most
important oil tax law fell under new scrutiny Saturday as lawmakers reacted to
the arrest of one current and two former legislators on federal corruption
charges. Rep. Vic Kohring, R-Wasilla, will lose his chairmanship of the Special
Committee on Oil and Gas, House leaders said. Kohring was charged with selling
his vote on oil taxes last year to oil field services company Veco. The House
committee had an important early role in shaping gas pipeline legislation this
year. Republican majority leaders placed Kohring in charge of the committee this
session, even though he was one of six legislators whose offices were raided by
the FBI in a Veco-related probe last fall. Kohring appeared before a federal
magistrate Friday in handcuffs to face charges of bribery, extortion and
conspiracy. Also appearing were two Republican colleagues from last year's
legislative session, Pete Kott of Eagle River and Bruce Weyhrauch of Juneau. All
three pleaded not guilty. In detailed indictments, the three were charged with
selling their votes and influence over other legislators for money and jobs
during the 2006 legislative session. The legislation in question was an overhaul
of the state's oil production tax, which pays for most of state government and
adds to the Alaska Permanent Fund. Veco wanted to keep the oil tax low and also
was pressing for construction of a gas pipeline from which it would profit,
according to the indictment.
May 5, 2007 Alaska Daily News
Three more state legislators were arrested on federal corruption charges
Friday, accused of selling their votes and influence to the oil field services
company Veco Corp. and its chief executive, Bill Allen, during last year’s
debate on oil taxes. Acting on felony indictments brought by the Justice
Department's Public Integrity Section, federal agents arrested the three
Republicans in Juneau — one a sitting legislator, Rep. Vic Kohring of Wasilla,
and two others who left office in January, Reps. Pete Kott of Eagle River and
Bruce Weyhrauch of Juneau. Each was brought in handcuffs before a federal
magistrate judge, and each pleaded not guilty to bribery, extortion and
conspiracy and was released on $20,000 bond. The charges carry penalties of
between five and 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. The indictments,
unsealed with the arrests, describe a conspiracy among the legislators, Veco,
Allen and Veco's vice president for government affairs, Rick Smith, to steer an
oil-production tax bill favored by the industry through the Legislature last
year. The bill was seen as a prerequisite for the North Slope oil producers to
agree to build a natural gas pipeline. Ultimately, Veco, Allen and Smith wanted
to see a gas line built that would help the company through contracts with the
oil companies, the indictments charged. Veco, Allen and Smith were neither
charged nor directly named in the indictments. But “Company A,” “Company CEO”
and “Company VP” are described in long passages in the indictments, and those
descriptions point unmistakably to them. Veco’s attorney, Amy Menard, confirmed
the identifications. Allen’s lawyer, Bob Bundy of Anchorage, wouldn’t comment on
what might be in store for his client. “Veco and Bill have cooperated completely
with the government’s investigation,” Bundy said. WADS OF CASH The charges
describe the three lawmakers seeking money, jobs or both for themselves or
family members, and Veco willing to oblige. Much of the activity described in
the charges took place in Veco’s suite in Juneau’s Baranof Hotel, Room 604,
during the 2006 legislative session. Direct quotes attributed in the indictments
to the three legislators and to Allen and Smith suggest the FBI conducted some
form of electronic surveillance in the room and perhaps on telephones as well.
Kott’s lawyer, Jim Wendt, said the room contained a hidden camera. He learned
about the surveillance when the prosecutors offered to make a deal with him.
They revealed snippets of their evidence, including video from inside a Baranof
room, Wendt said. FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez wouldn’t confirm whether agents
used wiretaps or hidden cameras. A Baranof employee on Friday said the hotel
would not discuss the use of the suite.
May 4, 2007 Anchorage Daily News
Former Alaska state legislators Pete Kott and Bruce Weyhrauch have been
indicted by a federal grand jury on several counts of extortion, bribery, wire
fraud and mail fraud. Kott was arrested at home in Juneau around 9 a.m. Friday,
a spokesman for the FBI said. Weyhrauch was arrested later in the morning. Both
are being held in the federal courthouse in Juneau. FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez
would not say if additional arrests are coming. "It’s a continuing
investigation," he said. Some of the charges against Kott and Weyhrauch involve
the Legislature’s consideration last year of a natural gas pipeline and a
petroleum production tax proposed by former Gov. Frank Murkowski. Kott, a former
House speaker from Eagle River, is accused of seeking and accepting bribes to
push positions favored by executives of a company that is not named in the
indictment. Weyhrauch traded votes for the promise of a job, according to the
charges. The company is referred to throughout the indictment as "Company A" and
is described as a privately owned company that "provided services to the energy,
resources and process industries" and "took an active interest" in the
Legislature. The indictment also refers to a prison in Barbados the company was
constructing. That description matches Veco Inc., a huge Anchorage-based
oil-field services company that has been active in lobbying the Legislature for
years. Kott lost his Eagle River seat in the state House in last year’s
Republican primary. Weyhrauch, an attorney, did not seek re-election to his
House seat representing Juneau. Both left office in January. Both were among the
six lawmakers whose offices were raided by federal agents in August as part of
an investigation into corruption. Kott was scheduled to be arraigned in Juneau
at 1:30 p.m. today. The indictment covers a period from September 2005 until the
end of August 2006. The Legislature considered the pipeline and oil tax
proposals during regular and special sessions during that time. Lawmakers in
both political parties reacted to the indictment today with disgust.
April 17, 2007 Anchorage Daily News
High up in City Hall on Friday, the Anchorage Assembly talked for hours
about road projects and budgets and the kind of things you usually don't sit
through unless you're paid to be there. Listening from the back of the room was
lobbyist Bill Bobrick. Four months after Bobrick was linked to a federal bribery
case that led to the indictment of Anchorage state Rep. Tom Anderson, he remains
one of the busier lobbyists of the city. He's got to earn a living, he says to
friends and acquaintances. He also tells them his role in the bribery case is
about to get bigger. "My understanding, real clear, is that Bobrick's going to
go in and plead guilty here real quick to a felony," said Assemblyman Dan
Coffey. Coffey said Bobrick told him just that after a late March town hall
meeting at a local school. Mayor Mark Begich, who was best man at Bobrick's
wedding in 1998 and has known him for more than 20 years, said the longtime city
lobbyist told him something less precise: "He told me he was going to plead. I
don't know what that means. And honestly, I didn't dive into it. That's an issue
that, again, doesn't relate to the city." Bobrick hasn't been charged with a
crime. He fits the description of an unnamed conspirator described in the
indictment of Anderson, who is accused of money laundering, bribery and
extortion. Public records show Bobrick as owner of a company that federal
prosecutors say was set up to funnel Anderson bribes. In exchange, Anderson
helped promote in the Legislature a private prison and juvenile treatment
facility, the indictment says. Anderson left office when his term expired in
January. Bobrick declined to be interviewed for this story.
