Meanwhile, another drama in the trial is unfolding away from the jurors. Stevens’s attorneys are renewing their effort to get all the charges dismissed, saying the government had “intentionally” mishandled key evidence that the defense should have been given prior to the trial.
The government chalked up the accusation to “theatrics,” saying the defense’s case has not been harmed. Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of U.S. District Court in Washington has repeatedly rejected Stevens’s calls to dismiss the charges, but he has grown increasingly frustrated at the government’s handling of the case and deferred a ruling on the dismissal request until the two parties briefed the court further.
But on Monday the proceedings continued with Allen on the stand, with the jury hearing three phone calls the FBI tapped between the two men.
At one point, Stevens said the FBI “may be listening to this conversation.”
“Well, they’re not supposed to be,” Allen responded.
A day after the FBI confronted Allen in August 2006, Allen informed Stevens that the government was investigating the renovations to the house.
“They asked me what I’d done on the house. I said, ‘Well, he paid for everything,’ ” Allen told Stevens on a telephone call.
Stevens, sounding resigned, said he would immediately tell his wife Catherine about the FBI’s inquiry.
About two weeks later, Stevens’s concerns seemed to be growing.
“I’m not really getting much sleep thinking about all this [expletive],” Stevens said.
“I don’t know what these [expletive] are going to do,” Stevens said. “You have the money and you are entitled to spend it as long as you spend it legally and I think you spent it legally.”
The phone calls also showed the deep personal friendship between the two men.
“Ted, I love you, you know,” Allen said in the October 2006 call.
“Let’s get through this and get back to our boot camps again,” Stevens said, referring to their regular vacations together in Arizona and California.
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