Ted Stevens : All charges dropped? Conviction Voided?

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: LTC8K6

Seconded... now Stevens gets to walk around as if he's innocent.

Nicely played bait , but he is in fact innocent and doesn't need to act as if.

Yeah.

And like that *innocent* Jefferson, Ted Stevens also thinks there is nothing wrong with having $50k stashed away in your freezer ...

 

[Corn]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Doc Savage Fan

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
Stevens asked for a bill, that is a fact.

At trial, Allen claimed he spok to Parsons, and Parsons told him not to bother sending a bill, that Ted was just covering his ass by asking for the bill.

In an April 2008 interview, Allen did not recall even speaking to Parsons about the bill. This interview was not given to the defense untill well after the trial was over.

Allen radically changed his story on a point that is the crux of the case, imo.
Allen was the porosecution's star witness.
Allen had a relationship with lead FBI agent in charge of the prosecution.

This shows there was no case and that Stevens was almost certainly innocent of the charges, imo. Stevens asked for a bill for the repairs, and that fact is now uncontested.

From NPR:

He also said the lead FBI agent in charge of the investigation, Mary Beth Kepner, had an inappropriate relationship with witness Bill Allen, the Alaska millionaire at the center of the investigation. Joy said he once saw Kepner entering Allen's hotel room alone and that Kepner told Joy that she wore a skirt during her appearance at the Stevens trial as a "surprise/present" for Allen.

The plot thickens.

Are you sure that's not blood rushing to your dick?

What would you know about blood rushing into a dick?

 

[LTC8K6]

Ted Stevens also thinks there is nothing wrong with having $50k stashed away in your freezer

There isn't, unless it can be shown that you obtained it illegally.
Except in the case of the police, who can just seize money at will and make you prove it's not illegally obtained.

I'll bet a lot of folks do that now, and a lot of folks wish they had done so earlier...

It might not gain interest, but it'll still be there...

It was $90K anyway...

 

[Corn]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo

Originally posted by: LTC8K6

Seconded... now Stevens gets to walk around as if he's innocent.

Nicely played bait , but he is in fact innocent and doesn't need to act as if.

Yeah.

And like that *innocent* Jefferson, Ted Stevens also thinks there is nothing wrong with having $50k stashed away in your freezer ...

So is there anything wrong with me stashing some of my money in my safe? What is the difference? Explain to me what is criminal about "mattress money"? This outta be good.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Corn

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Doc Savage Fan

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
Stevens asked for a bill, that is a fact.

At trial, Allen claimed he spok to Parsons, and Parsons told him not to bother sending a bill, that Ted was just covering his ass by asking for the bill.

In an April 2008 interview, Allen did not recall even speaking to Parsons about the bill. This interview was not given to the defense untill well after the trial was over.

Allen radically changed his story on a point that is the crux of the case, imo.
Allen was the porosecution's star witness.
Allen had a relationship with lead FBI agent in charge of the prosecution.

This shows there was no case and that Stevens was almost certainly innocent of the charges, imo. Stevens asked for a bill for the repairs, and that fact is now uncontested.

From NPR:

He also said the lead FBI agent in charge of the investigation, Mary Beth Kepner, had an inappropriate relationship with witness Bill Allen, the Alaska millionaire at the center of the investigation. Joy said he once saw Kepner entering Allen's hotel room alone and that Kepner told Joy that she wore a skirt during her appearance at the Stevens trial as a "surprise/present" for Allen.

The plot thickens.

Are you sure that's not blood rushing to your dick?

What would you know about blood rushing into a dick?

There is no other way to explain the number of responses I generate from fat heads like you?

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Corn

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo

Originally posted by: LTC8K6

Seconded... now Stevens gets to walk around as if he's innocent.

Nicely played bait , but he is in fact innocent and doesn't need to act as if.

Yeah.

And like that *innocent* Jefferson, Ted Stevens also thinks there is nothing wrong with having $50k stashed away in your freezer ...

So is there anything wrong with me stashing some of my money in my safe? What is the difference? Explain to me what is criminal about "mattress money"? This outta be good.

Yeah, he probably had 50,000 there to help him remember his sleep number.

 

[Corn]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Corn

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Doc Savage Fan

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
Stevens asked for a bill, that is a fact.

At trial, Allen claimed he spok to Parsons, and Parsons told him not to bother sending a bill, that Ted was just covering his ass by asking for the bill.

In an April 2008 interview, Allen did not recall even speaking to Parsons about the bill. This interview was not given to the defense untill well after the trial was over.

Allen radically changed his story on a point that is the crux of the case, imo.
Allen was the porosecution's star witness.
Allen had a relationship with lead FBI agent in charge of the prosecution.

This shows there was no case and that Stevens was almost certainly innocent of the charges, imo. Stevens asked for a bill for the repairs, and that fact is now uncontested.

