Justice Dept. Looks To Drop Stevens Case
The Justice Department is seeking to drop all charges against former Sen. Ted Stevens, whose conviction on corruption charges sparked complaints of prosecutorial misconduct, CBS News confirmed Wednesday.
The 85-year-old Alaska Republican was convicted late last year on seven felony counts of lying on Senate financial disclosure forms to conceal hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts and home renovations from a businessman.
Stevens has appealed his conviction. Problems with the prosecution angered the judge and made it more difficult for the Justice Department to defend the conviction.
"I always knew that there would be a day when the cloud that surrounded me would be removed," Stevens said in a statement. "That day has finally come."
Justice officials filed papers Wednesday morning asking the judge to dismiss the indictment. If the judge agrees, Stevens' conviction would be vacated.
The decision was first reported Wednesday by National Public Radio, which said Attorney General Eric Holder decided the conviction could not be defended because of problems with the government's prosecution.
"Because Holder owes little fealty to Bush-era decisions at Justice - indeed, because he has taken strong steps to separate himself from some of the worst policies and practices of his predecessors - the move to dismiss Stevens' convictions is both a political no-brainer and a legal necessity," writes CBS News Chief Legal Analyst and Legal Editor Andrew Cohen. "It was the right thing to do on many different levels." (Read Cohen's full analysis.)
In December, Stevens asked a federal judge to grant him a new trial or throw out the case, saying his trial had many "deficiencies."
In a statement, Williams & Connolly, Stevens' legal representatives, said Holder's decision "is justified by the extraordinary evidence of government corruption" by the prosecution.
"Not only did the government fail to disclose evidence of innocence, but instead intentionally hid that evidence and created false evidence that they provided to the defense," they said.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan held Justice Department lawyers in contempt last month for failing to turn over documents as ordered. He called their behavior "outrageous."
Sullivan had ordered Justice to provide the agency's internal communications regarding a whistle-blower complaint brought by an FBI agent involved in the investigation of Stevens. The agent objected to Justice Department tactics during the trial, including failure to turn over evidence and an "inappropriate relationship" between the lead agent on the case and the prosecution's star witness.
The Justice Department has since assigned a new team of prosecutors to the case.
Officials said they will not seek a new case against Stevens, who lost his reelection bid in November. In his statement, Stevens called it "unfortunate" that the election "was affected by proceedings now recognized as unfair."