Retired Fisherman Spoke With FBI About Stevenses

[Blue_In_AK]

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003533.php


While former state Senate President Ben Stevens (R-AK) headed a seafood grant board that his father, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) funded with millions in federal dollars, the younger Stevens took in thousands of dollars in consulting fees from the very companies that won the allocations. At least some of those fees, one retired Alaska fisherman has said under oath, were veiled bribes.

The fisherman, Victor Smith, spoke with the FBI in Seattle last year, just before a grand jury in Alaska issued at least three fisheries subpoenas. Smith said the agents wanted information on how the Stevenses were connected to the fishery scandal that he and others have complained and written about for years. "They were mainly interested in payments to Ben Stevens and anything I had related to Ted Stevens," Smith told me.

In a signed affidavit (available here), Smith recounts a meeting between two affiliated fishery associations where the head of one group fielded a question from a member. The member wanted to know how Ben Stevens would be paid $500,000 now that his father had gotten $53 million for a project that would benefit the industry. According to Smith's affidavit:

* The reply from Zuanich was “I’m confident that, with a little convoluted accounting, we can keep the payments to Ben Stevens off of PSVOA’s books.”

Since 2001, the younger Stevens has pulled in upwards of $775,435 in consulting fees, according to the Anchorage Daily News. Though, the Alaska Public Offices Commission recently fined Stevens $5,630 for failing to disclose $480,000 in payments he received from various companies. The complaint against Stevens was filed by former Alaska state representative Ray Metcalfe who has followed Stevens' relationship with the fisheries for years. Metcalfe estimates that Stevens has been paid at least $904,000 in fees by fisheries between 2000 and 2005. Smith's affidavit was included in the complaint.

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tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

[MADem]

1. Here's a little K and R...this is worth passing around! NT

[Blue_In_AK]

2. Thank you, MADem...

I believe the Stevenses are slowly deconstructing and not a minute too soon for this old Alaska Dem. :)

[MADem]

3. Let's hope the media covers it--it will be a show worth watching, even in the lower 48! nt

[ellenfl]

4. k&r

:popcorn:

i hope this gets really good.

ellen fl