Key federal witness against Sen. Ted Stevens began his rags-to-riches story in Socorro.
Self-made oil pipeline magnate Bill Allen, the government's star witness in the corruption trial of powerful Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, spent nearly four days on the stand in a Washington, D.C., courtroom detailing his relationship with Stevens over the past two decades, The Associated Press reported.
The 84-year-old Stevens is accused of lying on financial disclosure forms to conceal more than $250,000 in home renovations and gifts from Allen, the AP said.
Allen, who pleaded guilty to bribery and conspiracy in May 2007, is testifying as part of a plea deal in a bribery investigation of Alaska legislators, the AP reported.
Allen, who is in his 70s, was born in Socorro, N.M., and left with his family for Oregon shortly after World War II when he was 8 or 9 and missed several years of school while his family followed fruit crops, the Anchorage Daily News reported last October.
He quit school for good as a high school sophomore, then learned to weld and went to Alaska in 1968 where he and another oilfield worker named Wayne Velti founded VE Construction, or VECO, which he later took over and turned into a $1 billion-a-year business with 4,000 employees worldwide, about half of them in Alaska, the Daily News reported.
The company was sold in October 2007 to CH2M Hill, more than a year after Allen emerged as the central figure in the Alaska corruption investigation — scandals that have shaken Alaska's small political world to the core, the Los Angeles Times reported last October.
But the Socorro birthplace doesn't exhaust Allen's connections to New Mexico, according to an Anchorage Daily News article in August.
Allen's three grown children all are licensed to own racehorses in New Mexico, and his 49-year-old son, Mark Allen, owns the Double Eagle Ranch in Roswell, according to the Daily News.
Though the elder Allen still owns a home near downtown Anchorage, a property valued at $571,400, he now spends some of his time living on his son's ranch, Allen's attorney Bob Bundy told the Daily News.
Dick Cappellucci, a New Mexico-licensed horse trainer from El Paso, who used to work for and once owned a race horse with Mark Allen, told the Daily News that the younger Allen "is building a fancy, fancy place over there," referring to the Roswell ranch which is currently listed as a 46-acre property.
According to Cappellucci, the Allen family has been showing up at horse sales, saying "They've spent a lot of money in the horse business."
The elder Allen, who could face nine to 11 years in prison once he is sentenced, wasn't able to make an immunity deal with prosecutors but was able to protect members of his family from prosecution, the Daily News reported.
If Allen cooperates fully in the corruption prosecutions, "the government will not charge Allen's son, Mark Allen, or other family members of Allen with any criminal offense arising out of the government's investigation or that have been disclosed to the government," according to the plea agreement reached last year.
"He put it in there — that was in the plea agreement — but I don't know that his kids were really in any jeopardy," attorney Bob Bundy told the Daily News.
All three children and their spouses or ex-spouses were major campaign contributors in Alaska over the years, according to the Daily News.
