Corruption Trial for Alaska Pol Begins

Forbes reports:

A former state lawmaker was a willing puppet of officials for an oil field services company that stood to be enriched if a natural gas pipeline was built, a federal prosecutor said Monday.

During deliberations of the Alaska Legislature over a new oil tax, Republican state Rep. Pete Kott violated voters' trust and instead did the bidding of the chairman of VECO Corp., prosecutor Nicholas A. Marsh said.

"Mr. Kott has been charged with selling out," Marsh told jurors at the opening of Kott's corruption trial.

Kott, in secretly recorded conversations, would acknowledge that he had to "cheat, steal, beg, borrow and lie" on behalf of VECO chairman Bill Allen, who has pleaded guilty to bribing lawmakers, Marsh said.

Monopolies and regulations lead to corruption.