Alaska Politics Blog : The Cowdery indictment (UPDATED: Ben Stevens, Olson, Veco)

Alaska Politics Blog

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Contributors

Sean Cockerham

Sean Cockerham writes about Alaska state politics. He's worked for the ADN in Anchorage and Juneau, covered the legislature for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and covered Washington state politics for the Tacoma News Tribune. E-mail Sean at scockerham@adn.com

Kyle Hopkins

Kyle Hopkins covers rural affairs, general assignments and politics for the ADN. He covered the 2006 campaign for governor, has blogged extensively about Alaska politics, covered Anchorage city government and was a reporter based in the Mat-Su. He grew up in Southeast Alaska and previously wrote for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and Anchorage Press. E-mail Kyle at khopkins@adn.com and also find him on our rural Alaska blog, The Village.

David Hulen

David Hulen, the ADN's state and local news editor, is responsible for political coverage. He has been an editor and reporter at the ADN for more than 20 years. E-mail David at dhulen@adn.com

Features

SECTION

Alaska political corruption

When the FBI raided state legislature offices in Aug. 2006, it publicly launched an investigation that ultimately reached the highest levels of Alaska politics, and continues to this day.

The Cowdery indictment (UPDATED: Ben Stevens, Olson, Veco)

Posted by Alaska_Politics

Anchorage Daily News

Posted: July 10, 2008 - 9:21 am

UPDATE:

From Kyle Hopkins in Anchorage --

The Cowdery indictment talks about a lot of unnamed players - "Company A," "State Senator B."

Here's the translation:

COMPANY A: Veco.

COMPANY CEO: Former Veco chief Bill Allen.

COMPANY VP: Former Veco exec Rick Smith.

STATE SENATOR A: Sen. Donny Olson, D-Nome.

STATE SENATOR B: Former Senate President Ben Stevens, R-Anchorage.

I should note at this point that Cowdery's lawyer, Kevin Fitzgerald, confirmed these names for us. But you can also look at the facts in the indictment to get an idea of who people are.

For example, Senator A is someone who owns or maintains airplanes and was described as needing money for a primary election campaign. (Olson -- one of the legislators who had his office searched by the FBI -- ran for lieutenant governor that year and is a pilot and president of Olson Air Service.)

ORIGINAL POST:

Click here to read the indictment of Sen. John Cowdery (R-Anchorage) filed in federal court today.

Reporter Lisa Demer summarizes:

According to the 16-page indictment, Cowdery and others conspired to give another state senator $25,000, characterized as campaign contribution, to do the bidding of an oil field services company. While not named in the indictment, court papers filed in other cases identify the company as Veco. Veco chief executive Bill Allen and vice president Rick Smith have pleaded guilty to bribing legislators, including Cowdery, to push through a version of an oil tax favored by North Slope producers.

23 February 17, 2010 - 7:41am | m000n