January 14, 2007 Juneau Empire
Federal prosecutors who accused Rep. Tom Anderson of bribery and other
crimes say he also used another, unidentified legislator to carry out illegal
acts. While Anderson was advocating for Cornell Companies, a Texas-based
developer of private prisons, he also tried help Cornell win approval for a
juvenile mental-health treatment center in Alaska. To do that, he got another
legislator to try to pressure the state Department of Health and Social Services
to grant a certificate of need for Cornell's project, according to the Anderson
indictment. In competition with Cornell was North Star Behavioral Health
Systems, an Alaska nonprofit that already had operations in Anchorage and
Palmer. It was supported by a number of influential legislators, including
Senate Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz, D-Anchorage, and Sen. Lyda Green,
R-Wasilla, president-elect of the Senate. The indictment says Anderson, an
Anchorage Republican, prevailed upon an "elected public official" to lobby for
the certificate. Documents obtained by the Empire show that Kohring was the only
legislator who wrote a letter in support of the certificate during the time
frame described in the indictment. Kohring did not return repeated phone calls
last week. In Kohring's letter to Health and Human Services officials, he wrote,
"It has come to my attention" that Cornell was seeking a certificate of need for
its project, but he didn't say how it had come to his attention. Anderson's
attorney, Paul Stockler, denied that the unnamed elected official was Kohring.
The only other letter to the state on behalf of the certificate was written by
Rep. John Harris, now speaker of the House of Representatives. Harris said he
did not recall how his letter came to be written. "I write letters for a lot of
people," he said. Harris said he didn't recall talking with Anderson about the
matter. "He and I were never close," Harris said. Prosecutors say in the
indictment that they have tape recordings of Anderson and the "elected public
official." In them, the official allegedly confirms that he contacted the
department commissioner at Anderson's request. Anderson already had been pushing
Cornell projects. Bringing in six-term representative Kohring or Harris, then
the Finance Committee chairman, may have increased Cornell's chances. The
company dropped the project, however.
January 9, 2007 Anchorage Daily News
Indicted state legislator Tom Anderson wants to delay the start of his trial
so his lawyer can better prepare. In a court motion filed Friday, Anderson's
attorney, Paul Stockler, wrote that he is still working his way through 20 discs
"which contain hours of audio and video recordings involving the defendant taken
over an extended period of time." The trial is now scheduled for Feb. 12, and
Stockler said he wants to delay it until April 23. The three-page motion
provides the first mention of video recordings in the FBI corruption
investigation of Anderson and other legislators. Anderson was indicted by a
federal grand jury in December on seven felony counts including money
laundering, extortion and bribery. The indictment contains a number of
references to recorded conversations between Anderson and two others: a
local-government lobbyist for a private corrections company and a confidential
source who had worked for the same company. The indictment doesn't specify
whether any of the recordings were on video. The indictment describes a
conspiracy that began in July 2004 in which the lobbyist set up a shell company
that existed to launder money to Anderson. The FBI gave money to the informant,
who passed it on to Anderson and the lobbyist in exchange for Anderson pushing
the interests of the corrections company. Anderson received less than $13,000,
according to the indictment. Anderson has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
December 25, 2006 Juneau Empire
In 2004, a privately owned Texas prison firm had a problem in Alaska. Its chain
of halfway houses that took in prisoners under contract with the state
Corrections Department was struggling. It had facilities in Fairbanks, Bethel,
Nome and several Anchorage locations. Low occupancy rates were hurting profits,
especially in Anchorage. Cornell Companies, the Houston-based owner of the
facilities, also had some top lobbyists on their payroll, including a former
commissioner of corrections for the state. Also on its payroll was a key state
legislator, Rep. Tom Anderson, R-Anchorage, according to the U.S. Department of
Justice. The lobbyists' affiliation was legal, but Anderson's wasn't, according
to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court for Alaska earlier this month.
Anderson was arrested Dec. 7 on charges of bribery, extortion and money
laundering. He has pleaded not guilty. If convicted on all counts, he faces a
possible sentence of 20 years or more in prison and hundreds of thousands of
dollars in fines. Anderson was unavailable for comment for this article. On
federal wiretaps, two Cornell lobbyists were heard discussing efforts to bribe
Anderson, who they said was willing to be "our boy in Juneau" in exchange for
cash payments, according to the Department of Justice indictment. Cornell, whose
stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange, reported revenues of $346
million last year. It was not identified in the indictment. Company spokeswoman
Christine Taylor confirmed the company had been notified of the Anderson
investigation by the Department of Justice. "We've been notified of the
indictment, but no wrongdoing has been alleged," she said. The indictment said
the company was unaware of the actions of its lobbyists. A confidential FBI
source had at various times been a lobbyist for the company. He used funds
provided by the FBI, not the company, for the bribes. He didn't notify Cornell
because of "the undercover nature of the operation," the Justice Department
said. "The corrections company was not implicated in the corrupt activities that
are alleged in the indictment," according to the Department of Justice press
release announcing the arrest. Tom Anderson: Anderson worked unsuccessfully to
help Cornell expand its private prison and juvenile detention operations into
Alaska but was more successful helping out the company's halfway houses. That
effort, not previously reported, is detailed in the indictment and in Alaska
Department of Corrections documents obtained under the state Public Records Act.
When Cornell's halfway houses were struggling, the company lobbyist approached
Anderson, who allegedly agreed to try to influence the Department of
Corrections. In exchange, Anderson apparently received thousands of dollars in
cash from the lobbyist. On Oct. 20, 2004, Anderson wrote a letter to
then-Corrections Commissioner Marc Antrim, urging more use of the halfway houses
and requesting a personal meeting. "Since private contractors only get paid for
occupied beds, severe underutilization creates serious budget challenges when
beds are left empty," Anderson wrote to Antrim on legislative letterhead. In the
letter, Anderson also noted that he was a member of the House Finance
Committee's Corrections Subcommittee. The indictment alleges that a lobbyist
wrote the letter for Anderson. On. Oct. 29, 2004, Antrim met with Anderson,
Department of Corrections records show. What happened in the meeting? "I'm not
able to comment on that," Antrim said in a phone call to his Juneau home. He is
no longer with the department. Antrim declined to say why he could not comment.
There are no indications that Antrim is under investigation. However,
prosecutors sometimes ask potential witnesses not to speak publicly about
matters that might come up in court. Federal investigators obtained bank records
showing that a Cornell lobbyist on Oct. 21, 2004, wrote a check to Anderson's
consulting business from Pacific Publishing, a company created by another
Cornell lobbyist. The check was purportedly for writing public policy articles
for a Pacific Publishing Web site. The indictment alleges that there was no web
site and that the money was laundered through Pacific Publishing to deceive the
Alaska Public Offices Commission. On the wiretaps, Anderson was overheard
acknowledging to the lobbyist that that payment and others were "not really for
your Web thing," the indictment states. The Department of Justice called Pacific
Publishing a "sham corporation" formed for the sole purpose of disguising bribe
money. In the 2004 fiscal year, Cornell received $12.1 million in state payments
for its halfway houses, $12.3 in 2005 and $12.4 in 2006, according to Richard
Schmitz, spokesman for the Department of Corrections. Alaska state law bars a
legislator from accepting money in exchange for official acts, but courts have
found the state Constitution's free speech provisions make prosecuting
legislators for such actions difficult. Anderson has been charged under federal
law, however. Federal investigators continued their investigation of Anderson
for more than two years after the Cornell lobbyist investigation, during which
time Anderson was re-elected to the House of Representatives. The U.S. Attorney
for Alaska did not say why it took so long to indict Anderson. Anderson chose
not to run for re-election this year and leaves office in January after serving
two terms in the House.
