Report Slams Government for Botched Corruption Trials

[The Straight Story]

Report Slams Government for Botched Corruption Trials



(CN) - Investigators found that federal prosecutors engaged in "significant, widespread, and at times intentional misconduct" during the notoriously botched corruption trial of Alaska's late Sen. Ted Stevens, according to a sealed, 500-page report submitted this week to a federal judge.

Because government attorneys did not technically "disobey an order that sufficiently 'clear and unequivocal at the time it issued," however, the report does not recommend any prosecutions for criminal contempt related to the trial.

A federal jury found Stevens guilty of felony corruption in 2008 for lying about home renovations and other gifts he had received from executives with the VECO Corp., an oil field services company.

...

Allegations of prosecutorial misconduct had dogged the proceedings from the start, and in 2009 the government admitted that it had held back exculpatory evidence about a key witness at least twice during the trial. A seemingly contrite Justice Department moved to set aside the verdict and dismiss the indictment a short time later.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/11/22/41665.htm