ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Thursday she and her husband will sell back an undeveloped lot of riverfront property, a day after a complaint to the Senate ethics committee alleged that the purchase was a sweetheart deal.
"It was a judgment call that I made that allowed me and my husband to undergo a level of criticism that I believe is unfounded but has caused people to question me," the Alaska Republican said of the purchase. "I'm not willing to compromise that trust for any piece of property."
Murkowski had drawn widespread criticism over her purchase of the land — located along the scenic Kenai River southwest of Anchorage on the Kenai Peninsula — from a campaign contributor she called a lifelong family friend.
Late last year the senator and her husband, Verne Martell, paid $179,400 to real estate developer Bob Penney for the 1.27-acre undeveloped lot. Local real estate agents said the property could have fetched as much as $350,000.
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Murkowski, who had planned to build her family home there, said she will sell the property back to Penney for the same price. Penney, who lives two lots from the tract he sold Murkowski and owns the land in between, had said he considered it a fair deal because it was the assessed value at the time.
Murkowski said the purchase has been construed as improper by the press to the point of being a distraction from her work. There was nothing inappropriate about the transaction, she said.
"You all need to know I've known Bob Penney since I was about 5 years old," Murkowski told reporters during a teleconference. "My husband knew him before he even knew me."
The National Legal and Policy Center, based in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., filed a 25-page complaint Wednesday with the ethics committee and requested an investigation.
"Under the circumstances, it's a very good thing to do," Ken Boehm, the watchdog group's chairman, said about Murkowkski's decision. "The fundamental question was why was she able to get such a discount price on such a valuable property."
Boehm said he will not withdraw his group's complaint with the committee. He said other issues remain.
Murkowski failed to properly note the purchase in her financial disclosure report for 2006. Boehm said Murkowski also said in the same report that she had a 15-year mortgage when financing records indicate a 39-year loan with First Bank, which offers a maximum seven-year maturity date for loans on undeveloped land. Murkowski once sat on the bank's board.
Murkowski was appointed in 2002 and elected to a full term in 2004.
Separately, another Alaska Republican in Congress, Rep. Don Young, is under criminal investigation, a federal law enforcement official said Wednesday. He is the second member of Alaska's three-member, all-Republican delegation to come under scrutiny in a corruption investigation that traces back to the state and involves the Anchorage-based oil field services company VECO Corp.
Young, who underwent prostate surgery Tuesday, could not be reached. His spokeswoman, Meredith Kenny, said an allegation from an anonymous source "hardly proves him guilty of anything."
The third member of Alaska's congressional delegation, Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, has acknowledged he has been told by authorities to preserve records of a house remodeling project involving VECO.
Young, 74, and Alaska's sole representative in the House, was first elected in 1973. Stevens, 83, has been in office since 1968. Both are running for re-election in 2008.
