After holidays, doors will close on Rick Smith

Nearly three and a half years after he agreed to cooperate with the FBI, former VECO executive Rick Smith, 64, will reap the consequences, and the reward, of some key decisions in life. He conspired to bribe Alaska politicians and for that he'll go to jail. But his choice to help bring others down means his time behind bars will be much shorter than it could have been.

On Jan. 12, 2010, Smith, who as a high school graduate rose up from a job as a steel worker to get into lobbying and become a company executive, must report to the federal penitentiary in Sheridan, Ore., to begin a 21-month prison term, according to the U.S. probation office in Anchorage. He pleaded guilty in May 2007 to conspiracy and bribery, after what the feds characterize as nine months of secret and intense cooperation that continues to this day.

Smith testified against former Alaska lawmakers Pete Kott and Vic Kohring, and is assisting with a federal inquiry into possible prosecutorial misconduct during the trial of former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens. Stevens' guilty convictions were overturned and the case was thrown out after the Justice Department discovered it withheld evidence from the defense that could have helped Stevens' case.

As a result of subsequent evidence discoveries in the Kott case, Kott's attorney, Sheryl McCloud, now questions Smith's reliability on the stand against her client, citing new evidence that Smith was a bad drunk with a poor memory who was psychologically unraveling as Kott's trial approached.

But Smith's path to the prison door appears to be undeterred by such post-trial matters.

"As damaging and corrosive as his crimes were, he did everything we ever asked," prosecutor M. Kendall Day told the court last month at Smith's October 28 sentencing. Citing a need to meet further with Smith this month, the government asked that Smith be allowed to wait until at least Jan. 11, 2010 to turn himself in.

The judge admonished Smith for not making better choices during his tenure at VECO under the command of company president Bill Allen. Smith, federal District Court Judge John D. Sedwick observed, is a hardworking, decent person and a good family man led to corruption as an employee doing what he was told -- an employee who should have questioned his directives and quit, but did not.

Smith told the court he deeply regrets and is ashamed of his actions, which disgraced his family, friends and Alaska -- things he has loved for many years.

It's "something that I will have to live with for the rest of my life," he said.

Sheridan Federal Correctional Institute is a medium-security, all-male prison camp 90 minutes south of Portland in northwestern Oregon. Another incarcerated former Alaska politician, Tom Anderson, is housed there, as was Kott until his release this summer pending the review of his case.

Contact Jill Burke at jill_alaskadispatch.com.