Michael Carey is the former editorial page editor of the Anchorage Daily News and the host of the weekly public affairs show “Alaska Edition” for Alaska Public Television.
By Michael Carey Los Angeles TimesANCHORAGE — As his trial on corruption charges approached in the fall of 2008, Ted Stevens railed to me in an email: “What did I do, Michael? What did I do?” The wounded rage smoldering in that rhetorical question to a reporter reflected his belief that he had done nothing wrong. He continued to insist on his innocence after aWashington, D.C., jury found him guilty of lying on financial disclosure forms.
Stevens’ conviction was dismissed in 2009 after the Justice Department’s admission that government lawyers failed to turn over evidence the Stevens defense should have received. U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, who presided over Stevens’ trial, soon authorized an investigation of the prosecutors’ conduct, a move as rare as the trial of a U.S. senator.
Last week, the judge’s investigator, Special Counsel Henry F. Schuelke, issued his findings, which Stevens will never read. He died in a 2010 airplane accident.
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