Anchorage, ALASKA

Left to right: Vic Kohring, Tom Anderson, and Pete Kott.

April 15, 2008 - A federal judge denied Alaska state Rep. Vic Kohring (Republican) a new trial. Kohring was convicted of bribery, conspiracy and attempted extortion in October.

The 12-member jury convicted Kohring, a Wasilla Republican, on three of four counts, concluding that he sold his office to the oil-field service company Veco Corp. and former executives Bill Allen and Rick Smith, who pleaded guilty to bribery and conspiracy and cooperated with the government.

Jurors found that he conspired with Allen and Smith to push a new oil tax favored by North Slope oil producers through the Legislature in 2006, tried to extort them to pay his $17,000 credit card debt, and took bribes from them.

Kohring was sentenced May 8 to 42 months in prison.

His defense attorney, John Henry Browne, likened Kohring to longtime TV hero Andy Griffith. ... The prosecution jumped on the Andy Griffith metaphor, saying Vic Kohring "may be an Andy Griffith but Andy Griffith never took cash bribes."

"What you saw here was a big guy who was politely corrupt. It doesn't make him any less corrupt because he doesn't swear," said U.S. Attorney Joe Bottini, who was comparing Kohring to convicted former Alaska House Speaker Pete Kott.

Kohring was the third person convicted by a jury in the government's wide-ranging corruption scandal. Juries took about the same amount of time to convict the first two, ex-Reps. Tom Anderson and Pete Kott, both Republicans.

Tom Anderson (Republican) was elected to the House: 2002, 2004.
He is married to Sen. Lesil McGuire, R-Anchorage, who was not implicated in the corruption.
Anderson was convicted July 9 of three counts of money laundering, two counts of extortion and a count each of bribery and conspiracy. Anderson was sentenced to five years in prison.

Pete Kott (Republican)was elected to the House: 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004.
Kott was convicted in September 2007 of bribery, conspiracy and extortion for his role in advocating an oil tax pushed by Veco Corp. He was sentenced to 6 years in prison.