Business

Bribing senators may mean years in jail for VECO chiefs Allen and Smith
by Corina Ciubotaru

Oil reserves and their exploitation have been generating controversy and interest for years and it was only a matter of time before they lead to another corruption scandal. After a year of FBI investigations, the plot seems to thicken in the lawsuit against VECO chief executive Bill Allen. Many other former senators and high-raking individuals are accused of having sold their votes to Allen during the debate on oil taxes last year, and now three more Republican legislators from Alaska have been arrested for bribery, extortion and conspiracy. Their names: Vic Kohring, Pete Kott and Bruce Weyhrauch. Their influence would have been enough to guarantee a bill passing through the Senate to allow the building of a natural gas pipeline in the Alaska region known as North Slope. This is the most productive oil region in the USA and oil is the most important source of income for the state, so it is only natural that the interests are high and service firms in the area, like VECO, are making billions. The FBI has been tapping phones of the Baranof hotel in Juneau for months and is now in possession of hard evidence against Allen, VECO vice president Rick Smith and a few senators. Both Smith and Allen pleaded guilty in the trial and have resigned their positions in the company's board. Together, they admitted to having paid $400,000 in bribes to government officials. They each face a maximum of five years and $250,000 on conspiracy counts and a maximum of 10 years and another $250,000 on the bribery counts.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070805/ap_on_re_us/oil_and_politics;_ylt=AuDe4u0Z3H8FgzUa5JUELyqs0NUE

by Corina Ciubotaru for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

posted by Blog TechSource @ 3:34 PM