Former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens’ death in a plane crash on Monday has galvanized his ex-counsel to send out a news release condemning federal prosecutors for the botched corruption case against him.

Brendan Sullivan and Robert Cary of Williams & Connolly LLP, which represented the senator during his 2008 corruption case, called Stevens “an American hero� and emphasized the profound effect of the government’s case had on him.

“Senator Stevens did not deserve the treatment he received late in his career from some members of the Department of Justice,� Sullivan and Cary wrote. “The verdict against him was based on fabricated evidence. The Attorney General asked that Judge [Emmet] Sullivan dismiss the charges when he learned of some of the government’s misconduct.�

The Alaska Republican was convicted of corruption in December 2008, but Attorney General Eric Holder threw out the conviction after an internal review exposed prosecutorial misconduct, including failure to turn over evidence to Steven’s lawyers that might have helped in his defense.

Another investigation into those allegations by court-appointed prosecutor Henry Schuelke III is ongoing.

Fallout from the Stevens case devastated the reputation of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, which prosecutes public-official corruption and handled the Stevens case. In its wake, the department replaced its senior staff and instituted several reforms, including the appointment of senior lawyers to each U.S. Attorney’s office to oversee criminal discovery.

But despite his legal victory, the case against Stevens ended his long-running Senate career.

“Stevens was innocent, and insisted on fighting the charges,� the partners said in their statement. “He remained profoundly affected by the government’s misconduct and its implications for others. His fervent hope was that meaningful change would be brought to the criminal justice system so that others would not be mistreated as he was by the very officials whose duty it is to represent the United States justly and fairly.�

The Justice Department subpoenaed at least six Las Vegas businesses in connection with a probe of Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), who helped a former staffer secure a lobbying job after having an affair with the staffer’s wife.

Sen. John Ensign (gov)

A lawyer from the department’s Public Integrity Section and an FBI agent issued grand jury subpoenas earlier this month to unnamed businesses that had dealings with the senator and his staff since 2008. According to the Las Vegas television station KLAS, federal investigators are trying to determine whether Ensign pressured the businesses to hire former staffer Doug Hampton, and whether the senator offered anything in return.

The FBI and Senate Ethics Committee are looking into whether Ensign tried to curb political damage to himself by helping Hampton find a new job as a lobbyist. Federal law prohibits congressional aides from lobbying their ex-bosses or colleagues for one year after leaving Congress.

Federal prosecutors are presenting evidence to a grand jury in the District. One of the subpoenas, obtained by KLAS, ordered recipients to testify on March 31 and to produce documents related to Ensign, his staff, Hampton and his wife Cindy (with whom Ensign had the affair), and the lobbying firm that hired Doug Hampton.

If Ensign were indicted, it would mark the second prosecution of a sitting senator since 2008, when Republican Ted Stevens was tried for omitting gifts from his financial disclosure forms. Stevens was convicted, but the case was dismissed after the department determined prosecutors improperly withheld evidence from Stevens’ defense team.

According to the subpoena, Public Integrity trial lawyer Deborah Sue Mayer and FBI Special Agent Frank D’Amico are working the Ensign investigation.

UPDATE: The Associated Press reported Thursday afternoon that the grand jury also issued a subpoena to the National Republican Senatorial Committee in connection with the Ensign probe. The NRSC is a political committee that raises money and recruits candidates in an effort to help elect Republicans to the Senate. Ensign was the chairman of the committee during the 2008 election cycle.

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.

As part of its initiative to address concerns about prosecutorial misconduct, the Justice Department today announced that an assistant chief in the Environment and Natural Resources Division will be its new national coordinator for its criminal discovery programs.

Andrew Goldsmith, First Assistant Chief of the ENRD’s Environmental Crimes Section, will direct the department’s efforts to educate prosecutors about their obligations to turn over potentially exculpatory or other information to defendants. His appointment comes a week after the department released new guidelines for federal prosecutors in applying discovery rules, part of an effort by the DOJ to head off judicial rules changes pushed by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan that would restrict prosecutors’ discretion to decide what information in their possession is relevant to a defense team under Brady.

“Andrew brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in this field, and I am pleased he is taking on this crucial role,” Deputy Attorney General David Ogden said in a news release. “He will be instrumental in overseeing our efforts to ensure all of our prosecutors and law enforcement agents have the necessary training and tools to achieve fair and just results in the nation’s courts.”

Goldsmith’s job description includes, according to the news release:

• Creating an online directory of resources on discovery issues available to all prosecutors at their desktop

• Producing a handbook on discovery and case management similar to the Grand Jury Manual so that prosecutors will have an accessible and comprehensive resource on discovery obligations

• Implementing a training curriculum and a mandatory training program for paralegals and law enforcement agents

• Revitalizing the Computer Forensics Working Group to ensure the proper cataloguing of electronically stored information recovered as part of federal investigations

• Creating a pilot case management project to fully explore the available case management software and possible new practices to better catalogue law enforcement investigative files and to ensure that all the information is transmitted in the most useful way to federal prosecutors.

Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine said in a report to Congress last year that restoring confidence in the department is a major challenge after the high-profile public corruption case against former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) case was thrown out because of prosecutor mistakes.

Attorney General Eric Holder moved to dismiss the charges against Stevens in April, after an internal DOJ review revealed prosecutors had failed to give the defense material favorable to Stevens’ defense. A court-appointed counsel is investigating whether they did so intentionally. Fine said in the report that the Stevens fiasco “created concern about the prosecutors’ adherence to professional standards of conduct.�

On Dec. 31, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina rebuked prosecutors in the District of Columbia for their handling of a manslaughter case against five former Blackwater Worldwide guards accused in a shooting incident in Iraq that left 17 people dead.

In ordering dismissal of the indictment, Urbina said prosecutors had violated the defendants’ constitutional rights by making use of compelled statements the guards had given about the incident under threat of losing their jobs.

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.

The chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts used the investiture ceremony of Boston-based U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz on Monday to press prosecutors about their priorities, The National Law Journal reported today.

Mark Wolf (Gov)

With Attorney General Eric Holder in attendance, Chief Judge Mark Wolf asked Ortiz whether her staff is “being put to their highest and best use when two-thirds of the defendants in this federal district court are indigent and must have Criminal Justice Act counsel,” according to the NLJ.

Wolf has been vocal about what he sees prosecutorial misconduct in the district, and the gun and drug cases that Bush U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan tried in district court, The NLJ said.

“I hope as you develop the priorities for the performance of your office you will consider questions like” those, Wolf said at the ceremony, according to The NLJ.

Ortiz, the state’s first Hispanic and female U.S. Attorney, downplayed the judge’s remarks in a statement to the NLJ. Though the U.S. Attorney said at the ceremony that fighting terrorism is her “first priority,” she also said her office will focus its attention on crimes ranging from human trafficking to environmental crimes, The NLJ said.

Carmen Ortiz (DOJ)

“I believe our Assistant United States Attorneys will be put to their highest and best use regardless of who represents the defendants,” Ortiz said in the statement. “We will bring cases based on where the evidence takes us, not based on who is paying the bill.”

We reported in May that Wolf rebuked Massachusetts Assistant US Attorney Suzanne Sullivan for withholding evidence that could have helped a defendant in a gun case.

Wolf also wrote a letter to Holder in April expressing his “renewed hopeâ€� that the Attorney General would address judges’ concerns about prosecutors’ conduct. Then-Attorneys General Alberto Gonzales and Michael Mukasey did not respond to similar letters from Wolf.

Wolf added in the letter that U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan’s decision to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the mishandling of the Sen. Ted Stevens public corruption case “confirms that other judges share my concern.�

The Justice Department’s equivalent of the Oscars, the Annual Attorney General Awards Ceremony, drew about a dozen U.S. attorneys, virtually all the top brass at Main Justice, and hundreds of Justice Department employees and their families.

An enormous American flag waved from the rafters at DAR Constitution Hall on Wednesday, as Deputy Attorney General David Ogden and Mari Barr Santiaglo, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Management Division, read the names of the honorees.

Nearly 300 lawyers, paralegals, agents, and various other law enforcement officials and staff swept across the stage to receive their awards and pose for a picture with Attorney General Eric Holder, whose grin held up well during the two-hour event.

Assembled Justice Department staff at the Attorney General Awards (Steve Bagley/Main Justice)

“I’ve been looking forward to this ceremony for quite some time,” Holder said in his opening remarks. “Ever since the initial recommendations for award recipients came across my desk, I’ve been excited to meet the men and women whose accomplishments are so richly deserving of this recognition.”

The Justice Department’s top prize, the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service, went to a group of DOJ employees whose six-year investigation and prosecution of former Los Angeles Police Department officer Ruben Palomares ended a three-year crime spree. Their work resulted in 15 people pleading guilty and the conviction at trial of two others.

The exceptional service award winners are:

• Jeffrey S. Blumberg and Joshua D. Mahan, Civil Rights Division prosecutors.
• Douglas McKinley Miller, Central District of California Assistant U.S. Attorney.
• Philip J. Carson, FBI Los Angeles division special agent.

One lawyer left with awards in both hands and was called out by Holder for the feat.

Deputy Solicitor General Edwin S. Kneedler won the Edward H. Levi Award for Outstanding Professionalism and Exemplary Integrity for his input on intra-governmental deliberations related to congressional subpoenas of ex-presidential advisers, the release of Office of Legal Counsel opinions and presidential signing statements. He was also awarded the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service for his efforts to defend the Navy’s SONAR training while honoring environmental laws.

DOJ employees and U.S. Attorneys at the Attorney General Awards (Steve Bagley/Main Justice)

Another Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service went to several Office of Inspector General employees who investigated the allegations of politicized hiring within the Justice Department, which ended in the 2006 U.S. Attorney purge.

The honorees are: Carol F. Ochoa, Nina S. Pelletier, Mark S. Masling, Joseph Symcak, Judy A. Sutrich, Jason R. Higley, Dominic N. Russoli, Gina J. Wong, Cheron D. Cooper, Katherine A. Zownir, Cynthia A. Schnedar, William M. Blier, William J. Birney, James D. Duncan, Tamara Jaycox Kessler, Raymond C. Hurley, Margaret S. McCarty and James A. Meade.

