Ted Stevens trial

[jenk]

From a link shared in a locked post (tell me if it's okay to name you) comes this item from the trial of Senator Ted Stevens, who is charged with concealing $250,000 in gifts and services. In this, he's denying that he was given a massage chair in his home in DC.

Stevens has insisted repeatedly that the chair was a loan from a friend, although it has been in his house for seven years.

"How is that not a gift?" prosecutor Brenda Morris asked.

"He bought that chair as a gift, but I refused it as a gift," Stevens said. "He put it there and said it was my chair. I told him I would not accept it as a gift. We have lots of things in our house that don't belong to us."

Playing to the jury, Morris appeared confused. "So, if you say it's not a gift, it's not a gift?" she said.

"I refused it as a gift," Stevens replied. "I let him put it in our basement at his request."
&mdash NPR

I guess it's "in storage" in Stevens' basement?

Also in the trying-for-"plausible deniability" files comes this exchange, regarding his home in Girdwood, Alaska:

Morris grilled Stevens repeatedly about things VECO founder Bill Allen added to the senator's Girdwood residence, including a new porch, a balcony, a fully stocked tool chest, a gas grill, a steel staircase, rope lighting, a generator and leather furniture.

Stevens has said he didn't ask for those things, and even tried to get Allen to take them away. Stevens added Monday that Allen, who has pleaded guilty to bribing state lawmakers, "stole" the furniture out of his cabin and replaced it with the leather furniture.

"Why didn't you call the police when Bill Allen stole your furniture?" Morris quickly asked.

"It never crossed my mind to call the police at that time. I might now," Stevens said.
— NPR

The kicker?

In an Oct. 18, 2006, telephone conversation with Mr. Allen that the F.B.I. taped, Mr. Stevens freely discussed all the money Mr. Allen had spent on the renovation and his awareness of the legal problems that could be raised.

Mr. Stevens repeatedly assured Mr. Allen on the tape that he was entitled to spend his own money and that they did nothing wrong. “They’re not going to shoot us; it’s not Iraq,” the senator said, adding that, at worst, “We might have to pay a fine and serve a little time in jail.”
&mdash - NY Times

Wonder how he's going to spin that.