From NPR:

He also said the lead FBI agent in charge of the investigation, Mary Beth Kepner, had an inappropriate relationship with witness Bill Allen, the Alaska millionaire at the center of the investigation. Joy said he once saw Kepner entering Allen's hotel room alone and that Kepner told Joy that she wore a skirt during her appearance at the Stevens trial as a "surprise/present" for Allen.

The plot thickens.

Are you sure that's not blood rushing to your dick?

What would you know about blood rushing into a dick?

There is no other way to explain the number of responses I generate from fat heads like you?

That didn't answer the question.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Marlin1975

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
http://www.npr.org/templates/s....php?storyId=102589818

Looks like it. So where does he go to get his Senate seat back?

I know you are one of the P&N hacks but please show me where he had his seat removed/taken away from him?



Hint:
He lost an election. The people voted him out.

^ If this is what LTC8K6 edited it out I don't see why.

Marlin, the conviction was just 8 days before the election, and that was preceded by an awful lot of press coverage by the MSM. No doubt that influenced the election substantially.

I hope those involved in the misconduct leading to this being thrown are investigated and punished.

Fern

 

[Lemon law]

Its hard to conceive of Ted Stevens as being innocent. One has to be way out in looney land to think ole Allen was just doing all those very expensive favors
out of the goodness of his heart, for teh very guy who helped make him rich. And since Allen was a direct beneficiary of much of Stevens legislation, having the high theater offer of send me a bill and I will pay it is more of a cover story than reality.

If nothing else, Stevens should have been taxed on any single gift valued over $10,000 and was also required by Senate rules to report such gifts.

How many of you received free generators and home remodeling jobs from some stranger out of the blue?

Even if this conviction was voided by the justice department before any fair minded judge would have voided it anyway for the compelling reason of prosecution misconduct, does not preclude the government from trying Stevens again, and proving his guilt the fair and legal way.

So at best, its a Mexican standoff in limbo, and in some ways similar to the Libby situation.

Libby could try to get his conviction voided on appeal, but if he does, he must renounce the Presidential semi pardon he received, and if Stevens gets too mouthy, some other entity can retry him on the original charges or other charges.

 

[Aegeon]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
You are calling Stevens corrupt; yet the evidence to prove it in court was flawed.
Essentially, you are committing libel.

Actually evidence for at least one and probably several of the felony charges was absolutely fine.

Basically Ted Stevens received a bunch of fairly expensive furnature and the like from Bill Allen (given outright) over the years, and never reported it as the law required. He gave a bizarre increadibly implausible explanation in court testimony that all the many 10s of thousands of dollars of furnature were merely "on loan" from Bill Allen for seven years, and Bill Allen had stuck them in his DC house and there was nothing he could do to prevent Allen for giving this stuff or get him to take it back.

Personally I question the decision not to retry Ted Stevens because it allows people to make the argument he was not corrupt. (The issue is Ted Stevens concealed that he had received these gifts while doing all sorts of things which really benefited Bill Allen over the years. The reason the charges in question exist for Senators and prosecutors used this approach is outright legall proving any of the gifts given were an actual explicit bribe can be difficult to do sucessfully.)

 

[BoberFett]

This whole thing is a debacle.

Clearly the answer is that we need more regulation, enforced by competent and incorruptible government employees like those involved in this case.

 

[LTC8K6]

Furniture? You mean the 7 year old $2K chair?

Stevens should be allowed to say "Ooops, I forgot to get a ruling on these items as gifts. Let me have my accountants go over the records again and straighten this out." and pay anything he owes from back then or return items, without any punishment or penalty.

Just like some Obama's appointees have been allowed to do with taxes.

Particularly Geithner.

In fact Stevens should get a pass on some of it since it was so long ago, like Geithner.

Just like several other Senators have been allowed to do with similar situations.

If Stevens should be in jail, then Dodd and Rangel should be in far worse trouble.

There are plenty more examples on both sides of the aisle.

Plenty have been allowed to do a mulligan.

 

[Aegeon]

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
Furniture? You mean the 7 year old $2K chair?

Stevens should be allowed to say "Ooops, I forgot to get a ruling on these items as gifts. Let me have my accountants go over the records again and straighten this out." and pay anything he owes from back then or return items, without any punishment or penalty.

Obviously the actually 2,700 massage chair was one of many items outright given as gifts.

Other items included a backup generator, and a gas grill among other things.

Morris asked Stevens about a $2,700 Brookstone massage chair that was delivered to his home in Washington in 2001. Stevens has taken the position that the chair was a loan from a friend. But he acknowledged on cross-examination that it remains in his home to this day.

"How is that not a gift?" Morris asked.

"We have lots of things in our house that don't belong to us, ma'am," Stevens replied. Asked later what these things included, Stevens said they included items owned by his daughter and friends of his wife, Catherine. Stevens also said it was not practical to ship the chair back to the owner, who lived in Alaska.

