Kohring found guilty on most corruption counts (Alaska legislator bribery)

[harpboy_ak]

Source: Anchorage Daily News

(snipped)

At around 1:30 p.m., a 12-member federal jury convicted Vic Kohring, a Republican from Wasilla, on three of four counts that he corruptly sold his office to the oil-field service company Veco and its former chairman, Bill Allen. Federal sentences are usually calculated using guidelines based on the severity of the charges mitigated by whether the defendant cooperated with authorities or expressed genuine remorse.

The verdict was announced barely 24 hours after the case went to the 12-member jury. The jury dismissed Kohring's assertions that it was friendship, not a blend of greed and politics, that led him to ask Allen and former Veco vice president Rick Smith for money and do Veco's bidding in Juneau.

(snip)

Kohring was the third person convicted by a jury in the government's wide-ranging corruption scandal. It has yet to lose a case. Juries took about the same amount of time to convict the first two, ex-Reps. Pete Kott and Tom Anderson. The trial in a fourth case, against former Rep. Bruce Weyhrauch, has been stayed while the government appeals a pre-trial ruling.

The investigation is ongoing and has focused on some of the state's top political leaders: U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and his son, former Alaska Senate President Ben Stevens, and U.S. Rep. Don Young, all Republicans.



Read more: http://www.adn.com/news/politics/fbi/kohring/story/9418965p-9335214c.html

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And the Repug dominoes keep falling! Sooner or later, they've got to reach Ben and Ted Stevens and Dumb Young.

Finally, we'll have a chance of Dems regaining the House and Senate seats that were Democratic at statehood, one stolen by Wally Hickel when he appointed Totally Tubular Ted to the seat held by Democrat Bob Bartlett, and the other when Dumb Young lost the first time to the missing Nick Begich, whose plane disappeared on a flight to a campaign appearance, with Begich & House Majority Leader Hale Boggs (Cokie Roberts' father) on board. The Dems couldn't field a strong enough candidate in the special election held only six weeks after the election won by the very popular Begich, so Young won.

Let's hope Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich will do his dad proud by taking Stevens' Senate seat in '08!

Two good blogs on the Kohring trial:

http://usavsvickohring.blogspot.com/">USA vs. Victor H. Kohring and http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/">What Do I Know?

In addition, the Daily News website has trial blogs by reporters and lots of comments.

I wonder how many sealed indictments will come down once the current special session of the Alaska Legislature ends on the 15th?