Uncle Ted Stevens' Igloo Searched by FBI
Aug 2, 2007, 09:28
MOOSEBAUGH, Alaska – Uncle Ted Stevens’ palatial glass-and-steel igloo in the upscale ice fishing resort of Gillwood was raided earlier this week in a coordinated effort by the Justice Department, the IRS, and the FBI.
The raid was part of an investigation of funds distributed by the Senate Appropriations Committee, of which the avuncular Stevens has been chairman or senior Republican since being appointed by U.S. Grant in 1870.
The main focus of the probe is the allocation of money that Stevens (AARP-Alaska) obtained for the nonprofit Alaska SeaLife Center, which was started after the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.
Authorities want to know why much of that money went to oil field services contractor Bill Allen, who oversaw renovations that doubled the size of Stevens’ award-winning igloo after his ill-advised purchase of a Jacuzzi in 2000. Allen, in what may or may not be a coincidence, has pleaded guilty to bribing Alaska lawmakers. He also once co-owned a race horse with Stevens.
Another question being asked by investigators is how almost $700,000 of the nearly $4 million directed to the National Park Service wound up being paid to companies associated with Trevor McCabe, a former legislative director for Stevens, for doing questionable work for SeaLife. McCabe, according to life partner Mrs. Miller, was unavailable to comment.
Uncle Ted, who has had an airport and at least a dozen public buildings and rest stops named after him in Alaska, has doubled his state’s take of federal money to more than $8 billion in the last decade. His greatest achievement occurred the year Alaska got more homeland security dollars than New York did.
Stevens declared himself innocent of any wrongdoing, money laundering, or misallocation of public monies in a often combative press conference on Capitol Hill. He claimed that Alaskans have given him the power to do whatever he feels necessary with public funds.
“I am Alaska,” he said. “My left arm is the untamed wild lands; my right arm is the tamed civilized land; my mind is the midnight sun; my heart the eternal darkness; and my Little Teddy is the Alaskan pipeline!”
As Stevens conducted the press conference, unlucky federal investigators searched his Gillwood compound’s ice holes and caribou herd’s orifices.
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