December 9, 2006 Anchorage Daily News
State Rep. Tom Anderson pleaded not guilty Friday to a series of federal
charges accusing him of selling his legislative office for $12,828 in bribes
from a lobbyist representing private prison interests. Anderson, a 39-year-old
Republican who has represented Muldoon's District 19 since he was elected in
2002, was ordered freed Friday by U.S. Magistrate Judge John Roberts on an
unsecured $10,000 bond after his arrest Thursday by FBI agents. Roberts said
Anderson could travel to Mexico on a previously scheduled vacation next week
with his wife, Republican state Rep. Lesil McGuire, who was elected to the state
Senate in November, and their infant son. The 18-page indictment against
Anderson said the lobbyist was secretly recorded July 21, 2004, boasting that
for a price, Anderson would be "our boy in Juneau." A week later, the same
lobbyist was recorded telling a confidential informant, "If I was a Soviet spy
and I was looking for a legislator to recruit, (Anderson) would be the one I'd
get." Anderson "needs the money," the lobbyist said. The government didn't
charge the lobbyist. He is identified only by the letter "A," but the facts in
the case point to Bill Bobrick of Anchorage, who represented Cornell Companies,
a private prison firm Outside. Bobrick didn't return messages left on his home
and cell phones Friday, and his business number wasn't working. On Thursday,
before Anderson's arrest, Bobrick said in an interview that he was getting out
of the lobbying business and was in the process of handing off his clients. He
cited "health issues" as the reason. Anderson, who did not seek re-election this
year and formally leaves office next month, is the first legislator charged with
corruption in office since two state senators faced charges in the early 1980s.
One, George Hohman, was convicted of bribery in 1981, while the other, Ed
Dankworth, successfully appealed his 1982 conflict-of-interest charges and never
faced trial. Anderson's seven-count indictment accuses him of going into league
with Lobbyist A to promote a private prison somewhere in Alaska and a private
juvenile treatment facility in Anchorage. In return for the money, it said
Anderson got himself appointed to legislative committees with jurisdiction over
prisons and treatment, lobbied other elected officials, agreed to align his
votes with the correction company's interests, wrote letters and publicly spoke
on behalf of company projects. Anderson disguised the source of the money in his
reports to the Alaska Public Offices Commission, the indictment charged. A
second private prison advocate secretly worked with the government to record
conversations of the lobbyist and Anderson. The informant, identified only as
"CS-1," used money provided by the FBI in the payoffs. The private prison
company was identified only as "Corrections Company" in the charges, but the
facts squarely match Cornell Companies Inc. of Houston, Texas, a publicly traded
corporation with facilities in 17 states. Cornell operates six halfway houses in
Alaska from its buyout of Anchorage-based Allvest Corp. With partners Veco and
Allvest founder Bill Weimer, Cornell failed to win public support for private
prison proposals in Anchorage, Delta Junction, Kenai and Whittier. The proposals
were all highly controversial in the communities, though they often sailed
through legislative committees. During a House Finance Committee hearing May 9,
2004, Rep. Eric Croft, D-Anchorage, said the effort was corrupting the state.
"What I see, over and over, is repeated sole-source, pre-arranged, heavy-money
deals that go to specific contractors. ... It's never been a clean, competitive
proposal," Croft said at the time, the only member of the committee to object.
"We are going to see somebody indicted and probably imprisoned over this series
of proposals." A prepared statement from the Justice Department released Friday
said the corrections company was never told about the payments to Anderson "due
to the undercover nature of the operation." It said the company "was not
implicated in the corrupt activities that are alleged in the indictment."
Christine Parker, a spokeswoman for Cornell in Houston, said, "There's nothing
that we knew of, or were aware of, until this indictment was issued." Anderson
arrived for his arraignment in federal court Friday wearing a bright yellow
jumpsuit with the word "PRISONER" across his back. His legs were shackled as he
rose for the judge alongside his defense attorney, Jeffrey Feldman of Anchorage.
The hearing lasted 19 minutes. His trial was set for Feb. 12. If the government
was making a point to other potential defendants in its ongoing investigation
into corruption, the message was tough. Nicholas Marsh, a trial attorney from
the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section in Washington, D.C., told the
court the charges carried penalties ranging from a maximum of five years and a
$250,000 fine for conspiracy to a maximum of 20 years and $500,000 for each of
three money laundering charges. Anderson was also accused of two counts of
extortion (20 years and $250,000) and one count of bribery (10 years and
$250,000). The activities alleged in the indictment took place long before the
coordinated raids of Aug. 31, when the FBI searched the offices of 10 percent of
the 60-member Legislature. Anderson's office wasn't among them, and it's unclear
how his case is related. Marsh, assistant U.S. attorney Joseph Bottini and FBI
agent Mary Beth Kepner, a leader of the corruption probe, left quickly after the
arraignment and declined to answer questions. The conspiracy alleged in the
indictment began in July 2004 and continued through the following March. It said
that Lobbyist A set up a shell company called Pacific Publishing that existed
solely to launder money to Anderson. The company would pay Anderson to write
articles about politics that would be published on its Web site, but Anderson
was paid without ever scribbling a line. CS-1 paid Lobbyist A $24,000 in three
payments. The cover story was that the money was for advertising on the Web
site, but they agreed the money was really for Anderson's pocket, with "A"
taking a sizable cut. The indictment said CS-1 had worked for the corrections
company as a lobbyist "at various times." The identity closely matches Frank
Prewitt, a former Alaska corrections commissioner appointed by Gov. Wally Hickel
and who later went to work for Cornell. In an e-mail exchange with the Daily
News on Friday, Prewitt suggested he was the source, though he stopped short of
confirming it. "At this time it is inappropriate for me to talk about the
voluntary role that I and others may have played in the Anderson investigation,"
Prewitt wrote. "Over the next year I believe you will find that this was only
the beginning of the end of a sad, but healthy chapter in Alaska history. My
prayers are with Representative Anderson and his family during this difficult
time for all." The first recorded conversation cited in the indictment occurred
July 16, 2004, when the lobbyist suggested to the confidential source that they
"try with (Cornell) to help out Tom Anderson." Five days later, the lobbyist
told the source that Cornell should hire Anderson through him. Rather than
report Cornell, with its interest in legislation and other government action, as
the source of the money, Anderson said he was paid for writing for the Pacific
Publishing Web site. Anderson himself was recorded Aug. 17, 2004, telling the
confidential source: "APOC only needs to know (Bobrick) pays me and then we're
all safe." The source paid the lobbyist the first $8,000 Aug. 19, 2004, the
indictment charged. Out of that, Anderson received $3,328, which he deposited
Aug. 23 into the account of his personal consulting firm, Alaska Strategic
Consultants. In a recorded call Oct. 20, 2004, the source told Anderson he had
prepared the next $8,000 payment and planned to pass it on to the lobbyist.
