newsminer.com

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A former Alaska lawmaker's efforts to keep federal prosecutors from using key evidence in a corruption trial has failed.

A federal appeals ruled that prosecutors can tell a jury how Bruce Weyhrauch, a private attorney, failed to disclose his hope to get work from an oilfield services company seeking favorable oil tax legislation.

Weyhrauch, a Juneau Republican, is part of a sweeping federal corruption probe that has also led to the conviction of U.S. Sen Ted Stevens.

Weyhrauch was arrested in May 2007 along with fromer House Speaker Pete Kott, who is serving time for his bribery conviction last fall.

Prosectuors allege that Weyhrauch, a private lawyer, solicited future work from executives at oilfield services company VECO Corp. in exchange taking steps on oil tax legislation that would benefit the company.

Kott and Weyhrauch were supposed to be tried together, but a U.S. district court judge first ruled prosecutors could not use evidence highlighting Weyhrauch's failure to publicly disclose hopes to get a job with VECO Corp.

So while prosecutors sought to appeal Judge John Sedwick's ruling with the Ninth Circuit in California, only Kott was tried that month.

Prosecutors believe the evidence is crucial to the charges that include bribery, attempted extortion and conspiracy.

Ultimately, an appeals court agreed.

"Because public officials may legitimately disagree over which of the many competing interests in society deserve support from the state, without transparency the public cannot evaluate the motivations of public officials who are purporting to act for the common good to determine whether they are in fact acting for their own benefit," the 9th Circuit panel said.