Stevens would like to see an apology or two from the news media in his home state, too. When reporting on the senator, spokesperson Boone says, "They usually get it wrong." But they're having a swell time doing it, apparently. Reporters currently are poking into Stevens' son's legal and ethical troubles in the political and seafood industries, a storm that swirls around father Stevens as well. Ben Stevens is an Alaska state senator and business consultant who mixes his roles and sometimes crosses streams of money set loose by his father. Court documents that have surfaced recently in the press revealed that in 2003 Ben Stevens held a secret option to buy into an Alaska seafood company, Adak Fisheries, owned in part by Icicle Seafoods Inc. of Seattle. (Adak has had a succession of other Seattle investors, and current ownership is now tied up in a court fight.) At the same time that Ben had a buy-in option, his father was pushing federal legislation to establish a special Aleutian Islands fishing area that could supply Adak Fisheries with more than $5 million worth of prized pollock the first two years. The Anchorage Daily News said a quarter of the revenue from the processed pollock—most of it caught by the Seattle-based fishing fleet—would go directly to Ben, according to court records. Ben's option surprised officials at the Aleut Corp., one of the regional corporations of Native Alaskans, which has economic control over the pollock fishery.
Conflicts seem to abound in the story: Ben was a board member of one of Aleut Corp.'s subsidiaries, where he voted to hand the fishing rights created by his dad to Adak, the company he was secretly buying into—and for which he was also a business consultant. His dad's pollock legislation passed in 2004, but it wasn't until later that Ben's option surfaced in the news. He ultimately exercised it by putting up $50,000, but the option is being legally challenged today. Ben was slapped with a middling $150 fine by the state's public disclosure commission following a hearing in which an ex–state legislator called Ben's actions corrupt. The commission rejected a call to investigate $1 million in consulting fees Ben received the past five years from seafood businesses in Alaska and Seattle. Just how bad this looks for the Stevens family was outlined in a court deposition given by Roger DuBrock, the Aleut Corp.'s corporate counsel. "My concern," he said in explaining how he felt when hearing of Ben's buy-in, "is that if it ever became public knowledge that Sen. Ted Stevens got legislation passed for a pollock allocation that ended up getting assigned to Adak Fisheries, and that Ben Stevens, his son, had an ownership interest in that company, there would be all kinds of unfavorable newspaper reports written that might damage Sen. Stevens and might damage Ben Stevens and might damage the Aleut Corporation."
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Ted Stevens is the self-styled Incredible Hulk of the U.S. Senate.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Ted Stevens is the self-styled Incredible Hulk of the U.S. Senate.
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Indeed. At a press conference, Ted Stevens angrily denied he tried to unethically aid his son's business and offered to show a reporter memos that backed his claim. He said those would be his last words on the topic. When a reporter asked to see the memos the next day, Stevens said his offer had a time limit and it had expired. Ben, in a brief statement to his state's disclosure commission, said that accusations of "influence peddling are baseless and unsubstantiated." Says Boone, Ted Stevens' spokesperson: "Ben has his own business, he's an experienced commercial crabber with a long history in the seafood industry, but Sen. Stevens is not involved in his business dealings."
Some of Ben Stevens' Adak Fisheries connections first arose in 2003, and back then, his father said he'd been unaware of his son's business dealings and, besides, "Neither one of us is getting rich. That's for damn sure." What a difference a year or two makes. According to his 31-page most recent (2004) Senate financial disclosure report, filed in 2005, Ted Stevens is a multimillionaire with a widely diversified investment portfolio that includes residential and office developments in Alaska. Some of the deals have raised ethical questions and caused him to sell assets. In one private contract with a big local developer, Stevens invested $50,000 in 1997 that the developer and his partner bought back for $872,000 in 2002. At the same time, Stevens helped steer a $450 million federal housing contract to the developer, according to the Anchorage paper and the Los Angeles Times. Stevens was bloodied but unbowed, and Boone, his spokesperson, says any insinuations Stevens' business deals or legislation involved wrongdoing are absurd.
All of which apparently makes for successful politics in Anchorage and opportune campaigning in Seattle. Until McGavick gets his election machine in second gear, Cantwell has the oily specter of Stevens to gas up her campaign. "I wouldn't say we have a close relationship," she told me almost with a wink. But a rewarding one, anyway.
randerson@seattleweekly.com
