ANCHORAGE - A former state representative on trial for corruption on Wednesday denied that he sought a job with a major Alaska oil field service company in exchange for his influence on a crude oil tax and other legislation.
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Federal prosecutors contend former state Rep. Pete Kott was bribed with the promise of a job and cash from officials of VECO Corp. Former CEO, Bill Allen, and a former vice president, Rick Smith, have pleaded guilty to bribing Kott and other lawmakers.
Kott said he did not seek a job from Allen, a man he regarded as a close friend.
"If I wanted a job with Bill Allen and VECO, I would have sat down with him and negotiated," Kott said.
Kott also denied another key element of the government's case: that he illegally accepted a $2,750 poll paid for by VECO for his 2006 re-election attempt.
Kott said his campaign message was clear, that the poll results did not change his strategy and that he had no hand in questions respondents were asked.
"I did not make use of it," he said of the poll. "I can't even recall if I received any questions leading up to it."
Testimony on Wednesday morning for the second day pitted the word of Allen and Smith against a person close to Kott, his bookkeeper and self-described "significant other," Debora Stovern.
Stovern backed up testimony from Kott's son on Tuesday that a $7,993 check written by Allen was a payment for future work by Kott's Hardwood Flooring, not a payoff to hire Peter Kott Jr. as campaign manager for his father's re-election attempt in 2006.
Kott is charged with conspiracy to solicit financial benefits for his service as a legislator, extortion "under color of official right," bribery and wire fraud, which involved improperly discussing legislative business in a single phone call when he was in Washington, D.C.
Federal prosecutors contend the seven-term former lawmaker from Eagle River on Anchorage's north side accepted nearly $9,000.
VECO officials in 2006 were seeking legislation that could pave the way for construction of a natural gas pipeline tapping Alaska's vast North Slope reserves. Before producers would commit to such a project, which carries a price tag in the tens of billions of dollars, they wanted the question of crude oil taxes settled. VECO officials have testified they enlisted Kott to help secure a favor able rate.
Defense attorneys say Kott has pushed natural resource development in all his campaigns and that he did nothing illegal by working closely with a private company to push legislation that most Alaskans favored.
Kott said Wednesday his campaigning consisted mostly of going door to door to meet voters. After he served several terms, he said, the campaign stressed his experience in office and his support for resource development. The poll in 2006 did not change that, he said.
"I certainly did not receive any benefits from a poll," he said.
Stovern preceded Kott on the stand and revealed she was the embroiderer who created 100 hats passed out to friends of VECO with the company logo on the front. On the back of about a dozen red hats, in subtle, red stitching, she had used her embroidery machine to stitch three letters - CBC - about a half-inch high, which stood for "Corrupt Bastards Club."
The hats, Stovern said, were ordered by Smith at $9 apiece. The CBC was not a real club, she said, but was a joke nickname given to lawmakers whose names were linked to VECO contributions and consulting fees in a guest opinion article that ran in state newspapers.
Stovern testified that she kept the books for Kott's business and his re-election campaigns in 2004 and 2006.
Stovern said she had personally helped Kott with a $12,000 repair job at Allen's Anchorage house in 2006. In July, from her home in Juneau, she took a call from Kott at Allen's house saying there would be more repair work at Allen's home. She immediately created an invoice reflecting $12,000 paid and $7,993 due, she said.
But a day later, she said, she learned from Kott that the payment would also cover work at Smith's home.
"I told him this wouldn't be a proper way to invoice that," she said.
Kott told her to correct it, she said, and she did.
She created a second invoice billing Smith for $5,500. However, she acknowledged that she didn't create another, corrected invoice for Allen until weeks later - after the FBI had searched her house at the end of August, seized her computer, made a copy of its hard drive and returned it to her.
The second invoice no longer listed "repair work" for the future job at Allen's house. Instead, the billing was for future maintenance work sometime in 2007, she said.
Stovern said Kott and Allen had discussed setting up annual maintenance for his floor shortly after they finished the $12,000 repair job.
"He has a lot of traffic on his floor," she said.
The invoice mistake was made, she said, because she did not immediately have the breakdown of the future work.
"It was done incorrectly and corrected," she said. "It happens. We all make mistakes."
Prosecutor James Goeke asked if she thought it odd that in thousands of phone calls wiretapped by the FBI, Allen did not mention the future floor work.
"That would surprise me there was no discussion," she said. "I'm sure there was discussion."
