A federal judge in Alaska this week rejected another motion for a new trial or dismissal of charges for a former state lawmaker convicted of corruption in a 2007 case that included errors by federal prosecutors.

Pete Kott (AKRepublicans.org)

U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick denied a motion filed late last month by a lawyer for former Alaska House Speaker Pete Kott (R) to dismiss the charges against him or have a new trial for him since the lawyer received new documents pertaining to the case. Late last month, his lawyer received handwritten notes made during Justice Department and FBI meetings with the attorney who represented a key government witness who admitted bribing Kott.

Earlier last month, Kott’s lawyer filed another motion for dismissal statement filed last month, citing new DOJ guidelines that encourage prosecutors to list all witness interviews and keep their rough notes. Sedwick also rejected this motion.

U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick wrote in a court order on Monday that Kott’s most recent motion and the handwritten notes “do not compel a different result” from the earlier rulings.

“Much of Kott’s briefing attacks the previous ruling, but in a manner not squarely based on the new documents,” the judge wrote.

Sheryl McCloud, a lawyer for Kott, told Main Justice she was disappointed with Sedwick’s ruling this week and said she will continue to appeal her client’s conviction.

“We really wanted to get to the bottom of the matter and figure out who stopped the flow of information about the moral, ethical, and perjury problems with their principal witness,” McCloud said.

Prosecutors in Alaska have admitted evidence was inappropriately withheld, but have said their actions didn’t cause any harm.

Kott previously asked Sedwick in November to toss his corruption conviction, arguing the same prosecutors withheld evidence in both his case and the unrelated prosecution of former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Stevens conviction was later thrown out by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., at the request of Attorney General Eric Holder.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph Bottini and James Goeke, as well as former Public Integrity Section lawyers Nicholas Marsh and Edward Sullivan prosecuted Kott. A court-appointed counsel and the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility are probing the prosecutors’ handling of evidence in the Stevens case.

The former state lawmaker was released from prison in June, after prosecutors said they did not hand over exculpatory evidence to the defense.

The story was first reported by The Anchorage Daily News.

This post has been updated from an earlier version.

A former Alaska lawmaker is citing new Justice Department guidance for prosecutors on discovery procedures in his effort to have his 2007 conviction on public corruption charges repealed, The Associated Press reported today.

Pete Kott (AKRepublicans.org)

In a motion for dismissal statement filed this week, a lawyer for former Alaska House Speaker Pete Kott cited new DOJ guidelines that encourage prosecutors to list all witness interviews and keep their rough notes. The lawyer, Sheryl Gordon McCloud, said the Alaska U.S. Attorney’s Office has yet to hand over items from a 2006 interview with ex-VECO Corp. chief Bill Allen, the AP said.

Allen was a key witness against Kott as well as ex-Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), whose conviction on public corruption charges was overturned last year after the Justice Department said it had mishandled potentially exculpatory evidence.

“[T]hat memo is based on existing law, and sets forth materials that government attorneys must seek out, review, and disclose,” McCloud wrote in the court filing. “It includes not just material from the U.S. Attorney’s files but from all those associated with the prosecution team, and it includes not just information memorialized in written statements but also evidence favorable to the accused that is transmitted in a ‘conversation.’ ”

Prosecutors in Alaska have admitted evidence was inappropriately withheld, but have said their actions didn’t cause any harm.

Kott previously asked Judge John Sedwick in November to toss his corruption conviction, arguing the same prosecutors withheld evidence in both his case and the Stevens trial.

Kott was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph Bottini and James Goeke, as well as former Public Integrity Section lawyers Nicholas Marsh and Edward Sullivan. A court-appointed counsel and the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility are probing the prosecutors’ handling of evidence in the Stevens case, which was thrown at the request of Attorney General Eric Holder.

The judge has several options. He could let the Kott conviction stand, dismiss it and order a new trial, or dismiss it with prejudice. He has not said when he will rule.

Kott was released from prison in June, after prosecutors said they did not hand over exculpatory evidence to the defense.

Henry F. Schuelke III is nearing the end of his investigation of six Justice Department lawyers involved in the botched 2008 prosecution of then-Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), The Washington Post reports.

