Northampton native William Welch II comes under fire at Senate Hearing.

"If she was failing, wasn’t it the responsibility of her supervisor (Welch) to fix that? (Senator Grassley of Iowa)

“Yes” Special Prosecutor Henry Schuelke III

Brenda Morris was the chief prosecutor at the Ted Stevens trial, William Welch was her supervisor and head of the elite Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice. This Wednesday, March 28, the Senate’s Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Department of Justice’s handling of the Senator Ted Stevens case. A trial in Washington D.C. in the fall of 2008 found the Senator guilty of failure to declare the full costs of the work done on his house in Girdwood Alaska. He was found guilty, but in January of 2009 a FBI agent, Chad Joy, filed a whistleblower complaint that lead the judge, Emmet Sullivan to dismiss all charges, and order an investigation to see if criminal contempt charges should be brought against the prosecutorial team.

William Welch II made his name through winning a whole series of high profile courses here in Springfield, including the so-called killer nurse, Kristen Gilbert, and a series of public corruption cases involving the Springfield Housing Authority and other agencies. His successes meant he went to Washington, advanced rapidly, and between 2007 and 2009 headed up the elite Public Integrity Section (PIS) of the Department of Justice that supervised, or rather failed to supervise the Stevens prosecution team.

Appearing before the committee was Special Prosecutor Henry Schuelke III, who worked two years on the case and produced a 525 page report. I have read most of it, and all the rebuttals that came in from people named. In this Youtube video, Schuelke put the case in a witty nutshell. It is regrettable that the chairman had to cut him off because of time constraints, because he just seemed to be warming up to describe as seamy a case as could imagined, a case with teen-aged prostitutes, crack cocaine, Alaska wheeling and dealing and something that came close to legal blackmail by federal prosecutors, who had evidence, but suppressed that evidence that their chief witness, Bill Allen, in the case consorted with 15 year old prostitutes during his heyday as chairman of one of Alaska’s biggest oil service companies, VECO.

Bill Allen

Schuelke presentation

I have to admit that the botched-up trial of Ted Stevens in the fall of 2008 never really registered on my radar screen. It was Alaska and of course Alaska is far away and I assume it is corrupt like Massachusetts is, only worse, and it occurred after the Department of Justice had already convicted four Republican Legislators, one lobbyist and two top executives of Alaskan businessmen of bribery and other corrupt activities, and I probably thought that the feds are just doing their job.

I didn’t know that Northampton native Bill Welch was involved in these prosecutions. Now I know. And the issues that we are confronted with, in this truly horrific scandal, are the same issues that caused a mistrial in the trial of Irving Labovitz back in 1997, where Welch was in the lead chair. Failure to disclose so-called exculpatory material. So-called “Brady” material has to be disclosed to the defense if it might alter the outcome of the trial or affect the sentence given a defendant. But in the Heritage Bank trial, the prosecution conduct went beyond so-called failure to disclose “Brady” material. Tape recordings went missing; a critical tape recording had its transcription altered in many critical aspects. I’ll talk about this in another posting. In a Washingtonian article on Bill Welch last year, Shane Harris had a lot to say about his reputation as a “tough-as-nails” oversealous prosecutor who is now going after whistleblowers.

What ensued in the Stevens affair has been a career breaker for almost everyone who was involved in trying the case. Welch is now back in the Springfield office, and living under a cloud. The team of DOJ lawyers has been scattered to the winds, A young very capable DOJ lawyer, Nicholas Marsh, hung himself in his home after he was transferred into the backwaters of the DOJ working in the international affairs section.

Stevens’ lawyers and the judge, Emmett Sullivan didn’t trust what the federal attorneys were telling them back in 2008. They weren’t getting the so-called “302s” that FBI agents are supposed to fill out when they interrogate suspects or witnesses. They were getting short summaries. The initial report to the court by Henry Schuelke tended to focus its ire on the trial attorneys, and not their supervisors. In the two year investigation ordered by the trial judge, investigators looked at well over 128,000 pages of documents, FBI 302s, and interviews with prosecutors and FBI agents. Its release was fought in court by members of the prosecutorial team, including Welch. But then some of the attorneys hauled over the coals fired back, and said some interesting things. What they said, I’ll post on later. Here is a link to an Anchorage News article about Welch by Matt Apuzzo, and here are some links to the history of the case, great reportage by Richard Mauer and other writers for the Anchorage News.




VECO men sparked Stevens Remodel
Allen Sex Case Reopened
Sources contest whistleblower
Alleged cover-up cuts into Allen credibility
Gridwood Neighbors stick by "Uncle Ted."

Uncle Ted's Chalet

Changing Gears

Our time in California is winding down, and we are looking forward to coming home. But yes, I have mixed feelings about coming back. And not just because we won't be walking on the beach every day and looking at the sunsets that some times seem to last for hours. I wonder if the resolutions I have made to change my ways are going to stick. Here in Solana Beach I know from nothing about what is going on; in Northampton I knew too damn much. On the list of articles that I was going to write before I left town, was one on the Parking Authority and its Czar and his assistant. I had sources inside, and pretty much everything they were telling me has been born out over the last months. Northampton still needs investigative journalism, but we now seem to have a mayor that is willing to rein in people, and ask awkward questions. I will do my damndest to hold to my resolutions. My final chapter on the fall of the Heritage Book is in the works and will be published later this month. KirbyontheLoose will reorganize, featuring short stories, poetry and travel biopics. KirbyLite? There is an opening story in this edition, a story about cabdriving.

I loved the work I've done, and am proud of my reporting, but my heart can't take it any more. Talking with people who don't want to talk with you is no fun. Neither is the fear of making major mistakes, or even minor mistakes. You are screwing with people's reputations. I remember the Monday that I picked up the phone to confirm what I had found out about Opal with Peter Picknelly, and the Wednesday that I picked up the phone to talk with Panteleakis,the managing director of Opal. I may have sounded cool on the outside, but my heart was racing full tilt. Upping the blood pressure medicine all the time to deal with the stresses and strains of the job is playing with dynamite when you are 74. The rest out here has done me good. I'd like to think I had ten good years left in me. There'll be enough excitement for me in the months ahead, getting the Heritage Bank book into print at long last.

A Friendly Warning

Chapter Thirteen of the Fall Guys

His description of the great conspiracy seemed far-fetched, but this was 1997 and the scandal of Whitey Bulger and the close working relationship there was between the mob and the FBI and a legislature run by Whiteys brother, Billy Bulger, would not break until years later.
He seemed gloomy about the work he had been doing for the FDIC.
“Well,” he said, “ I don’t know what is going to happen with the case I have been working for, the FDIC versus Lloyds of London. We’re trying to recover our costs from the bond, but if it is dismissed, all of our evidence will go on the public record. Go down to the clerk’s office in Springfield and get the accession number on this case.”
He wrote something, and handed me a slip of paper.
“It’s all there, everything that will show what actually happened to this bank.”

Read the article by clicking here.