A report by the Justice Department's Office of ProfessionalResponsibility, an internal ethics office, concluded theprosecutors in several instances failed to disclose the evidence tothe defense in violation of their obligations, but their actionshad not been intentional. One prosecutor, Joseph Bottini, faces a 40-day suspension withoutpay while the other one, James Goeke, faces a 15-day suspensionwithout pay, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich said in aletter to Congress summarizing the findings. It marked the latest embarrassing disclosure for the JusticeDepartment over its botched handling of the Stevens case. A separate report released in March by a court-appointedindependent investigator concluded prosecutors withheld andconcealed information from defense lawyers that included witnessstatements, key details that could have undermined prosecutors'star witnesses and allowed false testimony to be presented duringthe 2008 trial. That report criticized the Justice Department's failure to properlysupervise the trial team and said prosecutors covered upinformation that their chief witness, Bill Allen, had a sexualrelationship with a 15-year-old prostitute.
CASE DISMISSED Stevens, who died in a plane crash in 2010 and had been thelongest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history, was charged in2008 with seven counts of lying on a Senate disclosure form toconceal $250,000 in gifts - primarily the improvements to hisAlaska home - from an Alaska oil executive and other friends. He was convicted days before the 2008 election and lost his bid forre-election, helping Democrats expand their hold in the Senate. The judge in the case in 2009 overturned the conviction becauseprosecutors had failed to turn over evidence, as required underlaw, that could have exonerated Stevens. s.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, weeks after taking office in2009, had the case dismissed. The Office of Professional Investigation opened an inquiry intoprosecutorial misconduct and completed a 672-page report last year.The findings were released on Thursday. Weich said the report did not find misconduct by other prosecutorsand did not find they used poor judgment, with one exception.
Hedid not elaborate. One prosecutor in the case, Nicholas Marsh,committed suicide in September 2010 while the investigations werepending. The report concluded a supervisor in the Justice Department'spublic integrity section used poor judgment by failing to supervisecertain aspects of the evidence disclosure process. The Justice Department decided not to recommend dismissal of thetwo prosecutors, partly because they did not act intentionally,they both had excellent past work records and had no priordisciplinary measures against them. Bottini is a federal prosecutor in Alaska while Goeke now is afederal prosecutor in Virginia.
They can appeal the suspensions toa government agency called the Merit Systems Protection Board,Weich said. (Editing by Xavier Briand).
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