Judge Emmet Sullivan, of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, tapped Schuelke in April to determine whether the lawyers intentionally withheld material from Stevens’ defense. According to the Post, Schuelke has scheduled interviews with the six lawyers.

The interviews are expected to wrap up in January. Scheulke has already reviewed thousands of documents related to the case, which Attorney General Eric Holder moved to dismiss after learning of prosecutors’ lapses in sharing information and witness statements with the defense.

Earlier this week, Inspector General Glenn Fine said restoring confidence in the department in the wake of the Stevens case was among the department’s highest priorities. The Stevens debacle has prompted a series of reforms, including additional training for prosecutors.

A former Alaska lawmaker asked a federal judge on Tuesday to throw out his corruption conviction because the same prosecutors in former Sen. Ted Stevens‘ case withheld evidence from his lawyer, The Associated Press reports.

Peter Kott, who was convicted in 2007 of taking bribes to ram through legislation favorable to the oil industry, said after a court hearing that the prosecutors “obviously didn’t play fair.”

Kott, who served seven terms in Juneau, was found guilty of conspiracy, bribery and extortion. He was sentenced to six years in prison but was released in June, after prosecutors acknowledged they failed to turn over material favorable to his defense.

Kott and former state Rep. Victor Korhring, who was also found guilty of accepting bribes, are free pending the completion of a Justice Department review of their cases.

Prosecutors admitted evidence was improperly withheld but said no harm came of it.

“This was a case that had overwhelming evidence,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney James Trusty, according to The AP.

Kott’s lawyer, Sheryl Gordon McCloud,  said the court should overturn the convictions, arguing that prosecutors acted in bad faith.

Kott was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph Bottini and James Goeke, as well as Former Public Integrity Section lawyers Nicholas Marsh and Edward Sullivan.

A court-appointed counsel and the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility are investigating the prosecutors’ handling of evidence in the Stevens case, which was dismissed at Attorney General Erich Holder’s request.

Judge John Sedwick is reviewing the Kott case. He could let the convictions stand, dismiss them and order a new trial, or dismiss them with prejudice. Sedwick did not say when he would rule.

Brenda Morris, who is under criminal investigation for her role as lead prosecutor in the dismissed case against former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, has left Washington and her position as Principal Deputy Chief of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, according to department officials.

Brenda Morris is under investigation for her role in the dismissed Sen. Ted Stevens case. (Getty Images)

Morris, who remains a senior trial lawyer in the section, moved to Atlanta earlier this week for personal reasons, according to a person familiar with the situation. She began working out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia on Sept. 21 and will be based there indefinitely.

“The department asked us to give her some space. We had an office, and we said, ‘Fine,’” said Gentry Shelnutt, the Atlanta office’s criminal chief.

The move represented a mutual decision by Morris and department leadership, one person familiar with the situation said. The parties agreed that Morris, who has been a Public Integrity prosecutor since 1991, and Principal Deputy Chief since 2006, could not carry out her managerial responsibilities from afar, so she shed her leadership role, this person said. The Principal Deputy position has not been filled.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said Morris would continue to handle a full caseload. ”Brenda is a valued senior trial attorney in the Criminal Division, and she continues to work on complex litigation matters across the country for the division,” said Laura Sweeney.

Morris came to the Stevens case late. The Criminal Division’s top brass assigned her as lead prosecutor days before the Alaska Republican was indicted in July 2008  on charges he’d failed to reveal on his Senate financial disclosure forms more than a quarter million dollars worth of gifts and home improvements from a political supporter.

Although Morris is widely admired for her trial skills, her last-minute appointment to the prosecution team grated on Public Integrity Section Chief William Welch II and the prosecutors who built the case, including then-Public Integrity trial attorneys Nicholas Marsh and Edward Sullivan, people familiar with the case have said. But their objections were overruled. Matthew Friedrich, the head of the Criminal Division at the time, and Rita Glavin, his principal deputy, wanted a veteran prosecutor first-chairing the trial, people familiar with their thinking have said.

In June, Marsh and Sullivan were transferred from Public Integrity to the Office of International Affairs, an assignment that keeps them out of the courtroom while Schuelke conducts his probe.

The longest-serving Republican in the Senate and a powerful member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Stevens denied the charges. With a re-election battle looming, he moved for a speedy trial in hopes of clearing his name before voters went to the polls.