"Awesome. Awesome. I appreciate it," Anderson is quoted as saying. Anderson
received a $3,500 advance from that payment, the indictment charged. The source
made his last $8,000 payment on Dec. 21, 2004. Anderson got $4,000. But late in
the scheme, the indictment alleged, Anderson was showing signs of unhappiness
over splitting the money with the lobbyist. According to excerpts of recordings,
the confidential source appeared at first to encourage the disaffection, saying
it wasn't the lobbyist who was speaking out and voting for Cornell, but rather
Anderson. "I know," Anderson said. But then the source suggested the lobbyist
might become "estranged" if he were cut out of the deal. The source thought that
he could make a separate payment direct to Anderson. "If there's a way you can
think of that, that would be nice," Anderson replied. The source obliged,
handing Anderson a $2,000 check Dec. 21, 2004. The indictment said the check was
made payable to Tom Anderson.
December 8, 2006 Anchorage Daily News
A federal grand jury has indicted an Alaska lawmaker on charges of extortion,
conspiracy, bribery, and money laundering, federal officials said Friday. A
seven-count indictment was returned against state Rep. Thomas T. Anderson,
R-Anchorage, on Wednesday, assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher said.
Anderson was arrested Thursday, and was being held at the city jail. The
indictment charges Anderson with two counts of extortion, one count of bribery,
one count of conspiracy, and three counts of money laundering in connection with
the use of a sham corporation to hide the identity of the bribery payments,
Fisher said in a prepared statement. The indictment also alleges that Anderson
solicited and received money from an FBI confidential source in exchange for
Anderson's agreement to perform official acts to further a business interest
represented by the confidential source. The indictment alleges from July 2004 to
March 2005, Anderson and an individual described in only as "Lobbyist A"
solicited and received $26,000 in payments from an FBI confidential source in
exchange for Anderson's agreement to act on his behalf in the legislature,
according to the statement released from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Anderson and the unnamed lobbyist created a sham corporation to conceal the
existence and origin of the payments, and used the corporation to funnel a
portion of the $26,000 to Anderson, the indictment says. The FBI's source was a
consultant for a private corrections company located outside the state of
Alaska, and Anderson and the lobbyist initiated contact with that confidential
source in order to solicit bribery payments, the indictment alleges. The source,
however, never communicated any information to the corrections company due to
the undercover nature of the operation. The corrections company was not
implicated, federal officials said. If convicted, Anderson faces a maximum
penalty of 20 years and a $250,000 fine on the extortion counts; a maximum
penalty of 20 years and a $500,000 fine on each of the money laundering counts;
a maximum penalty of 10 years and a $250,000 fine on the bribery count; and a
maximum penalty of five years and a $250,000 fine on the conspiracy count.
Anderson was scheduled to be arraigned Friday, assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph
W. Bottini said. It was not immediately known if he had hired a lawyer. Anderson
is married to former state Rep. and now state Sen.-elect Lesil McGuire, who did
not return messages left on her cells phones Friday. Anderson, who was elected
to the state House four years ago, did not seek re-election. He leaves office
this month.
October 9, 2006 Anchorage Daily News
When FBI agents searched the Wasilla office of Rep. Vic Kohring on Aug. 31,
they weren't just looking for documents related to Veco Corp., its executives
and ties to lawmakers. They also wanted information about developer Marc Marlow
as well as the state Department of Corrections. That element of the ongoing FBI
investigation emerged last week when Kohring's attorney, Wayne Anthony Ross,
provided a copy of the search warrant to the Daily News, along with the list of
items taken. Those documents, though lacking detail or context, suggest that the
probe is wide-ranging and not focused on any one company, issue or individual.
No one has been charged in the investigation, and federal authorities have
declined to discuss it except to say that it continues. The lead prosecutors are
from the Department of Justice's Public Integrity Section in Washington, D.C.,
which often handles government corruption cases. In all, offices of six
lawmakers have been searched, along with Veco offices and additional undisclosed
locations. Other lawmakers whose offices weren't searched have said they were
interviewed by the FBI. The warrant also sought all correspondence between
Kohring and the Alaska Department of Corrections. Ross said Kohring was
questioned by the FBI about efforts to build a private prison in Whittier. "He
indicated it was a facility that Cornell was hoping to build in the past and
that's apparently all they asked about that," Ross said. Cornell Cos. had teamed
with Veco in the private prison endeavor, which ultimately died last year after
the city of Whittier dropped its support. Along with those of Kohring and
Stevens, FBI agents searched offices of Sen. John Cowdery, R-Anchorage; Sen.
Donny Olson, D-Nome; Rep. Pete Kott, R-Eagle River; and Rep. Bruce Weyhrauch, R-
Juneau. Messages left for them were not returned. Kohring is the only one of the
six still facing an election battle in November. Kott lost in the primary,
Stevens and Weyhrauch aren't running again and the others aren't up this year.
What's known: • Dozens of FBI agents executed about two dozen search warrants
Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, though in some cases individuals agreed to the search. •
Six legislative offices were searched, and so was Veco Corp. Searches were
conducted in Anchorage, Juneau, Eagle River, Wasilla, Willow and Girdwood. The
office of Senate President Ben Stevens was then searched a second time, on Sept.
18. • One search warrant, provided by Sen. Donny Olson, said the FBI was looking
for "any and all documents" related to Veco, four of its executives and two
political pollsters, as well as information on Olson Air Service, among other
matters. When agents searched Stevens' office, they seized materials related to
controversial fisheries organizations. In the search of Rep. Vic Kohring's
office, agents also sought information on developer Marc Marlow and on the state
Department of Corrections. • The lead prosecutors on the case are from the
Justice Department's Public Integrity Section in Washington, D.C., which handles
public corruption cases. • No one has been charged. What's not known: • Perhaps
the biggest of the many unanswered questions is this: Who or what is being
targeted? • Authorities also won't say how many FBI agents or prosecutors are
working on the investigation, when it began, when it might end or how they are
proceeding.
