The Washington attorney who investigated allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in the Ted Stevens case is expected to testify next week on Capitol Hill about his investigation.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Henry "Hank" Schuelke III will address the 525-page report he put together about government abuses in the Stevens public corruption prosecution in Washington.
The hearing on the Stevens report is scheduled for March 28 at 10 a.m., Leahy said. Leahy’s office did not indicate whether any of the defense lawyers who represented the Stevens prosecutors have been invited to speak at the hearing.
Schuelke, of Washington’s Janis, Schuelke & Wechsler, was appointed to investigate whether five Justice Department trial attorneys should be charged with criminal contempt for violating court orders.
Schuelke’s report did not recommend criminal charges against any of the Stevens prosecutors. But Schuelke did conclude that two assistant U.S. attorneys, Joseph Bottini and James Goeke, intentionally withheld favorable information from Stevens’ lawyers at Williams & Connolly.
Attorneys for Bottini and Goeke deny that either of them intentionally kept secret information that would have helped Stevens defend against allegations that he made false statements on U.S. Senate financial disclosure forms.
A jury in 2008 convicted Stevens. In April 2009, amid allegations of government misconduct and before Stevens was sentenced, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. asked the presiding judge to dismiss the indictment against the former Alaska senator. Stevens died in a plane crash in Alaska in 2010.
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