But last October, a jury in the District of Columbia convicted Stevens, then 85 years old, on seven counts. He  lost re-election last November to Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D) by fewer than 4,000 votes, or a 1.24% margin.

What appeared to be a major victory for the department soon turned into a high-profile embarrassment. A whistle blower, FBI Agent Chad Joy, accused the prosecution of mishandling evidence in this complaint. The trial judge, Emmet Sullivan, blasted Morris and other members of the prosecution team in a series of post-trial hearings and orders. In April, Attorney General Eric Holder moved to dismiss the case, concluding that prosecutors improperly withheld evidence favorable to Stevens.

After granting Holder’s request and voiding Stevens’s conviction, Sullivan appointed an outside counsel, Henry Shuelke III of Janis, Schuelke & Wechsler, to investigate Morris and her team for possible criminal contempt of court. PIN Chief Welch is also under investigation in the criminal contempt case. A parallel probe by the DOJ’s internal ethics watchdog, the Office of Professional Responsibility, is also underway.

Critics have said the team lost valuable time acquainting Morris with a case that sped from indictment to trial in about two months. But supporters say Morris added ballast  – despite the outcome — and Judge Sullivan publicly hailed her performance during closing arguments as among the best he’s ever seen.

Justice Department lawyers last week chose not to withdraw corruption charges against two former Alaska lawmakers who argue that their convictions were the result of Brady violations, The Associated Press reported.

Prosecutors and attorneys for ex-state representatives Pete Kott and Victor Kohring couldn’t reach an agreement on how to move forward on the cases, according to court documents here and here. Now, it’s up to U.S. District Judge John Sedwick to decide in the next year whether they should get new trials.

DOJ lawyers told the court in June that they had discovered documents that should have been disclosed to defense counsel prior to trial. The former lawmakers are not serving prison time as they wait for the judge to rule in their cases.

Former DOJ Public Integrity Section prosecutors Nicholas Marsh and Edward Sullivan and Alaska-based assistant U.S. attorneys Joseph Bottini and James Goeke prosecuted the cases. The four lawyers, along with Public Integrity Section chief William Welch II and his Principal Deputy Chief Brenda Morris, are under criminal investigation for their roles in the bungled prosecution of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.

Marsh and Sullivan were moved out of the Public Integrity Section to the Office of International Affairs earlier this summer. The other four prosecutors remain in their posts.

We’ve seen the first signs of life in Henry Schuelke III’s criminal investigation of the prosecutors who bungled the government’s case against former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.

Henry F. Schuelke III (photo by Susana Raab)

In a filing this afternoon, Schuelke asked U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan for the authority to take deposition testimony under oath and, if necessary, issue subpoenas to compel such testimony, as well as books, papers, documents, data or other materials that may be relevant to the investigation.

The filing asks permission to issue subpoenas to Public Integrity Section Chief William Welch II; his deputy, Brenda Morris; former PIN prosecutors Edward Sullivan and Nicholas Marsh (now lawyers in the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs); Alaska-based Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph Bottini and James Goeke; FBI Special Agent Mary Beth Kepner; Bill Allen, the government’s star witness in the case; and his lawyer, Robert Bundy, of counsel at Dorsey& Whitney.

An FBI whistleblower accused Kepner, the lead agent on the case, of having an inappropriate relationship with Allen.

Sullivan promptly granted the order. Read it here.

The motion may suggest the next phase in Schuelke’s investigation, assuming the Justice Department has been cooperating fully with his requests for case materials. Sullivan dismissed the indictment in April and appointed Schuelke to handle the investigation after the government failed on numerous occasions to turn over materials that were potentially favorable to Stevens’ defense team.

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility is also probing the Stevens case, and the Criminal Division is conducting a larger review of other Alaska-related public corruption prosecutions.

Click here for our recent profile of Schuelke.

Public Integrity Section chief William Welch II has been taken off the case of a Jack Abramoff-related defendant — two months after lawyers for indicted ex-lobbyist Kevin Ring first complained about Welch’s continued invovlement in their case. But Welch remains supervisor of the troubled public corruption unit, according to a Department of Justice spokeswoman.