September 29, 2006 Anchorage Daily News
Six executives for the Veco Corp., the company named in the federal
investigation into political corruption in Alaska, donated at least $119,000 to
the campaigns of candidates running for more than half the seats open in this
year's primary election. The total might have still been climbing had not the
FBI raided the company's corporate headquarters and the offices of at least a
half-dozen state lawmakers two months before the Nov. 7 election. Veco's total
in this election cycle is a little more than half the $200,000 its executives
generated for legislative races in 2004, but Veco money has suddenly become
unwanted across most of the political spectrum. Scores of Alaskans are regular
and generous contributors to political candidates, year after year. Developers,
construction company owners, doctors, lawyers, business owners, oil and gas
executives, retirees. Many give the candidates of their choice the maximum
amounts available in a given year -- $1,000 annually since 2003; $500 annually
starting next year under an initiative passed by voters in August. Veco's six
executive contributors -- chairman Bill Allen, president Peter Leathard, chief
financial officer Roger Chan, vice president Rick Smith, information officer
Thomas Corkran and personnel manager James Slack -- regularly donate to a
similar list of candidates, usually in the same $500 amounts and with checks
dated within a few days of each other. As is usually the case, almost all the
Veco money donated to candidates this year and during the 2005 interim year went
to Republicans, and the vast majority to incumbents.
September 24, 2006 Anchorage Daily News
Last month, state Rep. Tom Anderson testified before the Anchorage Assembly
in favor of Wal-Mart's plan for two stores in his old neighborhood. Assembly
chairman Dan Sullivan introduced him as Representative Anderson, but the
lawmaker for Muldoon corrected him. He was there representing the home builders
association, Anderson said. Anderson, who was a consultant before he was elected
to the state House four years ago, has never stopped making money on the side as
a paid adviser for clients who do business with state and local government. His
dual role may have surprised the Assembly in August. But it would not have
surprised some members of the Northeast Community Council, the neighborhood
group that opposed the stores. They recall seeing Anderson at their meetings all
though 2003. They assumed he was there as the local state legislator. But
Anderson's state financial disclosure form, filed the following year, revealed
he was also working as a $10,000 consultant on community councils and local
government for the oil field services and construction company Veco. "We are all
going, 'This is so bogus,' " said council president Peggy Robinson, who
publicized Anderson's Veco connection in an unsuccessful bid to topple Anderson
from his House seat in 2004. Now Anderson's role as a consultant to industry is
coming under scrutiny again, following last month's FBI searches of six
legislative offices seeking information on legislators' links to Veco. A rule
insisting on proper qualifications would probably have done little to crimp
Veco's employment of legislators. Stevens and Anderson were both consultants
before they ran for office. Arrangements between Veco and two other lawmakers
show up in state disclosure forms dating back to 2002. One was for a boat rental
from a fisherman, one was for legal work from a lawyer. In 2002, Veco paid
$17,600 to use a boat owned by Rep. Paul Seaton, R-Homer. The contract came in
the summer before Seaton, a commercial fisherman who owns several boats, was
first elected. He said his fish tender just happened to be available in upper
Cook Inlet when Veco needed a standby safety vessel during a short oil rig
construction job. The legal payments went to then-Sen. Robin Taylor, who got
into a jam with critics in his home town of Wrangell over that work. Taylor, a
lawyer and longtime chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, reported being
paid $15,700 for legal work by Veco in 2000, $19,300 in 2001 and $16,800 in
2002. He also served as city attorney for Wrangell during that period. Critics
accused Taylor of hiding his Veco ties when the city council considered taking
up a private prison project in 2001. Veco had been part of the consortium whose
prison plan had just been turned down in Kenai. Taylor insisted he had disclosed
his Veco ties on state forms and didn't need to announce them. Taylor retired
from the Senate and his private legal practice in 2003 and is now head of the
state marine highway system. He was among the current and former legislators
known to have been interviewed by the FBI in the current investigation. Taylor
said last week that he had never been lobbied by Veco over the prison. As far as
he knew, he said, Veco wasn't interested in a Wrangell prison. "It's a breach of
attorney-client privilege, but I can tell you up front: That client never talked
to me once about that project," Taylor said.
September 7, 2006 Anchorage Daily News
For two decades, oil man and political financier Bill Allen has been a familiar
presence in the halls of the Alaska Capitol. But toward the end of this year's
regular legislative session, the Veco chief executive may have taken that
familiarity a step too far. Allen was watching the state House debate oil taxes
on the next-to-last night of business in May when he began passing notes to
legislators across the railing of the small spectator gallery, according to Rep.
Harry Crawford, D-Anchorage. Rules say the public can pass notes through the
front door to be delivered by a page. Direct engagement from the visitor gallery
is forbidden once the speaker's gavel sounds. Crawford said he saw Rep. Tom
Anderson, R-Anchorage, carry several notes from Allen to other legislators.
Anderson has received Veco campaign contributions and has also reported $30,000
in consulting contracts with the company since 2003. Several other legislators
say their staff observed similar goings-on. "He was definitely directing traffic
back there," Crawford said of Allen. Veco's role in Alaska's political process
is under intense scrutiny now. Last week the FBI served search warrants on
legislative offices and others seeking a wide range of information related to
Allen and other Veco executives, including gifts to public officials. But much
of Veco's influence, dating from the early 1980s, comes from sources in plain
sight. This includes close to $1 million in state and federal campaign
contributions over the past decade as well as consulting contracts with
individual legislators. Veco's presence in Juneau is distinctive not just for
its role in helping finance many campaigns but for the personal role played by
Allen and several other company executives. Veco has hired top-drawer
professional lobbyists in the past, as it did while pushing for a private prison
between 1996 and 2002. But Allen, 69, is known for taking a personal hand in
promoting his priorities, in a manner often described as gentlemanly rather than
bullying. In 1996, the Legislature added a new twist -- anyone registering as a
lobbyist was barred from giving campaign contributions outside his or her home
district. The idea was to prevent favor-seeking lobbyists from working a
building full of people they'd given money to. Allen spent a lot of time in the
Capitol in 2002, pressing the Legislature to pay for a private prison in
Whittier (Veco was teamed with a national prison company, Cornell, to build the
project) and to authorize a property tax break for construction of a North Slope
natural gas pipeline. Allen was in the Capitol so much that APOC ordered him to
register as a lobbyist. Allen protested, saying business owners looking out for
their own interests should not be treated like professional lobbyists who
represent a variety of clients. Allen eventually complied, registering for 2002
and 2003 and reporting his hourly wage as $156.25. That meant he had to forgo
writing campaign checks in those years. (Not that candidates were starved for
Veco money: Other company officials gave more than $200,000 to state candidates
in 2002 alone.)