A team of DOJ employees also received the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service for their investigation and prosecution of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, an alleged al-Qaeda sleeper agent who was held as an “enemy combatant” on a Navy brig in South Carolina after 9/11.

The honorees are:

• Sharon Lever and Joanna Baltes, National Security Division counterterrorism section prosecutors.
• David E. Risley and Jaci L. Carrell, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Illinois employees.
• Marla Tusk, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia prosecutor.
• Timothy P. Kirkham, FBI Aman, Jordan office legal attaché.
• John H. Stafford, Matthew J. Iskrzycki, Scott B. Easton, Thomas Michael Shanahan, Mary Kay Eades and Rebecca L. Miller, FBI Springfield, Ill., division agents.
• Jacqueline Maguire and Hillary Brie Sommer, FBI counterterrorism division agents.
• Nicholas Zambeck, FBI critical incident response group agent.

We particularly enjoyed the presentation of the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Furthering the Interests of U.S. National Security. In furthering the interests of national security, we were not privy to the work for which a group of FBI agents was honored, but we know it involved ”a multi-faceted, long-term investigation, which utilized numerous resources and sophisticated techniques,” according to the Justice Department.

Attorney General Eric Holder congratulates award winners. (Steve Bagley/Main Justice)

The FBI winners are:

• Zachary J. Miller, assistant special agent in charge, New York.
• John F. Karst Jr. and Elisabete Santos, supervisory special agents.
• Lionel A. DeSilva, James E. Dennehy, Stephen Fullington, William G. Smith, John J. Hartnett, Robert Kravec, Sara Poole, Michael R. Bickings, Robert B. Booth, Carol A. Motyka, Peter G. Diaz and Daniel S. Kim, special agents.

There were more than 25 different types of awards handed out during the ceremony. The list of honors will grow a little longer next year when the Attorney General presents the Claudia J. Flynn Award for Professional Responsibility for the first time. Flynn, the first director of the Professional Responsibility Advisory Office, died of colon cancer in 2006.

The office provides advice on professional responsibility and choice-of-law issues, as opposed to the Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates complaints against department lawyers.

Read about all of the award winners here.

Joe Palazzolo contributed to this report.

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.

The Department of Justice has responded to an ethics group’s request for an investigation into whether Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) engaged in criminal violations of federal campaign finance law by suggesting that the group forward its complaint to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The ethics group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), sent a letter on July 9 to Attorney General Eric Holder and Public Integrity Section Chief William Welch urging an investigation into Ensign’s failure to report severance payments made to his former employee and mistress Cynthia Hampton when he fired her from his campaign and political action committees.

In his response, Welch told CREW’s Executive Director Melanie Sloan that she should provide any information she has to the FBI, which will decide whether a federal investigation is warranted. Sloan did as she was told, but threw in a not so subtle jab at Welch in her forwarded complaint to the FBI:

In a letter dated July 16, 2009, Mr. Welch advised me that the FBI, not the Public Integrity Section, will determine whether a federal investigation is warranted.  Mr. Welch’s deferral of jurisdiction is surprising, given that the Public Integrity Section’s own website indicates the section “monitors the investigation and prosecution of election and conflict of interest crimes.”  http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/pin.  Perhaps in the aftermath of the mishandling of the prosecution of former Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), the Public Integrity Section is not eager to investigate another sitting senator.

Ouch.

Sloan went so far as to tell TPMMuckraker that the Public Integrity Section “punted” on the complaint.

George Terwilliger III

Former Deputy Attorney General George Terwilliger III, currently a partner at White & Case LLP in Washington, D.C., filed a motion today in Anchorage’s federal court requesting he be allowed to represent Bill Allen, the former Veco Corp. executive who pleaded guilty to bribing Alaska lawmakers and has been cooperating in the government’s public corruption investigation, reports the Alaska Dispatch.

Terwilliger was Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1978-81, after which he became the U.S. Attorney for the District of Vermont.  Terwilliger also led the Bush legal team in the florida recount in 2000.  We reported on Terwilliger a while back, when he got charges dismissed against a prominent Democratic donor in California.

In 2007, Allen pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges, and decided to cooperate in exchange for a lower prison sentence, a guarantee his three adult children would not be prosecuted in relation to the probe, and that he be allowed to sell Veco.

But Allen’s role as the government’s key witness was “tainted,” to say the least, by misconduct in the Ted Stevens case.  Allen’s interviews had been witheld from Stevens’ lawyers, and lawyers for former state Reps. Kohring and Kott.

Today, federal prosecutors are supposed to file an update with U.S. District Judge John Sedwick deciding whether they still need Allen’s help in their corruption investigation, otherwise Allen will be scheduled for sentencing.

Robert Bundy

Former U.S. Attorney for Alaska Robert Bundy, now a partner at Dorsey & Whitney LLP, has been representing Allen since 2006, and will continue to do so.