A June 15 government filing in the Ring case  lists Ray Hulser as ”acting” chief of the Public Integrity Section. Read the filing here. Justice spokeswoman Laura Sweeney told Main Justice that Hulser’s acting status is for the Ring case “specifically.” She declined to comment further about personnel matters, other than to say both Welch and his deputy, Brenda Morris, remain chief and deputy chief of PIN.

Welch, Morris and other DOJ lawyers are under criminal investigation by a court for their handling of evidence in the case of ex-Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens. A parallel Office of Professional Responsibility probe is also underway.

The section has been in turmoil since U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan threw out the charges against Stevens in April and ordered the criminal investigation of the prosecutors. But since then, it’s been unclear how DOJ is handling this sticky personnel situation. Two of the PIN lawyers — Nick Marsh and Edward Sullivan — were recently transfered to the department’s Office of International Affairs, an out-of-the-way spot where they won’t be asked to appear in court. See our story about the transfers here.

Then, The Washington Post published this story today suggesting Welch and Morris were removed from their supervisory roles at PIN. Specifically, the Post reported that Welch and Morris “have been moved into other roles following the transfer this month of two of their subordinates, who worked on lengthy investigations of Alaskan influence peddling, according to four sources.”

The likely explanation is that Welch and Morris have been relieved of day-to-day supervisory duties but not their titles, said Sidley Austin partner Thomas Green.

“This is not an uncommon solution to a situation like this. They are temporarily removing him from the supervisory chain of command because he’s been tainted by the Stevens case,” said Green, a former federal prosecutor who manages the firm’s white collar defense practice group. “Bill Welch’s title is still chief of the Public Integrity Section. Whether it’s going to remain that way or not, we all will have to wait and see.”

Ring is a former associate of Abramoff who faces trial in September on public corruption charges. We here at Main Justice have covered the Ring case closely — because it’s so bizarrely entwined with many of the key players in the Stevens debacle.

Welch, of course, headed PIN during the Abramoff probes as well as the massive Alaska public corruption investigation that snared Stevens. In April, Judge Sullivan dismissed the Stevens case and voided his conviction, then ordered a criminal investigation into Welch and other DOJ lawyers for their mishandling of evidence.

Here’s where it gets weird: The special investigator hired by Sullivan to investigate Welch is Washington lawyer Hank Schuelke. Schuelke is also a key witness for the case Welch helped build against Kevin Ring. Ring has alleged that Welch committed the same kind of Brady violations in his case as Schuelke is investigating him for in the Stevens debacle.

In April, Ring’s lawyers asked Judge Ellen Huvelle in Washington to remedy the situation. But Huvelle said she didn’t see a problem with the Schuelke-Welch situation. The judge did muse in open court that the DOJ should somehow “wall” Welch off from Ring’s case. But when we asked the DOJ how they planned to do this, the DOJ didn’t have any answers, other than to say Welch wouldn’t appear in court. Read our story here.

Then on June 8,  Main Justice published this story describing a court filing in which Ring alleges that Welch improperly redacted information during discovery. From the transcript of the April hearing before Judge Huvelle, it seems apparent that Welch is alleged to have improperly redacted an FBI 302 witness interview summary with none other than the infamous Abramoff himself.

Read our previous coverage of the Ring-Welch issues here, here and here. The news of Welch’s removal from the Ring case was first reported by BNA’s Daily Report for Executives, according to the AP.

Mary Jacoby contributed to this report.

jpalazzolo@mainjustice.com, mjacoby@mainjustice.com

Former Public Integrity Section prosecutors Nicholas Marsh and Edward Sullivan, who are under investigation for their handling of the Ted Stevens case and other Alaska public corruption probes, have  been placed in one of the Justice Department’s lesser-known quarters, the Office of International Affairs (OIA), according to two people familiar with the move.

As The Washington Post first reported here, the prosecutors were given notice of their reassignment on June 4, the same day Justice urged a federal appeals court to release from prison two Alaska legislators convicted of bribery and extortion. In a motion filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, Justice lawyers asked the panel to remand the cases of former Alaska state representatives Victor Kohring and Peter Kott for further proceedings. As in the case of former Alaska Sen. Stevens, the department lawyers told the court they had discovered documents that should have been disclosed to defense counsel prior to trial.

