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The judge agreed to delay the trial while prosecutors appeal a ruling on whether Weyhrauch was required to announce certain conflicts of interest as a lawmaker. Kott's trial will proceed this week as scheduled.

Weyhrauch and Kott had been together accused of having conspired with executives of VECO Corp., an oil field services firm interested in holding down oil tax rates for its business partners. Two of those executives, Chief Executive Officer Bill Allen and Vice President Rick Smith, pleaded guilty of conspiring with numerous legislators to keep tax rates low.

An attorney in private practice in Juneau, Weyhrauch was accused of having sought legal work from VECO in exchange for his vote on the oil tax bill. Kott is accused of having sought a lobbying job from VECO, as well as taking numerous gifts of cash and other items of value.

Weyhrauch's attorney, Douglas Pope of Anchorage, had sought unsuccessfully to split the two trials earlier, arguing that being tried with Kott might make it more difficult for his client to make the case for his innocence.

The change of position on the part of the prosecutors came about after Pope convinced a federal judge in a preliminary motion to stop prosecutors from introducing evidence regarding conflicts of interest.

Prosecutors wanted to argue that both Kott and Weyhrauch had a legal duty to reveal that they had conflicts of interest because the were seeking jobs from VECO, but neither did so.

Prosecutors said Weyhrauch knew that he had such a duty and tried to introduce as evidence a legislative ethics handbook from his office. Weyhrauch was actually a member of the Select Committee on Legislative Ethics that drafted the handbook, they said.

Numerous other legislators had similar conflicts, but have avoided ethical pitfalls by disclosing the conflicts during oil tax debates. For example, Rep. Kevin Meyer, R-Anchorage, co-chairman of the House Finance Committee, acknowledged the conflict posed by his employment by an oil company when the Legislature was not in session.

He asked the House to excuse him from voting, but he was ordered to vote anyway.

Another legislator with a potential conflict, Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, made public the fact that his wife was employed by an oil company, but said that was not a conflict and voted anyway.

Prosecutors who brought charges against Weyhrauch and Kott said the two had a "duty to disclose" the conflicts of interest created by seeking jobs with VECO.

Prosecutor Joe Bottini argued that the two had violated federal "honest services" law by depriving the public of unbiased representation.

Bottini wanted to tell a jury about the conflicts "to prove that Kott and Weyhrauch each violated their respective duties of honest services by knowingly concealing their respective conflicts of interest from the Alaska State Legislature and from the citizens of the State of Alaska, and by voting on legislation that impacted the company with whom they were negotiating for employment."

Sedwick did not buy that argument, however, and said the prosecution would not be able to make that argument to the jury.

Wednesday prosecutors asked for a delay in Weyhrauch's case to allow them to appeal Sedwick's ruling to the Court of Appeals. That required the delay in Weyhrauch's trial, and a separation from Kott's case.

Sedwick told prosecutors to report back on the status of their appeal at the end of November.

• Contact Pat Forgey at 523-2250 or patrick.forgey@juneauempire.com.