Senator’s friends discussed questionable billing records

Two years ago, when Sen. Ted Stevens had some plumbing work done on his house in Alaska, he got a little help from his friends.

They paid the bill and then tried to make it disappear.

“We don’t need this thing floating around,” Robert Persons, a restaurant owner in Alaska and longtime Stevens acquaintance said in a phone conversation recorded by the FBI in February 2006. “You tell that guy . . . if he has this bill in a file that he needs to get rid of it. OK?”

Persons was speaking with another Stevens associate, oilman Bill J. Allen, who had agreed to cover the cost of the repair.

In another conversation recorded by agents around the same time, the two men mused about the growing costs of a horse-racing partnership they had formed with Stevens and others, and how to handle Stevens’ share. The venture, including a promising thoroughbred by the name of Cloak and Dagger, was running up costs to the partnership of as much as $4,000 a month.

“As Catherine says, Ted gets hysterical when he has to spend his own money,” Persons chuckled, in reference to Stevens’ wife. “So I want to keep it down. . . . He really can’t afford to pay a bunch of money.”

The tapes were played Tuesday for jurors at Stevens’ corruption trial. He is charged with failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts and home improvements. On the tapes, two successful businessmen try hard to please their high-placed friend. But they are ambiguous on the question of what Stevens knew of their efforts and what he did about them.

Most of the goods and services that Stevens allegedly failed to report came from Allen, a self-made oil tycoon who pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges last year. Allen has been the star government witness in the case against Stevens, which prosecutors plan to wrap up this morning.

Allen testified last week about fixing the boiler at the house in Girdwood in 2006, and that when he got the bill from Chugach Sewer & Drain, he decided that he would cover the labor costs.

Allen and Persons, a neighbor of Stevens’ in Girdwood who monitored the repairs to Stevens’ home, were nonetheless apparently concerned about that fact becoming widely known.

“We got to be real careful,” Allen told Persons in a phone conversation on Feb. 2, 2006.

“Absolutely. . . . They are raking him over the coals,” Persons responded, referring to Stevens.

The concern boiled over two weeks later, when Allen got an e-mail from Stevens, who had been sent a copy of the invoice by Persons. Stevens requested in the e-mail that Allen send him a bill for the work.

It turned out that the plumber had written on the invoice “Labor paid by Bill.”

Allen, the same day, called Persons to discuss the situation.

“I faxed him a bill. Isn’t that what you wanted me to do?” Persons said to Allen.

“But what did the invoice say?” Allen said.

“Oh . . . “ Persons responded. “I didn’t even see this: ‘Labor paid by Bill.’ ”

“I know you didn’t want him to know that,” Persons continued.

Allen and Persons are heard on the tape discussing ways of addressing the glitch. They appear to agree on a plan.

“Have Ted write you a check,” Persons said. “You know, you don’t have to cash it.” He went on to say that if the matter ever came up, Allen could defiantly present the check from Stevens.

“That’s the thing to do,” Allen responded.

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r ick.schmitt@latimes.com