During opening arguments in this case, the lawyer for Ted Stevens suggested that Mrs. Stevens was to blame because she handled all the renovation-related business. Not according to emails introduced as evidence at the trial yesterday:

Prosecutors wrapped up their case Wednesday against U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens with a methodical presentation of dozens of e-mails showing Stevens was regularly briefed about the remodeling of his Girdwood home.

Rather than the disinterested husband whose wife ran the "teepee," as Stevens' attorney said in his opening statement to jurors, Stevens received as many as four or five e-mails a week from his friend and Girdwood neighbor Bob Persons on the status of the work. Persons, owner of Girdwood's Double Musky restaurant, frequently reported that much of the work was being done by employees from the oil-field service company Veco. He continually praised Veco's foreman, Rocky Williams, and had good words to say about other Veco workers.

Stevens replied to many of the e-mails and forwarded others to his wife, Catherine, with comments.

More tapes were played at the trial of Senator Ted Stevens.  According to his "friends," the Alaska Senator didn't like to spend his own money.  And, there seemed to be a concerted effort to make sure Stevens didn't have to spend his own money:

The tapes included conversations with people central to the case: Bill Allen, Stevens's longtime friend, who owned the now-defunct oil-services firm Veco Corp. and paid for the bulk of the home renovations; and Bob Persons, a local restaurant owner who monitored the renovations while Stevens was in Washington.

In a February 2006 telephone call, Persons and Allen said they needed to be discreet with the bills. Persons suggested authorities were looking at "raking [Stevens] over the coals over anything they have."

"Catherine says Ted gets hysterical when he has to spend his own money," Persons said on the call, referring to the senator's wife and a racehorse he and Allen co-owned with the senator. "He gets hysterical because he can’t afford to pay a bunch of money."

"I know," Allen responded.

Yesterday was a dramatic day in the Stevens trial.  Tapes, secretly recorded, between the Alaska Senator and the prosecutions chief witness were played in court.  The witness, Bill Allen, was cooperating with federal authorities:

In secretly recorded telephone conversations played in court Monday, Sen. Ted Stevens denied wrongdoing and spat out expletives to describe the federal agents who were raiding homes and offices in Alaska as part of a sweeping corruption probe.

"I don't know what the (expletive) these guys are doing, we'll have to figure that out later," Stevens said to Bill Allen, the chief executive of the oilfield services firm, Veco Corp. The jury heard the full-throated Stevens, profanity and all.

But the recordings also provided insight into how Stevens has maintained his presence in Washington and Alaska without shrinking in shame or embarrassment despite the long, public investigation and then his seven-count felony indictment in July.

A partial transcript of the tapes can be found here.

An audio of the tapes can be found here.

Yesterday, at the trial of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, testimony revealed that while Senator Stevens sent a request for a bill to Veco for the renovations done on the "chalet."  But, we're led to believe Senator Stevens didn't really want the bill:

In October 2002, Stevens sent a handwritten note to Allen asking him for a bill to pay for those renovations, citing strict Senate ethics rules on gift-giving.

“When I think of the many ways in which you make my life easier and more enjoyable, I lose count,” Stevens said in the thank-you note, which was admitted as evidence Wednesday.

“Friendship is one thing, compliance with ethics laws is different,” Stevens added.

In the note, Stevens said that a friend who was helping oversee the renovations, Bob Persons, a local restaurant owner near his home in Girdwood, Alaska, would remind Allen to give the senator a bill for the work.

In court on Wednesday, Allen said that Persons signaled that the senator only wanted cover by asking for a bill.

“Don’t worry about giving a bill, Ted’s just covering his ass,” Allen said Persons told him in 2002.

Sitting across the crowded courtroom, Stevens remained expressionless, and barely made eye contact with his former close friend of some 25 years.

Allen said he “really didn’t want” to send Stevens bills for Veco’s work “because I wanted to help Ted” and “because I like him.”

