Stevens' lawyers seek mistrial, jury dismissed for the day

By Matt Kelley, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Lawyers for Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens angrily demanded a mistrial Thursday after prosecutors belatedly released details of an FBI interview of the star witness against the Senate's longest-serving Republican.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan sent the jury home for the day and set a hearing for late Thursday afternoon to determine whether he should throw out the case against Stevens or impose other sanctions on prosecutors.

Defense lawyer Brendan Sullivan shook with fury as he accused prosecutors of deliberately hiding evidence he said could help prove Stevens is innocent of charges he deliberately failed to list thousands of dollars of gifts on his Senate financial disclosure forms.

"You can't undo what has been done here," the defense lawyer said. "This can't happen in a court."

The judge rebuked prosecutors, saying he had a hard time believing the omission was not deliberate. Sullivan had already scolded prosecutors on Monday for not informing him that one of their potential witnesses had been sent home to Alaska for medical treatment.

"If it wasn't intentional, it was gross negligence on the part of the government," the judge said. "It's difficult for the court to believe the government overlooked this."

Brenda Morris, the lead prosecutor in the case, admitted her team had violated the judge's order to turn over evidence to the defense. But Morris argued that prosecutors had already given similar information to the 84-year-old senator's defense team.

"It was not done intentionally ... it was a human error," Morris said.

Former oil services executive Bill Allen, the star witness against Stevens, had been scheduled to continue testifying Thursday. On Wednesday, Allen testified he and his former company, Veco, paid for thousands of dollars worth of renovations and repairs to Stevens' home in Girdwood, Alaska, but never sent the senator a bill for the work.

Stevens is charged with making false statements on his mandatory financial disclosures by allegedly not mentioning the home remodeling and other gifts from Allen and prominent Alaskans. Stevens' defense team says the senator paid every bill he received for the renovation work and was misled by Allen and others who refused his offers to pay for gifts or didn't reveal their true value.

The evidence prosecutors turned over late Wednesday night included excerpts from an FBI report of an interview with Allen in which the executive said he believed Stevens would have paid for the home renovations had he gotten a bill for them. Sullivan, his defense lawyer, said that contradicted Allen's testimony and that the defense would have used that information during opening arguments.

Morris said prosecutors had given Stevens' defense summaries of Allen's interviews before the trial that said Allen believed Stevens wouldn't have paid the full cost of the work but would have paid a reduced amount.

The judge on Thursday morning ordered prosecutors to turn over unredacted copies of all agents' reports from interviews with Allen, who pleaded guilty to bribery and conspiracy charges last year as part of a wide-ranging probe of corruption in Alaska.

The lawyers' arguments got so heated at one point that Brendan Sullivan and Morris got into a face-to-face shouting match.

"I demand that the prosecution come back up here and dismiss this case!" defense lawyer Sullivan said from the podium where lawyers address the judge.

Morris leapt to her feet to take on the challenge. "He called me out, judge!" she shouted.

The judge ordered both sides to give him written explanations of the problem and their proposed solutions before Thursday afternoon's hearing. He did not say whether he planned to dismiss the case, declare a mistrial, or order other sanctions against prosecutors.

Is RealClearPolitics Rigged?

02 Oct 2008 11:28 am

Nate Silver believes so - and has some good evidence to back him up. I know they are tilted right editorially, which is their prerogative, but I didn't realize they were now massaging their polls to favor McCain:

Look -- I'm not going to tell you that my site is completely devoid of spin. I am a Democrat, and I see the world through a Democratic lens. But what I can promise you is that we'll keep the spin separate from our metrics. The spin is a side dish, which you can choose to consume or ignore.

Unfortunately, that is not a choice you have at RCP. Their partisan leaning is infused into their numbers. If RCP disclosed their methodology -- articulated their rationale for excluding or including certain polls -- I would give them the benefit of the doubt. But they do not, so I do not.

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