Judge Denies Mistrial Request in Stevens Case

Oct. 2, 2008 — -- A federal judge decided today to proceed with the government corruption case against U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, denying his attorney's request for a mistrial. The trial will continue Monday.

Stevens' attorneys had asked for a mistrial earlier today, claiming federal prosecutors withheld information about their star witness in the case against the lawmaker. Despite the judge's ruling at a federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., prosecutors reported themselves to the U.S. Justice Department for an internal investigation into possible misconduct for failing to turn over all their materials to the Stevens defense team.

The prosecution has now turned over about 100 FBI reports relating to the Stevens investigation to defense attorneys, who will review all of them over the weekend to determine what remedy to request from the judge.

At the close of proceedings today, Judge Emmett Sullivan said, "The court has no confidence in the government ... to discharge its ... obligations."

The defense team learned late Wednesday that Justice Department prosecutors had failed to provide them with FBI interview paperwork on Bill Allen, the government's key witness.

In July, a federal grand jury indicted Stevens, 84, for allegedly lying on financial disclosure forms required by the U.S. Senate. Prosecutors claim Stevens omitted $250,000 in gifts, including a massive renovation project carried out at his Girdwood, Alaska, home, which they say Allen and his company funded.

Allen, the former CEO of now-defunct oil services firm Veco, took the stand Tuesday and Wednesday and testified that he had never sent the senator a bill for the extensive home renovations.

Payment for the renovation project is at the heart of the case; prosecutors say that Stevens never paid a dime and that Allen and Veco footed the bill, but the defense says the lawmaker's family paid every bill it received.

Attorneys sparred in court over a portion of the FBI forms that prosecutors redacted before turning them over to the defense. The redacted portion included a line about a bill being sent to Stevens that noted if a bill had been sent, "Bill Allen believes they would have paid."