Republican US senator indicted for oil gifts

AFP, July, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the US Senate, has been indicted for making false statements concerning gifts he received from an oil-services firm, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Stevens, 84, was indicted by a federal grand jury on seven counts of making false statements on mandatory financial disclosure forms he filed between 1999 and 2006, said Matthew Friedrich, acting Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division.

Stevens denies the accusations.

Friedrich said the indictment charges that "while he was sitting as a United States senator between 1999 and 2006, Senator Stevens accepted gifts from a company known as VECO," an Alaska-based firm which provides oil field support.

"The gifts...