Legal News

Prosecutors Behaving Badly? More Bad Acts Alleged in Stevens Case

By Dan Slater

For awhile now, we’ve struggled internally over the following question: When it comes to 2008 courtroom theatrics, did the trial of former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens trump that of Kentucky’s Fen-Phen lawyers? With today’s Stevens-related news, we can probably put the debate to rest.

Here’s what’s happening: In December, we noted that an FBI agent accused prosecutors — who seemed to bungle the trial badly — of intentionally withholding exculpatory evidence from Stevens’s lawyers and of scheming to conceal a witness from the defense team. But now, in a new filing, written about by the NYT, the FBI agent, Chad Joy, has alleged that a fellow agent and prosecutors contrived to improperly conceal evidence from the court and the defense.

Joy apparently claims that another agent maintained an inappropriate relationship with the prosecution’s star witness, Bill Allen — an old buddy of Stevens who founded oil-services company Veco. Joy said his colleague, Mary Beth Kepner, almost always wore pants but on the day Allen took the stand to testify against his old buddy, Kepner donned a skirt, which Joy said she described as “a present” to Allen.

But the allegations of prosecutorial misconduct don’t end here. For example, as you might recall, Rocky Williams, a witness for both the government and defense, was sent home to Alaska by prosecutors, who failed to notify defense lawyers.

Joy, the FBI agent, claims that a prosecutor, Nicholas Marsh, concocted the scheme to send Williams away after prosecutors held a mock cross-examination in which he did not perform well. But Brenda Morris, another prosecutor in the case, claimed the decision was made because Williams was gravely ill.

“Still,” writes the Times (in a fairly classic line): “there is considerable evidence that Mr. Williams was truly sick, including the fact that he has since died.”

A Justice spokeswoman told the Times: “We will continue to litigate in the court all matters, including these allegations, related to the jury’s conviction of Senator Ted Stevens.”

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan has called a hearing Friday to consider a request by Stevens’s legal team, headed by Williams & Connolly’s Brendan Sullivan, for a new trial based on Joy’s complaint.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 11, 2009 (boomark / email).