Anchorage Daily News is our partner in Anchorage. KTOO collaborates with partners across the state to cover important news and to share stories with our audiences.
The Alaska Department of Law said Tuesday that an assistant attorney general identified as the author of violent, racist comments on social media is no longer employed by the agency. A spokeswoman for the department declined to say whether he resigned or was fired.
Earlier this month, the Guardian identified assistant attorney general Matthias Cicotte as the person behind an anonymous account posting racist material on social media. In an article published July 21, the British news site said it had identified Cicotte using evidence provided by “anti-fascist researchers” and its own investigation.
The accounts linked to Cicotte had advocated violence against left-wing groups and the execution of those performing gender reassignment surgery. The accounts were some of the most prominent advocates of Deseret nationalism, the idea that Mormons should create their own country in the western United States.
Assistant Attorney General Grace Lee, the department’s spokeswoman, said Cicotte’s last day was Tuesday and provided a previously prepared statement from Attorney General Treg Taylor, who leads the Department of Law.
“I wanted to let you know that Mr. Cicotte is no longer working for the Department of Law. Alaska Statute 39.25.080 makes personnel records and investigations for partially exempt employees confidential, and therefore, we cannot provide further information on the investigation that occurred. However, although we cannot talk about personnel matters, we do not want the values and policies of the Department of Law to be overshadowed by the conduct of one individual,” Taylor’s statement said.
He added that the state has a diverse workforce that represents a diverse state. “As public servants, we have a high standard for how we interact with one another, with opposing counsel, with the public, and with the courts, in order to garner the trust and confidence of the people we serve,” he said in the message provided by email.
According to public records, Cicotte had worked at the Department of Law since 2012 and earned $106,450 in 2020 as one of many assistant attorneys general employed by the Department of Law. A graduate of Brigham Young University law school in Utah, Cicotte posted under a pseudonym that shared the name of the law school’s namesake.
At the time of the Guardian story, he worked on legal cases involving the Alaska Department of Corrections.
In 2018, the Council on American-Islamic Relations sued the state, arguing that prison meals served to Muslim inmates at Anchorage Correctional Complex were nutritionally inadequate. Cicotte, representing the state, disputed that the prisoners were deprived. The state settled the case. After the Guardian’s story was published, CAIR called for Cicotte to be fired.
The state said last week that it had reassigned Cicotte’s cases to other employees while it investigated his conduct. Lee did not say whether the investigation was complete or what it was searching for.
Asked what the department will do if a similar situation arises in the future, she said, “We would handle any other personnel situation that came to our attention the same way we handled this one. If circumstances warranted, we would ensure a through investigation was completed and make a determination based on sufficient evidence.”
In total, 656 cases from February through June were considered vaccine breakthrough cases, identified among people who were at least two weeks past their last dose of vaccine. They represented 4.2% of the overall number of COVID-19 cases reported in that timeframe.
The state’s new report comes as Alaska faces another upswing in cases, with multiple outbreaks drawing attention to more recent vaccine breakthrough cases. In Sitka, where cases have risen sharply over the last two weeks, 18 out of 60 recent cases reportedly involved vaccinated individuals. And two of the three cases identified last week in connection with a Southeast Alaska cruise involved people who were fully vaccinated; that cluster has now grown to 10 cases.
“We know what is the most effective tool that we have to prevent hospitalizations and deaths as well as cases, which is vaccination,” state epidemiologist Dr. Joe McLaughlin told reporters Thursday.
Vaccines were never touted as 100% effective at preventing illness or cases, but they are effective at preventing serious consequences from the disease, which Alaska’s recent data reflects. A small number of cases among vaccinated people is expected, health officials say.
Of the 656 breakthrough cases identified from February through June, 17 people were hospitalized and two people died with COVID-19, though health officials noted that they both had other “substantial comorbidities.”
The relatively small number of breakthrough cases, out of more than 15,000 total cases reported in that timeframe, indicates that the vast majority of people testing positive for the virus aren’t fully vaccinated.
