WASHINGTON - The FBI is investigating whether the community activist group ACORN helped foster voter registration fraud around the nation before the presidential election. A senior law enforcement official confirmed the investigation to The Associated Press on Thursday.
A second senior law enforcement official says the FBI was looking at results of recent raids on ACORN offices in several states for any evidence of a coordinated national scam.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Justice Department regulations forbid discussing ongoing investigations particularly so close to an election.
ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, says it has registered 1.3 million young people, minorities and poor and working-class voters - most of whom tend to be Democrats.
Republican accusations about the group were raised during Wednesday's presidential debate between Democrat Barack Obama and GOP candidate John McCain.
Some ACORN employees have been accused of submitting false voter registration forms - including some signed `Mickey Mouse' or other fictitious characters.
Those voter registration cards have become the focus of fraud investigations in Nevada, Connecticut, Missouri and at least five other states. Election officials in Ohio and North Carolina also recently questioned the group's voter forms.
ACORN has said the "vast majority" of its workers are conscientious, but some might have turned in duplicate applications or provided fake information to pad their pay. Workers caught submitting false information have been fired, ACORN officials say.
ACORN says laws in a number of states require it to submit all registration cards it collects even dubious ones, so its workers segregate applications with missing, suspicious or false information and flag them so state election officials can quickly check them further.
By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press Writer 19 minutes ago
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - The FBI is investigating whether Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney broke any laws or misused federal money when he hired a mistress to work in his office, a senior federal law enforcement official told The Associated Press.
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Federal agents also are examining whether a second affair Mahoney was having with a high-level official in his Florida district was behind his decision to push for federal emergency funds for her county, the official said.
The person spoke to The Associated Press only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation. The person noted investigators would likely need both women's help to pursue the matter. The cases would be hard to prove without them.
Mahoney has called for a House Ethics Committee investigation of his own conduct and said he would be cleared of wrongdoing. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also called for an investigation.
The FBI is looking into whether Mahoney hired the first mistress - and put her on the federal payroll - so she wouldn't reveal their affair, the person said. The woman, Patricia Allen, has not returned repeated calls.
Mahoney, 52, who is married with a child, began his affair with Allen, 50, in 2006 while campaigning for Congress.
He won that year while promising to return morals and family values to Washington after Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Foley resigned amid revelations that he sent lurid Internet messages to male teenage pages who had worked on Capitol Hill. Foley was later cleared of criminal wrongdoing.
Mahoney hired Allen to work first for his congressional office, then his campaign. Campaign staff say she was later fired for performance issues, not because of the affair.
Allen then threatened to sue Mahoney for sexual harassment, they say. Mahoney reached a settlement to avoid a public airing, paying her and her attorneys $121,000. Mahoney's campaign staff says Mahoney paid the settlement to Allen with his own money, not with campaign funds or federal dollars.
Allen and Mahoney signed a confidentially agreement that prohibits them from discussing details.
The FBI is also looking into whether Mahoney helped Martin County secure a $3.4 million reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for hurricane damage in exchange for sex with a county official in 2007, the federal law enforcement official said.
The funds were approved late last year. A Martin County news release at the time noted "Congressman Tim Mahoney was instrumental" in helping secure the funds.
The second affair was confirmed by a person close to Mahoney's campaign who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the congressman's private life. Mahoney has not returned calls for comment and repeated attempts to reach the official have been unsuccessful.
His congressional staff notes that Mahoney lobbies for FEMA funding throughout his district, and that Martin County has received $43 million from FEMA since 2004. Mahoney didn't take office until 2006 and they say he did not show Martin County preferential treatment.
David Graham, the county's administration director, said the county began the effort to get the hurricane funds under Foley, before Mahoney took office. He said it was a three-year team effort, since the county was twice denied and only received the money on appeal to FEMA with help from Mahoney.
Mahoney is embroiled in a tough re-election challenge in a district that leans slightly Republican.
Though he has not directly addressed the Allen affair, he said in a statement earlier this week he takes "full responsibility for my actions and the pain I have caused my wife Terry and my daughter Bailey." He has not addressed the second affair.
Meanwhile, top Florida Republican Party officials called on Mahoney to resign Thursday.
"It's time to close the book on Tim Mahoney," said Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer. "I call upon Tim Mahoney to resign his office."
Mahoney has given no indication he plans to resign or leave the race.
By TOM HAYS and JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writers 34 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens denied scheming to hide $250,000 in home improvements and other gifts from a corrupt businessman, taking the stand Thursday in his own defense at a corruption trial blocks from the U.S. Capitol.
When asked by his lawyer Brendan Sullivan whether he thought his disclosure forms were accurate when he signed them, the Alaska political patriarch replied, "Yes, sir."
Stevens, wearing an American flag pin on the lapel of his dark-colored suit, then responded with a soft "No, sir" when Sullivan asked whether he had engaged in any scheme with anyone to hide any gifts.
Stevens, 84, was the final witness in his defense against charges that he lied on Senate financial disclosure forms to conceal improvements to his modest chalet and other gifts from Bill Allen, a longtime friend and former chief of the oil services company VECO Corp.
Before taking the stand, Stevens - a plain-talking, gruff man whose trademark "Incredible Hulk" tie symbolizes his temper and reputation in the Senate - was told by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan that he didn't have to testify.
"It's a privilege and a duty," Stevens replied while being sworn in.
Defense attorneys have said Allen kept Stevens in the dark about additional work done on Stevens' Alaska home at Allen's expense. Stevens was too busy to notice anything amiss as workers transformed his tiny A-frame cabin into a spacious two-story home.
"He works all the time," testified his wife, Catherine, a lawyer who married Stevens in 1980. "He's a classic workaholic."
Catherine Stevens also testified earlier Thursday that she was in charge of the renovation of their Girdwood, Alaska, cabin and that they paid every bill they received - $160,000 in all.
She described Allen as a friend who volunteered in 2000 to keep an eye on the renovation of their mountain cabin while they were away in Washington. She said she believed employees of Allen she later spotted at the site were being paid by the contractor - not Allen.
The contractor was "the one responsible for all renovations," she said.
During her testimony, the defense displayed invoices from the contractor for tens of thousands of dollars in labor and materials, and the checks she signed to pay them. She claimed Allen often crashed at the home and added some extras, including an expensive gas grill, without her approval.
When she first saw the grill, "I was very angry," she said. "It was a fire hazard and I didn't want it on my deck."
Prosecutor Brenda Morris jousted with the witness about her actual involvement with the renovation, with Mrs. Stevens saying she never interviewed the engineer who drew up the plans for the renovation, accepted the contractor on the word of Allen and never got a contract with the plumbers or electricians.
The work on the chalet was done by "people you didn't contract with, didn't know and assumed were doing the work?" prosecutor Brenda Morris said.
Morris also questioned Mrs. Stevens about her husband's Senate staff walking their dogs, paying their credit card bills, cutting their grass and doing other personal work for her family.
"Sometimes," said Mrs. Stevens, who added that if they did, the staffers were paid.
Allen became the government's star witness after pleading guilty to bribing Alaska state legislators. Earlier in the trial, Allen testified that Bob Persons, a restaurateur neighbor who helped monitor the project, told him the senator's occasional demand for bills was a ruse.
Testifying for the defense, Persons denied making the remark. He told the jury Thursday that he had been bullied by an FBI agent who came to his home in 2006 to grill him about the senator's home.
"It was like being mentally water-boarded," he said.
Stevens, the longest-serving GOP senator, has languished in the courtroom in Washington for more than three weeks as a Democratic opponent back home, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, mounts a strong challenge to the seat the senator has held for 40 years.
