Aug. 11, 2008 – 8:33 p.m.
Justice Department lawyers filed papers Monday opposing Sen.
A Washington-based jury would not have to be sequestered, the prosecutors argued, while a jury in Alaska would have to be insulated from “the obvious media attention in Alaska that will be afforded to its sitting senator campaigning while on trial.”
Jurors in an Alaska-based Stevens trial, they wrote, would end up deprived of “not only access to their families and their homes and their normal activities, but likely to their ability to participate in the electoral process in advance of the November 2008 general election.”
Stevens, 84, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, asked to move the trial from Washington to the state he has represented since 1968. He argued that a jury would have to be transported to Alaska to understand the case, and a change of venue would prevent the need for that cross-country travel.
The 28-page indictment issued July 29 charged that Stevens concealed his acceptance of more than $250,000 worth of benefits from VECO Corp., an oil services company, and its former chief executive, Bill Allen, from 1999 to 2006. The most notable benefits were labor and supplies for the renovation and improvement of his home in Girdwood.
Jury selection is scheduled to start Sept. 22 for the trial that lawyers estimated could last four weeks. Most of about 40 witnesses would have to travel from Alaska to testify, according to Stevens’ lawyers led by Brendan Sullivan.
But prosecutors argued the case should be tried “in the District of Columbia, where the crimes were committed,” and where Stevens lives and works.
“His spouse is an attorney at a law firm in the District of Columbia, and the family owns a personal residence in the District of Columbia,” the prosecutors wrote. “If a trial takes place in the District of Columbia, he will be able to maintain close contact with his Senate office, and continue to live in his own home.”
U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan scheduled an Aug. 20 hearing on the request.