September 1, 2006 Alaska Report
The FBI served four more search warrants today in its
investigation of the relationship between lawmakers and oilfield services
company VECO Corporation, an Anchorage-based oil field services and construction
company whose executives are major contributors to political campaigns. Bill
Allen, owner of VECO, and his firm, were involved in a renovation of Alaska
Senator Ted Stevens' chalet in Girdwood in the recent past. The Associated Press
is reporting that the search warrants seek "from the period of October 2005 to
the present, any and all documents concerning, reflecting or relating to
proposed legislation in the state of Alaska involving either the creation of a
natural gas pipeline or the petroleum production tax." An Anchorage FBI
spokesman says that about two dozen search warrants have been executed so far,
including three today in Anchorage and one in Willow. No arrests have been made
as of yet. AlaskaReport has learned that a staffer in one of the offices raided
has been providing information to federal authorities. In an interview with KTUU-TV
in Anchorage, Wev Shea, a former U.S. attorney for Alaska says he knows who
created the climate that he alleges allowed corruption to flourish. "The
Republican Party is going to rue the day in this state for allowing Randy
Ruedrich (chairman of the Republican Party of Alaska) to remain as a chair. He's
bringing this party down and it's bad." KTUU also interviewed Rep. Eric Croft.
He says he saw this coming two years ago, during a legislative committee meeting
concerning VECO’s pitch for a sole-source contract award for a private prison.
"I said at the time, in 2004, on the Whittier proposal, someone's going to jail
over this 'cause I could see how corrupt the process was," said Croft,
D-Anchorage.
August 31, 2006 Anchorage Daily
News
Federal agents swarmed legislative offices around the state Thursday,
executing search warrants in a coordinated series of raids that appeared to
target the longstanding relationship between the oil-field service company Veco
and leading lawmakers. Above Anchorage’s 4th Avenue, FBI agents spent most of
the afternoon behind the closed doors and drawn blinds of the fifth-floor
offices of Senate President Ben Stevens and Senate Rules Committee Chairman John
Cowdery, both Anchorage Republicans. Through slits in the blinds, one agent in
Stevens’ office, wearing rubber gloves, could be seen packing away evidence in a
container. In Juneau, tourists and residents were greeted with the extraordinary
sight of FBI agents hauling out files form the Alaska State Capitol after
searching offices there. After the FBI searched his Wasilla office and
questioned him, Rep. Vic Kohring, R-Wasilla, the chairman of the House Special
Committee on Oil & Gas, said the investigation was focused on Veco. Other
legislative offices known to have been searched Thursday included those of Reps.
Pete Kott of Eagle River and Bruce Weyhrauch of Juneau, and Sen. Donny Olson of
Nome. Kott, a former House speaker, and Weyhrauch are Republicans. Olson is the
only Democrat in the group. FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez said federal agents
executed about 20 search warrants Thursday, not all in legislative offices. The
warrants were executed in Anchorage, Juneau, Wasilla, Eagle River and Girdwood,
he said. Ray Metcalfe, a former legislator and the founder of the independent
Republican Moderate Party, said he has been trying to get the authorities
interested in what he described as the “corrupt” relationship between Veco and
the Republican-lead legislature, principally Ben Stevens. “I put all the stuff
in front of federal prosecutors a year and a half ago,” Metcalfe said Thursday,
clearly relishing the turn of events. “I laid hundreds of pages of detailed
information alleging bribery, and I distributed it to federal authorities, I
distributed it to the U.S. Attorney’s office, I distributed it to the (state
attorney general’s) Office of Special Prosecutions, and we held a demonstration
in front of the attorney general’s office that hardly anyone showed up for.”
Metcalfe attempted to initiate a recall campaign against Stevens, but his effort
was rejected by Lt. Gov. Loren Leman on legal grounds. After first announcing
he’d run for re-election in November, Stevens changed his mind in June and opted
to retire. Tamara Cook, a lawyer who heads the nonpartisan legal services
division of the Legislature, said Thursday evening that she reviewed a couple of
the search warrants at the request of legislators or aides upon whom they were
served. The search warrants allowed the FBI to search computers and office files
including financial records, she said. The warrants named Veco Corp., she said,
but could not say whether Veco was a target or whether the investigation
concerned oil taxes, its failed push to build a private prison in Alaska or
something else.
June 11, 2006 Anchorage Daily News
The response of Paul Doucette, the executive director of the Association of
Private Correctional and Treatment Organizations, complaining about the building
of a state prison in Mat-Su is somewhat ironic. For seven years, Cornell
Corrections, which had Mr. Doucette as its vice president, labored mightily to
stop the state from building a state-operated prison in Mat-Su as it tried to
foist off its own low-paying, dangerous Rent-a-Pen proposals in Wrangell, Sitka,
Ketchikan, Kenai, Delta Junction, Nome, Houston, Sutton and finally Whittier.
Democrats and good-government Republicans defeated their immensely expensive
lobbying efforts year after year, despite the dough Cornell shoveled toward its
efforts. This is all a matter of extensive record. Now Doucette is complaining
about the state closing one of Cornell's halfway houses in Anchorage. The
Department of Corrections is exploring far less expensive options such as ankle
bracelets to track those released conditionally or those less dangerous who are
diverted from prison in the first place. Doucette and APCTO are little more than
the public-relations arm of the for-profit prison industry, and their bleatings
and Tobacco Institute-type research should be given the credibility they
deserve: zero. --- Frank Smith, Private Corrections Institute, Bluff City,
Kan.
February 10, 2005 Anchorage Daily News
The governor is asking lawmakers for $116 million to cover this year's rising
costs of public services, including medical care for the poor and elderly, fuel
for state ferries and buildings, and fighting last summer's wildfires. An
increase in the contract rate for housing state inmates at a private prison in
Arizona means the Department of Corrections needs $2.3 million to cover its
higher costs this year, Frasca said. The daily rate went up 8 percent, from
$52.93 to $57.15 per inmate, said Richard Schmitz, spokesman for the department.
Alaska pays to house about 750 inmates at the prison, he said.
October 16, 2004 Salon
In any other election year, Alaska's conservative
electorate could be expected to chill Democratic hopes of taking over a United
States Senate seat held by a Republican incumbent. Republicans hold every
statewide elected office, enjoying a powerful base of support from the dominant
energy, fishery and development industries, as well as an ideological advantage
among the state's many gun-toting libertarians and fundamentalist Christians. But
this year is not like any other election year in Alaska, principally because of
what may well turn out to be a fateful mistake by Gov. Frank Murkowski when he
ascended to his current office from the Senate two years ago. In an act of
hubris that outraged critics across the political spectrum, the new governor
appointed his daughter Lisa Murkoswki to succeed him in the Senate.
