Bookkeeper says CEO wanted no paper trail

Stevens is charged with seven felony counts of lying on his Senate financial- disclosure forms.

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Even as Veco Corp. was paying the bills for renovations on Sen. Ted Stevens home in Alaska, the oil services company covered up the nature of the work in its own internal books, the corporate bookkeeper testified Friday.

Veco bookkeeper Cheryl Boomershine testified that when she asked for an explanation for a $2,000 handwritten expense claim from the construction foreman, an attached note came back with the instructions that there should be no written records.

The orders “no paper trail” were per Bill Allen, the company’s chief executive officer, Boomershine said, and they were written on the back of the expense form submitted for the 2000 renovation of Stevens’ home.

Boomershine also said that the company assigned some costs to an account called “Girdwood Consultants.” One of the consultants, she testified, was a plumber.

There’s also no record that Stevens or his wife, Catherine, ever reimbursed the company for any construction costs for the projects that began in 1999, Boomershine said.

Tradesmen who renovated Stevens’ home in Alaska in 2000 testified Friday about their work, as prosecutors began building a case that the Alaska Republican never paid Veco for electrical and carpentry work on the so-called “chalet.”

Allen, who already has pleaded guilty to bribing state lawmakers in Alaska, is expected to testify Monday. Allen’s testimony and secret recordings of conversations between him and Stevens are expected to be the strongest evidence in the government case against the senator.

The trial, which had been expected to take four weeks, is moving so fast that prosecutors might finish their case in eight days. They sped through so many witnesses Friday that they had to scramble to schedule people to testify next week.

On Friday, a series of electricians and carpenters described in detail how they jacked up the home in Girdwood, Alaska, and installed a lower story, and redid the electrical wiring. Veco Corp. executives were for years the leading campaign contributors to many Alaska political candidates, including Stevens.

Stevens faces seven felony counts of lying on his Senate financial-disclosure forms. The 84-year-old senator is accused of accepting more than $250,000 in gifts from the now-defunct oilfield services company and Allen. Stevens, who has held office since 1968 and is the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, is in a tight re-election contest with his Democratic opponent, Mark Begich, the mayor of Anchorage.