Stevens said the status of the massage chair was not unlike that of a Viking gas grill that an Alaskan oilman, Bill J. Allen, had delivered to the Stevens home in Girdwood, Alaska, after the renovation was complete in 2001. The government alleges that the grill was a gift to Stevens. The lawmaker says the grill is still owned by Allen, even though it remains on the deck of the home; he has also said that he and his wife never use it.

http://articles.latimes.com/20...21/nation/na-stevens21

Here's some other testimony from Ted Stevens on the subject.

Then how about the e-mail in December 2001 which Stevens sent to Persons, Morris asked. "The chair arrived and it's great, you can't tell him how much you enjoyed it. Why are you thanking him for a loan?" she asked.

"Because that's what he said it would be," Stevens replied.

In fact, Stevens said, he planned to ship the chair back to Persons in Alaska with other furniture from Washington to use in the Girdwood house, but there wasn't any room in the "chalet" - the place was filled with Allen's stuff, he said.

Where was his original furniture?

"Bill Allen stole our furniture and put his in our chalet," Stevens said.

"Why didn't you call the police?" Morris asked.

"It never crossed my mind to call the police at that time," Stevens said. "I might now."

http://www.adn.com/news/politi...vens/story/561737.html

I would have to do more research to find a list of everything again, but it was certainly quite a bit of stuff worth a bunch of money in total.

Its a VERY different situation than any of the tax situations you mentioned. Simply failing to pay taxes, which Ted Stevens actually failed to do as well in this case, is not at all the same thing because it doesn't create the same risk of political corruption and specificly bribery. Incidentally those caught failing to properly pay all the taxes they actually owed did have to pay penalties and interest.

In neither the case of Rangel (at least to my knowledge) or Dodd has it been established they knowingly received a direct financial gift they failed to report. (The case with Dodd's morgage awhile ago is that its not clear he realized he was getting a better deal than should have been ordinarily possible in his situation at the time, which is partially due to the complexity of mortgage interests rates and the application process. It wasn't like he received a rate of 1% interest on his mortgage or something.) Contributions to an election campaign fund are treated differently from a legal perspective, and the AIG contributions certainly WERE reported as required. Unless you can prove they were an explicit bribe, legally those donations certainly were in the clear, and any funny business with the solicitations by the CEO is not Dodd's problem legally unless he was actually aware of it.

By contrast, Ted Stevens absolutely knew he had all these items which added up to quite a bit of money in total and failed to report them, clearly because he was concerned about potential political consequences from doing so. The whole they were only loans or he didn't want them excuses just doesn't fly, or were at a minimum excuses he gave himself to justify his behavoir.

 

[Lemon law]

And tell me again, why Ted Stevens, the tireless advocate of the bridge to nowhere, deserves any sympathy. If nothing else, he deserves an infinite number of dope slaps.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: Lemon law

And tell me again, why Ted Stevens, the tireless advocate of the bridge to nowhere, deserves any sympathy. If nothing else, he deserves an infinite number of dope slaps.

True, but he still deserves fair treatment under our judicial system. Without that, we're all screwed.

Stevens is no longer in office, he's old enough that he probably won't be back, the trial and appeals cost him plenty, and the publicity about the charges and the trial stand as a warning to others.

All things considered, the down side of prosecution's bad acts could have been much worse.

 

[Phokus]

After 8 years of corruption under bush where hiring/firings and even prosecutions were politically motivated, illegal government actions like torture and wiretapping were ignored or even sanctioned, it looks like the justice dept. is bringing back the rule of law.

I think the Obama administration could have easily ignored the rule of law and let Stevens hang, but it looks like they're cleaning up the stench of corruption left by the previous administration instead

 

[CaptnKirk]

They 'Immunized him' with a trial so flawed it was designed to have the verdict thrown out,
while exposing him to publicity that would taint all future jury pools, no possible retrial.

He was sacrificed for a Bush Administration 'Show-Trial' for cover to a greater cause.

But it was specifically designed to fail for a purpose, and get him out of office
so he could be used as a poster boy for the GOP's faithful lemmings.

 

[RightIsWrong]

I don't care if he was 185. You are never too old to go to jail if you break the law.

 

[Aegeon]

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
They 'Immunized him' with a trial so flawed it was designed to have the verdict thrown out,
while exposing him to publicity that would taint all future jury pools, no possible retrial.

This isn't realistically true. The only way juror taint would be an issue is if everyone is absolutely convinced he is 100% innocent, which wouldn't be the case here. It might be slightly less certain, but they certainly could retry on at least some of the felony charges if prosecutors chose to do so.

Realistically not charging him again was at least partially a political decision, with the primary argument being its not worth it now that he is already out of office.