Stevens Fears Impact of Current Probe

Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska gestures during an interview with The Associated Press, in his office on Capitol Hill in Washington in this April 12, 2007 file photo. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke, File) (Lauren Victoria Burke - AP)

Late in 2000, the year of the home renovations, Stevens showed he was willing to intervene for a business partner. He helped Rubini keep a $450 million contract with the Defense Department for housing on Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage.

Stevens said he got involved only when the project stalled because of the military's concerns about the contractor's financial backing by local lenders.

"It was a competitive bid and I don't get involved in competitive bids, that's for sure," Stevens said. "But I did get involved in raising a question of whether (the lenders had) a sufficient surety for a bid by an Alaska contractor on a federal contract."

While Stevens says he was a passive investor in JLS, his assets _ including high-rise office buildings _ soared.

In 2004, Stevens made a change that hid many of his assets. He sold JLS investments and other assets, and placed most of them in a blind trust worth between $1 million and $5 million.

The senator was granted an extension to file his disclosure report for 2006. It will be made public in mid-July.

VECO has been a powerhouse in Alaska for years. It was the primary cleanup contractor following the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 and won lucrative federal airport construction contracts. After a lull in federal business in the early- to mid-1990s, VECO landed several major government contracts at the end of the decade.

That growth corresponded with Stevens' ascension to chairman of Appropriations Committee. Since 1997, when Stevens took the helm of the committee, VECO won more than $65 million in federal contracts _ more than three times what it earned in the prior nine years.

VECO won Navy engineering contracts, oil industry maintenance deals and office repair agreements and became the National Science Foundation's exclusive provider of logistical support for Arctic researchers.

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Associated Press Writers Steve Quinn and Rachel D'Oro contributed to this story from Alaska.