Stevens takes job at Conoco; In 2006, he fought for lower oil taxes as a legislator

Ben Stevens is leaving state governmet to take a job with ConocoPhillips as vice president of external affairs and transportation, a job that often involves lobbying state government.

If the decision by Gov. Mike Dunleavy to hire Stevens in 2018 was a sign that the Republican Party wanted to forget about the Veco scandal, the move by ConocoPhillips signals that the oil industry wants to do so as well.

The connections between Stevens and Conoco that emerged from the corruption trials should not be forgotten.

In a phone call on June 6, 2006, with Jim Bowles, the president of ConocoPhillips Alaska, Veco boss Bill Allen boasted about how Rep. Pete Kott and Sen. Ben Stevens, then the Senate president, were working hard to stop an oil tax bill to help the “big boys.”

The big boys were ConocoPhilips, Exxon and BP.

"Just between me and you, I've got Pete Kott and uh Jim, uh I meant Ben doing it," Allen said on the wiretapped call.

Bowles made it clear that killing the bill would be the best thing for his company and the entire oil industry.

“If there’s any way we can get this thing stopped, that’s the best possible outcome,” Bowles told Allen.

Also during that call, Allen told Bowles that Kott and Stevens had a plan to adjourn the legislative session in a way that could not be tracked back to them.

“OK. Well, uh, I, you know, they’re gonna do it so they don’t know that they, with Pete Kott and Ben, they’re gonna do it so they don’t know who, who it came from,” Allen said.

Bowles was happy to hear it.

“Well, that’s ideal. And it needs to catch them by surprise because otherwise they’ll stay in session just so they can, you know, cause problems,” Bowles said.

“Maybe they can’t get it done, but they think, they told me they thought they could,” Allen said.

“OK, well that’s good news. Bill, I tell you what, I think if we can get this killed this time we can come back and package up something that works better for the governor and for ourselves,” said Bowles, referring to former Gov. Frank Murkowski.

Two days later Allen left a voicemail for Bowles, taking credit for having the Legislature adjourn with no bill having passed.

“Hey, Jim, I told you we would, uh, between … Pete Kott and with Ben we wouldn’t have a bill. So I know you’re probably talking to somebody else. But remember what I told you, that we got it done. (hangs up),” the FBI transcript says.

Allen then addressed Rick Smith and Kott, who were both in the room. “What I told Jim, Jim Bowles, I said between Pete Kott and Ben, we won’t have, I said they…won’t even have their fingerprints on the son of a bitch.”

As reporter Tom Kizzia wrote in a fine 2007 examination of the June 6 phone call, “There's nothing in the brief conversation to indicate that Conoco knew Allen had paid bribes to Kott and Stevens, as Allen admitted doing in Kott's corruption trial in federal court in September.”

Allen, whose memory has been erased by many of the right-wing Alaska politicians who did his bidding when he was a GOP kingmaker, relied on Stevens for help in Juneau.

In a phone call with Kott on Jan. 10, 2006, Allen said, "About the only one that I can trust is you and old Ben Stevens."

The FBI searched the offices of Ben Stevens and five other legislators on Aug. 31, 2006.

That was the day after Allen began cooperating with the government. Allen, aware that his words were being recorded, reached Sen. Ted Stevens on his cellphone in San Francisco.

Allen told Ted Stevens that the FBI had a search warrant and was asking him about Ben Stevens and was "trying to figure out" exactly "what he done for us."

About six weeks later, in another call with Allen, Ted said that Ben was distressed by what was going on, but he was trying to cheer up his son.

"I've seen guys get down in a deep hole. And I think Ben is about there, too," Ted told Allen on Oct. 18, 2006.

Allen said, "It really would hurt me if his little family got screwed up."

Stevens said Ben has "got to stop being just so depressed because it'll spring over to the kids. He's going to do all right. When his term finishes, we'll get some funds to help him pay his law firm, his legal fees. But he's got a tough row to hoe."

“Those guys, they've done this to him three times before remember? He's been through this, state procedures three times. And he says, 'Dad, there's no end to it.' And I said, 'You're wrong. You're out ... these guys are political. As soon as they know you can't, you're not a threat to them, they're going to forget about this.' But the people involved in this investigation aren't. So we got a new, new, new thing to contend with. But I said, 'Don't get a bad attitude,’” Ted Stevens said.

Ben Stevens received from $43,000 to $57,000 a year from Veco, listing the payments as being for "business services," which continued until one month before the FBI got a search warrant to search his office on Aug. 31, 2006.

Asked which legislators had been bribed, former Veco Vice President Smith testified in 2007, "That would be Ben Stevens and John Cowdery."

Sen. Cowdery pleaded guilty to conspiracy in 2008.

Allen and Smith eventually accepted plea deals, admitting they had made more than $400,000 in illegal payments to various officials.

Ben Stevens had started working for Veco in 1995, six years before Gov. Tony Knowles appointed him to fill a vacancy in the Senate.

"How am I supposed to say, 'Now that you're a senator, Ben, I can't give you more money,'" Allen testified at the trial of former House Speaker Pete Kott in 2007. "I couldn't do that."

As a legislator, Ben Stevens refused to say what "business services" he performed for Veco from 2002-2006, years when he was in the Legislature, because he wasn’t required to do so.

"I don't have to say that," Stevens responded when asked at a press conference in 2005. He met the requirements of the time by reporting the payments, though that law has now been changed.

Allen testified that the payments to Stevens were mainly for his work in the Legislature. In court documents against Allen and Smith, Ben Stevens was referred to as “State Senator B,” who received $243,250 from Veco, the exact amount Stevens reported to state officials in disclosure filings.

Allen said the money paid to Stevens was not for consulting, but for "giving advice, lobbying colleagues, and taking official acts in matters before the Legislature." Allen promised Stevens he would give him a job as an executive after the left the Legislature, according to the government.

Stevens fought for lower oil tax rates in the Legislature, which is what Allen wanted as well.

Allen, once a revered figure in the world of Alaska Republicans, did time in federal prison in 2010-2011 for bribing lawmakers and cheating on taxes.

The multiyear federal corruption probe collapsed after the conviction of Sen. Ted Stevens was tossed out because of misconduct by the prosecutors.

Ted Stevens had been convicted of not reporting gifts, but prosecutors had withheld information that might have helped Stevens and undermined Allen's credibility as a witness.

The state never mounted an investigation of its own into political corruption, ignoring what was revealed by the federal effort and pretending that there was no need for any more digging.

The state never acted upon what the FBI learned from wiretapped phone calls and the camera hidden inside a lamp in Room 604 of the Baranof Hotel in Juneau. That was where Allen and his top lieutenant, Rick Smith, met with legislators to try to force decisions favorable to the oil industry, which was good for Veco.

In the recordings made public as part of the investigation, the name of Ben Stevens came up on numerous occasions. The Veco executives spoke of him as one of their two most important allies.

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