In the Murkowski political clan, the father has become the
daughter's weighty albatross, and vice versa. For the past several months, the
governor and the senator have assiduously (and somewhat oddly) avoided public
appearances together. For obvious reasons they would prefer not to remind
anybody that they're related, at least not until after Election Day. Amazingly,
the official biography on her Web site neglects to mention the existence of her
father, the governor. But
the most generous donors to Murkowski's Senate campaign seem well aware of her
filial relationship to Alaska's most powerful public official. Major
corporations and other special interests needing favors from the governor have
poured money into his daughter's war chest. And perhaps not surprisingly, their
generosity has coincided with favorable action by the governor. But
for Lisa Murkowski, the truly big money has flowed in from Veco Corp., a major
Anchorage construction firm. Veco is not only the largest single donor to the
Republican senator but is regarded by many Alaskans as the most powerful company
in their state. While its interests are broad and varied, from the oil
industries to local construction, the Halliburton-like firm has an important
potential stake in one of the state's most controversial projects: a private
prison in the port town of Whittier that could ultimately cost the state more
than $1 billion. Alaska currently rents space for more than 700 state prisoners
at a privately run correctional facility in Arizona, under an arrangement that
harms convicts' families, while draining money from the state. Pressure to
ameliorate this situation has been growing. For several years, Cornell Companies
of Texas, a major corporate prison operator, has proposed building a new
privatized prison in Alaska. Their fortunes began to improve after they teamed
up with Veco in 2002. Facing opposition from state correction officials, unions
and local communities, Frank Murkowski declared his firm opposition to any
private prison construction when he ran for governor in 2002. Since taking
office, however, the senior Murkowski has gradually backed away from that
position over the past year. Although Gov. Murkowski's aides said he still
opposed the Veco-Cornell prison plan in the spring of 2003, he then turned
around and told legislators that the issue still required "further
study." This was a substantial victory for Veco and Cornell, whose
executives insist their plan would be cheaper than building and operating new
public prison space. By last April, Murkowski's aides were floating plans for a
"compromise" that would allow construction of the privatized prison,
financed by state bonds, if it met certain conditions imposed by state
authorities. What caused the governor to change his strongly stated opposition
to privatized prisons? He hasn't explained his shift yet. But in May 2003, a
prominent Anchorage architect named Mark Pfeffer met with his aides to promote
the Veco-Cornell prison project. Pfeffer had recently joined the prison
consortium, and he had also signed on as treasurer for Lisa Murkowski's
reelection campaign. Around that time, her father began to back away from his
pledge to oppose private prisons, issuing a vague announcement that his
administration would take a "fresh look" at the Veco-Cornell prison
plan. Meanwhile, money from Veco and its lobbyists has flowed into Lisa
Murkowski's campaign. The first $2,000 check from Veco chairman Bill Allen
showed up on May 13, 2003, only days after the Anchorage Daily News reported the
governor's shift on his project. Allen, who registered as a lobbyist in
Anchorage to push the project, has given regularly and generously -- as have
other Veco executives, whose total of $43,750 is Murkowski's largest single
donation. Lobbyists from Patton Boggs, which represents Veco in promoting the
prison deal, have given her an additional $12,000. The
pattern appears plain enough. While the Murkowskis pretend not to know each
other, the special interests that know them both have invested heavily in her
campaign while awaiting his nod.
May 8, 2003
Rival bills to build a mega-prison have been shelved in the Legislature for this
year, as the Murkowski administration says it wants to take a fresh look at
corrections issues -- including the relative costs of private and public prisons
-- before taking up the matter again. The pause appears to give new
breathing space to advocates of building a 1,200-bed private prison in
Whittier. Murkowski spokesman John Manly this week reiterated the
governor's opposition to the Whittier plan, which would create Alaska's first
private prison. Testimony this year over the rival Whittier and Mat-Su
bills featured conflicting and controversial cost claims, with Texas-based
Cornell Companies and the state corrections officials each processing their
approach would be cheaper than the other. But Manly denied a report this
week from a leading private prison backer that the administration plans to set
up a public-private working group to explore the prison issues. Cornell
consultant Frank Prewitt, a former state corrections commissioner and the
spokesman for a politically powerful consortium of prison-building companies
pushing the Whittier plan, told the Whittier City Council earlier this week that
the Murkowski administration had developed misgivings about cost estimates from
the state corrections department. Outlining late-session lobbying efforts
on the prison bills, Prewitt wrote in a memo to Whittier officials that
Murkowski had finally asked for a "time out" to set up an interim
committee to assess the administration's next move. Manly dismissed
Prewitt's account as the self-serving work of a partisan in the debate.
"It was nice of him to make an announcement for us," Manly said.
Despite strong support in past Legislatures, based partly on claims they could
save money, private prison plans have foundered in the face of local opposition
in South Anchorage, Delta Junction and Kenai. (Anchorage Daily News)
March 14, 2003
Backers of a proposed 1,200-bed private prison in Whittier are attacking the
Corrections Department argument that a state-run prison in the Matanuska-Susitna
Valley would be cheaper. "The question is whose figures do you
believe," said Sen. Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, chairman of the Senate State
Affairs Committee. Gov. Frank Murkowski has endorsed the bill calling for the
state-run prison in Mat-Su. He opposed private prisons during his campaign, and
his commissioner of corrections, Marc Antrim, has said he believes prisons ought
to be run by the state rather than for profit. Antrim testified last month
that the state's costs under the Whittier private prison bill would be an
estimated $127.25 a prisoner a day. The proposal for a state-run prison would
cost $110.39, he said. Those numbers struck right at the heart of the
arguments from private prison backers, who claim it would be cheaper than a
government operation because of lower wages and benefits for prison workers and
other efficiencies. The cheapest option would be to leave the Alaska
prisoners in Arizona, state figures say. But persistent objections are raised
that having the prisoners thousands of miles from their homes is bad for
rehabilitation, and that the state's money is being exported. (Anchorage
Daily News)
February 19, 2003
Efforts to win state funding for a 1,200-bed private prison in
Whittier
are under way once again. But this year the prison has a new rival: a 1,200-bed
state-run prison proposed for Sutton in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
Both the private and public prison plans have powerful backers in
Juneau
. Gov. Frank Murkowski has not yet weighed in, but administration officials
appear to be leaning toward a state-run facility. Murkowski said during the
campaign that he opposed building a large private prison in
Alaska
. "There's no indication of a
change within the new administration or the Department of Corrections,"
said Portia Parker, assistant commissioner of corrections. "I don't see how
you're going to run a facility economically in
Whittier
. It's going to be very, very difficult."
Currently about 650 inmates are housed in a private prison in
Arizona
. Cornell has led a well-endowed
consortium, including
Anchorage
design and construction companies, that has been the only real contender for
the state contract. Under Cornell's plan, the city of
Whittier
would finance and own the new prison with bonds guaranteed by a long-term state
contract. But Cornell has lost some
powerful legislative backers to electoral turnover. Their new champion is
freshman Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, whose
Hillside
district includes
Whittier
. "The governor has said he'll
be open and receptive to consider all suggestions from the Legislature,"
said Hawker, who introduced HB 55, the private-prison bill. He said opposition
to the private prison has come mainly from unions afraid of losing jobs.
Hawker faces a formidable bipartisan list of sponsors for the Mat-Su
proposal, SB 65, headed by Sen. Lyda Green, R-Wasilla, the co-chairwoman of the
Senate Finance Committee. The Mat-Su
area wants the jobs from prison expansion but has been clear about not wanting a
private prison, Mat-Su Borough manager John Duffy said.
We believe that correctional facilities should be operated by the public
sector. It's just like state troopers," Duffy said.
