AP News, September 21st, 2007
A former state legislator charged with corruption said he stretched the truth when he bragged to two powerful corporate friends about his intentions for legislation they wanted passed.
Those claims _ secretly recorded by the FBI _ formed the basis for conspiracy and bribery charges against former Rep. Pete Kott, but the legislator on Thursday dismissed his words to former officials of VECO Corp. as "chitchat between three guys."
"These are very good friends of mine," Kott said. "I wanted to tell them what they wanted to hear."
He stands accused of accepting nearly $9,000, a political poll and the promise of a future job from officials of VECO, a major oil field services company.
Kott also said Thursday that he accepted a $5,000 loan in 2004 from VECO chairman Bill Allen, a debt that has not been repaid.
Allen and a former VECO vice president, Rick Smith, have pleaded guilty to bribing Kott and other lawmakers. They testified last week that they used Kott to push a revised crude oil tax with terms favorable to clients in the petroleum industry.
The measure was considered a vehicle to lead producers to begin negotiating for construction of a natural gas pipeline tapping Alaska's vast North Slope reserves, a project that could cost tens of billions of dollars. VECO would have been in position to bid on the pipeline or other oil field work.
Questions from defense attorney James Wendt led to Kott revealing that he owed Allen $5,000 from a truck loan made in 2004.
"It sounds like a gift to me," said federal prosecutor James Goeke.
But Kott called it a gentleman's agreement between close friends.
"We had an agreement that once the truck was paid off, I would start paying it back," Kott said.
The truck was paid off about the time his home and office were raided in August 2006, Kott said, and he was advised not to sent money to Allen.
Kott apologized to jurors for foul language recorded by the FBI in his conversations with Allen and Smith.
The seven-term lawmaker said going to trial has cost him relationships with people and probably his legacy. It has been a tremendous embarrassment to him and his family, he said.
"I think people will forget about the good things and remember the bad things," Kott said.
However, he said: "I believe I had to go through this. I don't believe the charges are correct, that I'm not guilty, but I had to go through this no matter what."
Kott is charged with conspiracy to solicit financial benefits for his service as a legislator, extortion "under color of official right" and bribery. A fourth charge, wire fraud, is based on a phone call he made from Washington, D.C., while on legislative business. In the phone call, he sought the phone number of a lobbyist and ended up speaking about official business that prosecutors contend was part of a conspiracy.
Wendt acknowledges that Kott worked with VECO officials but says it was not against the law for a lawmaker to hatch strategy for legislation with company officials on policy desired by most Alaskans.
Kott said a $7,993 check Allen wrote to him was for future hardwood flooring work, not to aid his re-election attempt, as prosecutors claim.
