Into the Wild

In early 1953, Ted Stevens and his wife at the time, Ann, were headed up the bumpy Alaska Highway in their overloaded Buick. Stevens, who was 29, had left Washington, D.C., to take a job with a Fairbanks law firm. But he wasn't there to kick back and enjoy the wilderness. Within six months of arriving in Alaska, the Harvard Law grad was appointed as U.S. Attorney in Fairbanks. And thus began an epic political adventure that would dramatically shape the landscape of his adopted state.

Over the course of a political career spanning 55 years, Stevens shut down gambling halls on the Last Frontier and helped the territory win its statehood. He shepherded a settlement that protected the ancestral lands of Alaska's native people and ushered in the state's 1970s oil boom. Stevens drafted complex laws governing the Bering Sea's prolific fisheries—and as a master of the Senate earmarking game, helped Alaska secure tens of billions of federal money, which brought many Eskimo villages into the modern era. At 84, he has spent nearly 40 years in the U.S. Senate—making him the longest-serving Republican in Congress's upper chamber.

Now the journey that began on that bumpy stretch of road may be coming to an end.

On Tuesday, a federal grand jury indicted Stevens on seven counts of failing to report more than $250,000 in improvements to his Girdwood, Alaska, home on his Senate disclosure forms, as required by law. He is the first sitting senator to come under indictment since 1993—a case arising from an ongoing federal investigation into political corruption in Alaska, the largest in the state's short history. Stevens has asserted his innocence, and reminded residents of his long record of service to the state.

So far, federal prosecutors have scored seven criminal convictions. Among them are three former state lawmakers, two former oil executives, a lobbyist and the chief of staff of former Alaska governor Frank Murkowski. U.S. Rep. Don Young, a Republican and the state's lone representative in the U.S. House, is reportedly under investigation, although no charges have been filed, and he denies any wrongdoing. The indictment comes as Stevens is fighting to hold onto his Senate seat amid the toughest re-election contest of his career.

Stevens's home renovation was overseen by Bill Allen, a gruff oilman who founded VECO Corp., an international oil contractor based in Alaska that is now owned by a Denver firm. Allen is at the center of the sweeping investigation.

In 2006, while the Alaska Legislature was debating raising taxes on the oil industry, the FBI secretly documented Allen and another VECO executive as they bribed key lawmakers in a scheme to influence the vote and keep the tax hike to a minimum. In pleading guilty to bribery charges last year, Allen said that he was trying to look out for his clients―ExxonMobil, BP and ConocoPhillips―which VECO depended on for contracts.

Stevens is accused of allowing Allen to pay for much of the remodeling and expansion of his home. Stevens and Allen had been friends for years; the two even own a racehorse together. According to several former politicians and friends who have known Allen over the years, he liked to do favors for his buddies. He bought them dinner. He took them on trips. He had his employees work on their property.

In 2000, Allen dispatched a crew of VECO employees to jack up Stevens's small, weather-beaten house―it was known as "Ted's cabin" among friends―and build a new floor beneath it. The Feds claim Stevens didn't pay all of the construction bills. He's also accused of accepting unreported gifts from Allen, including a Viking gas grill and a 1999 Land Rover Discovery, which Stevens got in return for giving Allen his 1964 Ford Mustang and $5,000.