Attorney General Eric Holder has instructed the Criminal Division to review the cases Marsh and Sullivan prosecuted in Alaska. The move dialed up the heat on the two prosecutors, who were already under criminal investigation by a court-appointed counsel and by the department’s Office of Professional Responsiblity for their handling of evdience in the Stevens case.

Also under investigation by the court and OPR are William Welch II, chief of the Public Integrity Section; his deputy chief, Brenda Morris; and Alaska-based assistant U.S. attorneys Joseph Bottini and James Goeke. Bottini and Goeke worked with Marsh and Sullivan in the Alaska cases. Morris joined the team just prior the Stevens case.

The transfer to OIA means Sullivan and Marsh are unlikely to appear in court on behalf of the U.S. any time soon. Here’s the DOJ description of the office’s functions:

The Office of International Affairs provides advice and assistance on international criminal matters to the Attorney General and other senior Department of Justice officials, the Criminal Division and the Department’s other legal divisions, the U.S. Attorneys offices, and state and local prosecutors. OIA coordinates the extradition or other legal rendition of international fugitives and all international evidence gathering. In concert with the State Department, OIA engages in the negotiation of new treaties, conventions, and other agreements on international criminal matters. OIA attorneys also participate on a number of committees established under the auspices of the United Nations and other international organizations that are directed at resolving a variety of international law enforcement problems, such as narcotics trafficking, organized crime, cyber-crime, corruption, terrorism, and money laundering.

A former associate of imprisoned ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff said in a recent court filing that Public Integrity Section chief William Welch redacted exculpatory information from documents given to his defense during the discovery process.

The motion by lawyers for former lobbyist Kevin Ring, who is slated to stand trial in September on public corruption charges before U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle in Washington, raised the question of whether Brady violations by Public Integrity are “serial in nature.”

While it isn’t clear from Ring’s May 29  filing what exculpatory evidence Welch is alleged to have redacted, clues emerged in a hearing before Judge Huvelle in April. FBI interviews with Abramoff that were provided to the defense were “fairly heavily redacted” by Welch, defense attorney Andrew Wise of Miller & Chevalier said.

Michael Ferrara, a lawyer in Public Integrity, confirmed during the court hearing that Welch, his supervisor, had personally redacted the Abramoff 302s, as the FBI interview summaries are known. “The defense is correct. Mr. Welch did that,” Ferrara said.

The little-noticed filing by Ring underscores a big challenge for Public Integrity, a unit that’s basically been in melt-down since U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in April ordered a criminal investigation into whether Welch and other DOJ lawyers intentionally withheld exculpatory information from the defense of then-Sen. Ted Stevens last year.

A DOJ review team found that government lawyers failed to hand over notes from an interview with their star witness that contradicted the witness’s sworn testimony at trial. At the request of Attorney General Eric Holder, Sullivan threw out the conviction and dismissed charges against Stevens for allegedly failing to disclose a gift in the form of home renovation services from a political supporter.  

Then last week, the Justice Department quietly transferred two lawyers who’d worked on the Stevens case out of the Public Integrity Section, The Washington Post reported. The lawyers were Nick Marsh and Edward Sullivan. But there’s been no apparent action against Welch, prompting “grumbling” among criminal division and other DOJ lawyers that lower-level line-attorneys are being made to take the fall, the Post reported. Indeed, the DOJ continues to issue news releases like this one and this one noting that Welch is head of the Public Integrity unit — not exactly tail-between-the-legs behavior. 

(Welch, by the way, had been angling to be named the U.S. Attorney in Massachusetts – aspirations that were obviously dashed by the Stevens debacle.)

The move to transfer Marsh and Sullivan came after the DOJ asked an appeals court to release from prison two former Alaska state lawmakers who’d been convicted in the department’s long-running public corruption probe in Alaska — the same investigation that snared Stevens. The department said it had uncovered instances of possible Brady violations just as it had found in the Stevens case.

Moreover, U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman ordered in December 2008 that the government turn over more information from FBI interviews with Abramoff to David Safavian, a former chief of staff in the General Services Administration who was also charged in connected with the lobbying scandal.

David Safavian (gov)

The judge said a book about the Abramoff affair contained information that arguably should have been turned over to Safavian for use in his 2006 trial because it was “favorable or potentially favorable evidence.” The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned Safavian’s original conviction and ordered a new trial. Safavian was convicted on retrial. .