Final defendants in Alaska corruption case plead guilty

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Two former state legislators were spared further prison time on Friday after pleading guilty to charges stemming from a long-standing federal investigation into political corruption in Alaska.

Former state Representative Vic Kohring, 53, pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to commit bribery for federal government programs and former state House Speaker Pete Kott, 62, pleaded guilty to one bribery count in separate proceedings.

"I think we need finality," U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline said when sentencing Kott. "I recognize the need to put this long state nightmare to an end."

The pleas closed a five-year-old federal probe that targeted VECO Corp, then Alaska's largest oil-services company, the late U.S. Senator Ted Stevens and several other Alaska politicians and prominent businessmen.

Beistline called the scandal a "dark moment" in Alaska political history.

"With these two convictions and the sentences that were imposed today, this really brings to an end the biggest and most successful corruption investigation ever conducted in Alaska," Karen Loeffler, U.S. Attorney for the District of Alaska, said at a news conference held after the hearings.

Stevens, the Senate's longest-serving Republican, was convicted in 2008 of concealing some $250,000 worth of gifts from VECO and lost the seat he held for 40 years.

The scandal broke in 2006, when federal agents raided several state lawmakers' offices. In all, 12 people were charged, and eight wound up in prison.

Stevens' conviction was overturned in April of 2009, and the indictment against him dismissed based on what a federal judge ruled egregious prosecutorial misconduct.

He died in a plane crash in August of 2010.

While Stevens was the best-known target, Kott and Kohring played some of the most memorable roles.

Each was convicted of three felony corruption counts in separate 2007 trials. Much of the evidence came from videotapes made secretly by federal agents of meetings in 2006 between the lawmakers and VECO officials in a Juneau hotel suite.

"I OWN YOUR ASS"

In one tape, Kohring, a Republican from Wasilla, clasped a wad of cash handed to him by Bill Allen, then VECO's chief executive, and asked him: "What can I do for you?"

In another tape Kott detailed his efforts to manipulate the oil-tax bill.

"I sold my soul to the devil," Kott, a Republican from the Anchorage suburb of Eagle River, said in that conversation. To that, Allen replied: "Now I own your ass."

Kott was sentenced to six years in prison and Kohring to 3 and 1/2 years, but both were released early in 2009 on appeal.

They each won new trials after an appeals court found prosecutors had withheld potentially exculpatory evidence. The plea deals eliminate the need for retrials.

Both men were freed after the judge accepted their plea agreements based on time already served in prison -- 17 months in Kott's case and 12 months in Kohring's.

Kott will be on probation for up to three years, and was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. Kohring, given up to 18 months probation, was exempted from such a fine due to financial hardship.

VECO, for years one of Alaska's most powerful and politically connected corporations, disappeared as a separate entity, its assets purchased by a rival company.

(Editing by Mary Slosson and Jerry Norton)