The government hopes the testimony will undercut one of Stevens’s main lines of defense: that the senator would have paid for all costs if Allen disclosed additional renovations he made when the senator was working 3,500 miles away on Capitol Hill.

Yesterday, the jury heard the from the former head of Veco Corp., Bill Allen.  The company and its executives have been instrumental players in a number of Alaska's public corruption cases.   Observers seem to view Allen as the government's key witness in the case against Senator Stevens.  The prosecution could rest its case as early as tomorrow:

The government’s star witness against Ted Stevens gave dramatic testimony Tuesday that he lavished the Republican senator with gifts and arranged widespread renovations to the senator’s chalet in a ski town in Alaska.

Bill Allen, in the first of two days of testimony that could determine the outcome of the case, described his close personal friendship with Stevens and how he, as head of the now-defunct Veco Corp. oil-services firm, played the main role in the gift-giving scandal that has landed the longest-serving Senate Republican in criminal court.

Drama in the court room.  Claims that evidence was withheld. A witness has "switched sides?:

Sen. Ted Stevens accused prosecutors of withholding evidence in his gift-giving trial after a weekend in which a key government witness apparently switched sides mid-trial and told defense attorneys that important facts were being ignored.

In court documents filed just before midnight Sunday, the Senate's longest-serving Republican asked a judge to dismiss the corruption case or declare a mistrial.

Stevens is charged with lying on Senate financial disclosure forms about more than $250,000 in free home renovations and other gifts he received from VECO Corp., a powerful Alaska oil pipeline contractor.

Former VECO employees have testified that they spent countless hours working on the senator's home, building a balcony, a custom steel staircase, a new roof and more. Such testimony was expected to continue Monday as prosecutors tried to persuade jurors that Stevens must have known he was getting freebies.

Tough analysis of opening arguments in the trial of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens.  The defendant's lawyer blamed the defendant's wife: 

Sen. Ted Stevens, his career and his freedom in jeopardy, did the honorable thing as he went on trial yesterday on corruption-related charges. He blamed his wife.

Yes, Stevens, the first sitting senator to be indicted in a generation, failed to report a home renovation and other pricey gifts from a pipeline company. But, his lawyer told the jury yesterday, it was his wife who reviewed the bills and took care of the finances.

"You have to look at the relationship between Ted and Catherine, because it says something about what happened here," superlawyer Brendan Sullivan declared. In fact, he said, the Stevens family has a saying: "When it comes to things around the tepee, the wife controls. That might seem old-fashioned, but Ted Stevens is old-fashioned."

And rather ungallant.

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.”

Game on:

Lawyers for Sen. Ted Stevens and federal prosecutors have picked a jury in his corruption trial. After a day and a half of jury selection, the pool was narrowed to 12, with four alternates.

Jury selection is expected to conclude today in the trial of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens.  Testimony should begin tomorrow.

The Los Angeles Times previews the prosecution case against Stevens:

The telephone conversation between the two businessmen concerned an old friend, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, and the subject was money -- or at least Stevens' feelings about it.

"Ted gets hysterical when he has to spend his own money," said one of the callers.

"I know," replied the other.

In a corruption case where the core issue is whether Stevens knowingly accepted gifts in violation of federal law, the conversation, secretly recorded by federal investigators, could be crucial evidence.

On one end was a restaurateur who oversaw the remodeling of Stevens' Alaska home. Prosecutors contend the senator never paid for the improvements. On the other end was an oil executive accused of helping bankroll the home makeover and showering Stevens and his family with other gifts in violation of federal law.

The recording is part of the evidence that prosecutors hope jurors will hear as Stevens goes to trial this week in federal court in Washington. Jury selection began Monday.

The Senate's longest-serving Republican was indicted in July on charges of failing to disclose in financial reports $250,000 in improvements at his home in Girdwood, Alaska, and other gifts, including a Viking gas grill and a bargain price on a new Land Rover.

We'll be monitoring reports from the court house.