An administrative judge has reversed suspensions of two federal prosecutors who allegedly failed to turn over evidence to Sen. Ted Stevens necessary to his defense in his corruption trial.
Tag Archives: Ted Stevens
1 $750G bid for unwanted Alaska ferry worth $80M
An unwanted, $80 million ice-breaking ferry owned by an Alaska borough has only one bid to buy it, and it’s for $751,000.
The bid was the only entered by Friday’s deadline set up by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, which has been trying to get rid of the 200-foot ferry. The borough doesn’t have to accept the offer, The Anchorage Daily News reported (http://bit.ly/Zuh2SN).
The vessel was completed in 2011 and born out of a partnership between the borough, which wanted a ferry, and the Navy, which wanted a fast military landing craft.
Named the Susitna, the ferry was built as a Navy prototype that would be owned and operated by the borough. The project was funded mainly with Department of Defense earmarks wedged into the federal budget by then-U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens.
The borough has no suitable docks or a workable business plan to operate the vessel as a ferry between Anchorage and Port MacKenzie in the Mat-Su.
With monthly costs to the borough averaging $75,000 for insurance, maintenance, fuel, docking fees and other expenses, the Borough Assembly has directed employees to find the most economical way to shed it.
While the borough solicited buyers, it also launched a parallel track to give away the boat to a government organization that met federal requirements. Of those that expressed interest, proposals by Los Angeles County and the U.S. Virgin Islands are still being evaluated by the Federal Transit Administration.
On Friday, Russ Krafft, the borough purchasing officer, opened the sole bid, a $751,000 offer from Workships Contractors BV, based in The Netherlands. It wants to use the vessel to support offshore wind farms, according to the borough.
“I was expecting more offers and higher offers, even if it was just for scrapping the vessel,” said Marc Van Dongen, the borough’s port director.
The borough asked the state ferry system if it would want the Susitna. But in a new draft study, the ferry system concluded the Susitna would be expensive to run and that existing docks would need to be reconfigured.
The study said the boat can hold 134 passengers but only 20 vehicles, and burns 375 gallons of fuel an hour. A state ferry with a similar capacity, the Lituya, burns 55 gallons an hour. The state ferry system doesn’t want the Susitna, the staff report said.
The vessel is docked near the Ketchikan shipyard where it was built.
The government of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, said it was interested in the Susitna but then seemed to back off. A community college in Seattle inquired about acquiring it to train merchant marines, but that’s not a public transit purpose. A fledgling research laboratory in Wisconsin wants it, too. A village of Native Hawaiians sent representatives in an executive jet to Alaska to check out the boat, but federal officials told the borough that the village would have had to partner with the state. And that hasn’t happened.
At least two governments are still on the list being considered by the Federal Transit Administration, the borough said.
Ultimately, the Borough Assembly will decide …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
Menendez Admits Guilt On TWO Felonies, Denies Sex With Underage Prostitute
By Avg Joe
This last week, Senator Menendez (D-NJ) admitted that disclosure and/or repayment for two 2010 trips to the Dominican Republic on board a campaign donor’s private jet “slipped through the cracks.” He has repaid the donor this past January to the tune of about $58,000.
One of the requirements of a U.S. Senator is the disclosure of income and gifts. The disclosure forms must be accurate and complete and are due by May 15 for the preceding calendar year. The Senator’s “omission” is in fact a false statement, which is a felony. Since there were two separate trips, there will be two separate felony charges.
Senator Ted Stevens was convicted of false statements in 2008. The government claimed he did not properly report gifts in the renovation of his home in Girdwood, Alaska; and he received a gift of a fish carved from wood as a donation for the Stevens Library, which had yet to be built. If you look at the Ted Stevens prosecution, the same rule of law applies to Menendez. It involves disclosure, required by law. Omissions are a felony, regardless of the reason.
Senator Stevens was ultimately exonerated to some degree when a Justice Department probe found evidence of gross misconduct by prosecutors. He didn’t get a fair trial because evidence was withheld. The Justice Department dismissed the indictment, which vacated the convictions. The guilty verdicts came just prior to Steven’s reelection bid, which he narrowly lost to term-limited Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. The damage was done, and the balance of power shifted in the Senate. Now we have ObamaCare.
Prostitution is legal in the Dominican Republic. Six anonymous prostitutes are on record saying they had sex with Menendez. One of the accusers was sixteen at the time of the trips in 2010. If proved to be true, this allegation would be another felony. It is against federal law to travel to another country and have sexual relations with an underage person. These unidentified accusers report that Dr. Melgen is a frequent customer and routinely has sex parties on his boat and at his residence. It is reported that the FBI is investigating this allegation. Senator Menendez has denied any involvement with Dominican Prostitutes.
I don’t think the “I forgot” excuse will hold much water. This pesky little law is in place to stop corruption. Since the FBI has the goods on Menendez with two felonies, the investigation will hopefully be deep and broad. Why were the trips not disclosed in the first place? Sex sells; we all know that. But money and power corrupt. Hopefully, the FBI will get the money and power allegations sorted out in short order. The questions that need answering now involve the Medicare reimbursement or fraud committed by Dr. Melgen, Dr. Melgen’s $1 billion Dominican port security contract, and a reported $70,000 in donations to a PAC that helped reelect Senator Menendez.
Senator Menendez is reported to be involved in all of these affairs.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/339898/senator-menendez-s-bad-company-michelle-malkin
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/03/Reid-retreats-from-Menendez-defense-as-
ABC-News-follows-Breitbart-s-lead-That-s-what-investigations-are-all-about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Stevens
On October 27, 2008, Stevens was found guilty of all seven counts of …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism
Should FBI Have Kept A Tighter Leash On Its Alaska Militia Mole?
The rogue security agent whose actions helped spark the downfall of 2010 U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller, a Fairbanks Republican, has finally revealed what he was thinking when he handcuffed an Alaska Dispatch reporter after a Miller rally in October 2010. What no one but William Fulton and a few federal official knew at the time was that Fulton was a paid informant working for the FBI, and apparently he had an agenda to undermine Miller’s campaign.
The story Fulton tells is now raising new and troubling questions about the behavior of Alaska FBI agents, who were already being investigated in 2010 for their roles in railroading the late U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, from office. Stevens was convicted in 2008 of failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts and subsequently lost election to now Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska. The guilty verdicts against Stevens were tossed the next spring, but his reputation remained sullied. He died in a plane crash in Southwest Alaska in August 2010 while fighting to clear his name.
As the Justice Department was investigating FBI actions in the Stevens case in the summer and fall of that year, the FBI had moved on to investigating Alaska militias. It hired Fulton, the owner of an Anchorage military surplus store called “Drop Zone” and a sometime-security consultant, to infiltrate those organizations. Fulton has now told the Huffington Post that he thought putting the cuffs on Tony Hopfinger, the co-owner and editor of Dispatch, while working for Miller, a conservative Republican, appeared a great idea. Fulton said it bolstered his image with the militias.
Read More at alaskadispatch.com . By Craig Medred.