Opening arguments began this morning in the trial of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens.  The "chalet" is at the center of the case:

Sen. Ted Stevens used one of Alaska’s biggest employers has his "own personal handyman service," and never paid Veco Corp. for hundreds of thousands of dollars of work done on his home, a federal prosecutor said Thursday, as she outlined the government's case for finding him guilty of lying on financial disclosure forms.

"You’ll learn that the defendant never paid Veco a dime for the work on the chalet. Not a penny," the lead Justice Department prosecutor, Brenda Morris, told jurors in the opening minutes of the trial against the senator.

The jury will be hearing from many of the people who did the work on his home in Girdwood, Alaska, Morris said, referring to the A-frame cabin as Stevens did: as the "chalet.”

"If the defendant needed an electrician, he contacted Veco. If the defendant needed a plumber, he contacted Veco,” she said. "We reach for the yellow pages, he reached for Veco.”