LawFuel – Lead Story – Three Republican are charged with soliciting and accepting bribes from an oil services company to ease the passing of a new oil-tax system.
An Alaska lawmaker and two of his former colleagues were arrested on Friday for allegedly soliciting and accepting bribes from VECO Corp., a private oil services company, to pass a new oil-tax system, officials said.
The three, Rep. Vic Kohring of Wasilla, former state House Speaker Rep. Pete Kott of Eagle River and former state Rep. Bruce Weyhrauch of Juneau, were among six legislators whose offices were raided and searched by the FBI last August and September.
Those lawmakers included former Senate President Ben Stevens, the son of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.
Kohring, Kott and Weyhrauch, all Republicans, are charged with conspiring with the oil-field-services company in exchange for supporting a pro-industry version of a controversial bill that changed Alaska’s oil production tax into a levy on the profits a company made in Alaska.