This year, Cornell has an undefined "teaming agreement" with
the Alaska Native Brotherhood of Juneau and is talking with other Native groups,
Prewitt said. (Anchorage Daily News)
January 17, 2003
Loren Leman stopped an initiative drive seeking to decriminalize marijuana,
ruling Tuesday that hundreds of signatures collected were no valid. Leman,
a former state senator who sponsored a bill in 1999 to turn back the state's
medical marijuana laws, said in a statement that the pro-marijuana group will
have to begin from scratch to get its measure before voters in 2004. The
proposed initiative would have asked voters in the August 2004 primary ballot to
decriminalize and regulate marijuana. (AP)
January 18, 2003
It looks like the legislature will be debating the merits of a private prison
again this year. Two Anchorage representatives are sponsoring a bill to
have the city of Whittier contract to have a 12-hundred bed private prison built
there. A similar bill failed to pass the Legislature last year. (KTVA.com)
October 21, 2002
James Price was driving to Ninilchik, where the state shut down a road
maintenance station this winter for lack of funding, as he talked about what's
wrong with Alaska's government. He's the only candidate opposing incumbent
Rep. Mike Chenault, a Republican and fellow Nikiski resident. The way he
sees it, special-interest groups back major candidates and get favors in return
that skew the state budget. A case in point, he said, was the private
prison proposal that polarized citizens on the Kenai Peninsula. Price led
a group opposing the prison project, and Chenault wrote legislation supporting
it. Voters turned it down in a special election. The borough mayor
and Assembly backed the project. "I looked at the prison as an
opportunity for economic development," Chenault said. (Anchorage
Daily News)
August 24, 2002
Calling them part an
organized effort to hurt his chances in Tuesday's
Republican Party primary race for Sen. District Q, Republican Sen. Jerry
Ward responded to statements made in three letters to the editor appearing
in Thursday's edition of the Peninsula Clarion.
"What
we have here is a last-minute letter-to-the-editor campaign,
orchestrated with the help of whoever places the letters (in the paper) who
is trying to generate a story, and controlled by Outside interests trying to
influence the election on the Kenai Peninsula," Ward said. "Sleazy,
last-minute attacks are not accepted well on the Kenai Peninsula, and I'm
sure that this one will not be either."
One
letter writer asked why Ward seemed "so fixated" on having Alaska
indebted to Cornell Corrections, the firm that worked unsuccessfully to put
a private prison in Kenai.
Another
letter writer, Frank Smith, who lives in Bluff City, Kan., also
questioned the connection between Ward, private prison backers and the
failure of the effort to bring one to Delta Junction in 1999. Allvest Inc.
and Delta Corrections Corp. entered an agreement with Delta Junction that
later ended up in a breach of contract suit settled out of court. Smith said
the attempt to put a private prison at Fort Greely ended up leaving that
community with a $1 million debt.
Peter
Hallgren, city administrator of Delta Junction, said it is a sore
subject in the community, adding that he did not want to rehash old details.
He
did not categorize what connection, if any, Ward had had with the effort
to put a prison at Fort Greely.
"The
city of Delta Junction wants to put the entire prison matter as far
behind it as it can and has no interest in engaging in election debates at
this point," he said. "There is no question we have a million-dollar
liability from the prison lawsuit settlement."
Hallgren
went on to say, however, that Ward did support a legislative effort
to provide relief for Delta Junction this year. (Peninsula Clarion)
July 5, 2002
Gov. Tony Knowles'
veto of a $1 million interest-free loan to the city of
Delta Junction caught city officials off guard.
The loan would have allowed the city to finish paying its $1.1 million
breach-of-contract settlement with Allvest Inc. and Delta Corrections Corp.
stemming from a failed effort to build a private prison at Fort Greely. The
money was due July 1.
Knowles' spokeswoman Julie Penn said a provision in the loan bill would
have
converted the loan to a grant if the city became part of an organized
borough. A
state bailout of a city's lawsuit could set a bad precedent, she said.
"The
state was not a party to the litigation," Penn said. (The Associated
Press State and Local Wire)
June 29, 2002
Democrat Gov. Tony Knowles signed into law a $2.4 million budget that funds
state government next fiscal year, but deleted millions in GOP projects.
"It makes a mockery of the cries for fiscal restraint," Knowles
said. Alaska's fiscal straits were a passing concern for the Legislature
this year as the state faces a $1 billion budget deficit in future years.
Among other projects Knowles vetoes Friday: A $1 million, no-interest loan
to Delta Junction to pay legal expenses for a lawsuit stemming from a plan to
build a private prison. (The Associated Press)
May
24, 2002
A private prison won't be going up in Whittier. The Whittier private
prison bill was one of the two measures favored by Anchorage oil field services
and construction firm Veco that faltered this season. The prison bill came
to close to passing. It made it through the House and through most of its
Senate committees but ran in the Senate Rules committee. (Anchorage Daily
News)
Alutiiq
Security and Technology
Wackenhut
April 26, 2005 Anchorage Daily News
A union with nearly 2 million government and
private-sector members wants the U.S. Department of Labor to investigate how a
$450 million contract awarded to an Alaska Native company is being handled. The
Service Employees International Union says at least 17 private security guards
employed by Alutiiq, a subsidiary of Kodiak-based Afognak Native Corp., plan to
file claims with the Labor Department saying they were shortchanged on pay.
Alutiiq says the union is misinformed and is engaged in a smear campaign with
the goal of increasing its membership. "This shows the peril of
subcontracting to a company that has low standards," said Stephen Lerner,
head of the union's building services division. He was referring to
multinational security giant Wackenhut Corp., Alutiiq's subcontractor. Wackenhut
is a subsidiary of Britain-based Group 4 Securicor, the world's second-largest
private security firm. Alutiiq, with Wackenhut, won a sole-source contract from
the U.S. Defense Department in August 2003 to provide armed guards at 18
military installations in the Lower 48, said Dick Hobbs, Alutiiq's executive
vice president for operations. The contract is worth $90 million annually and
can be renewed for up to five years, he said. No competitive bidding took place
because the contract was awarded under legislation authored by Sen. Ted Stevens,
R-Alaska, that gives Alaska Native corporations preferential treatment in
getting government work. Congress' intent was to give Alaska Natives a
competitive edge in business, and a growing number of the Alaska companies have
won billions of dollars' worth of contracts in recent years. The practice, under
fire from public watchdog groups, is currently being investigated by the
Government Accountability Office.
December
10, 2004 News & Observer
We commend your excellent Nov. 30 editorial and the
fine investigative report on Nov. 28 on the award of no-bid deals to Alaska
Native Corporations such as Alutiiq Security and Technology. We endorse your
call for urgent scrutiny of this system and the back-door access it affords
major defense contractors like Wackenhut Corp. to gain lucrative federal work by
teaming with Alutiiq as a subcontractor. Your reporters quoted an Army spokesman
who said that Alutiiq, with little experience in securi |
