Ted Stevens home improvements not only paid for by an oil company it was built by oil company employees.

Ex-Veco Corp. CEO Bill Allen admitted in court Friday that he had company employees work several months on a remodeling project at the Girdwood home of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens.

The former head of the oil field services company made the admission Friday while testifying in the federal corruption trial of a former state lawmaker.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney James Wendt, representing former state Rep. Pete Kott, Allen acknowledged that the more than $400,000 he admitted spending in the bribery charge was for other legislators - and for work done at the Girdwood home of Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate.

"I don't think there was a lot of materials," Allen said. "There was some labor."

The workers were Veco employees, probably one to four at a time, Allen said. He said the work on the home lasted for "probably a couple of months." Later, he said it might have been as much as six months.

The remodeling work in summer and fall 2000 more than doubled the size of the house, a four-bedroom structure that is Stevens' official residence in Alaska.

Well in Alaska we have been waiting for the Ted Stevens shoe to drop in the bribery scandal that has stained the reputations of several of our Republican politicians.

Ted has stayed uncharacteristically silent on the investigation against him, which most of us assume is an admission of guilt.

This is a sad end to the career of a man who, though deeply flawed, did much to help our state.