By comparison, during the same five-month period, 391 people who were not fully vaccinated were hospitalized with the virus and 58 died.
Officials continue to emphasize that getting vaccinated against the virus is critical. While half of the state’s population is vaccinated, they make up around 1% of COVID-19 hospitalizations; unvaccinated individuals make up 99% of hospitalizations.
Millions of vaccine doses have been administered nationwide, which officials say demonstrates both its safety and effectiveness, officials said.
Nationally, out of roughly 157 million fully vaccinated people in the country, 4,909 had been hospitalized with COVID-19 and 988 had died by early July, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The breakthrough case deaths account for a fraction of the nearly 600,000 total COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. at that point in time.
Alaska officials find vaccine breakthrough cases by checking whether people with positive test results are listed in the state’s vaccine database, or for someone who may have had a vaccine elsewhere, officials will seek that information during an interview and contact tracing, said Dr. Louisa Castrodale, an epidemiologist with the state.
About 52% of the Alaska breakthrough cases studied in the new report occurred among people who showed symptoms of the virus while 38% were asymptomatic. For the remaining 10%, it was unknown whether they were exhibiting symptoms.
The reasons that vaccinated people got tested in the first place varied. Some were experiencing symptoms with no known exposure (23%) while others had known exposures to COVID-19 (21%). Other reasons for testing include routine testing/employer requirements (19%), travel screenings (11%) and pre-appointment screenings (7%). About 18% had an unknown reason for testing.
Going into spring this year, cases in Alaska were high. They started to drop as more people completed their vaccination series, Castrodale said.
Public health officials have credited the COVID-19 vaccines with preventing a lot of illness, especially during a time when other measures like social distancing and mask mandates were being dropped.
Of the 200 breakthrough cases that state health officials analyzed for a possible variant of the virus, 73 involved a variant of concern, including 54 instances of the alpha variant and 15 of the delta variant.
The delta variant is considered the most transmissible version of the virus, though vaccines are highly effective against it, McLaughlin said. The variant is probably playing a role in increasing transmission statewide, he said.
“We really want to do whatever we can to do underscore the importance of vaccination, especially as we start to see the delta variant taking a foothold in Alaska,” McLaughlin said.
Sen. Lora Reinbold walks the halls of the legislature before an announcement from Senate leadership that she had been stripped of most of her committee positions on Tuesday, January 21, 2020 in Juneau, Alaska. In late April 2021, Reinbold was banned from Alaska Airlines for refusing to follow mask-wearing requirements. (Photo by Rashah McChesney/KTOO)
Alaska Airlines said Saturday that it banned state Sen. Lora Reinbold, R-Eagle River, from its flights for continuing to refuse to follow mask-wearing requirements for travelers.
“We have notified Senator Lora Reinbold that she is not permitted to fly with us for her continued refusal to comply with employee instruction regarding the current mask policy,” spokesman Tim Thompson said by email.
“This suspension is effective immediately, pending further review. Federal law requires all guests to wear a mask over their nose and mouth at all times during travel, including throughout the flight, during boarding and deplaning, and while traveling through an airport,” he said.
The ban had cast uncertainty on how Reinbold might rejoin the Alaska Senate when legislative work resumes Monday. No other airline has regularly scheduled direct flights between Anchorage and Juneau.
But Reinbold embraced an alternate travel solution: Over the weekend, she drove more than 700 miles from her home in Eagle River through a swath of Alaska and part of the Yukon to the Southeast town of Haines, where she caught a five-hour ferry ride to Juneau.
She was on the Senate floor at the state Capitol on Monday morning.
In a Sunday Facebook post, she also wrote, “I have a new appreciation for the marine ferry system (and) am keenly aware of a monopoly in air transport to Juneau that needs reviewed!” She did not answer a text message asking whether she drove to Haines or Skagway, which both had scheduled ferry service to Juneau on Sunday afternoon.
Thompson, with Alaska Airlines, said the length of Reinbold’s ban will be determined after a review. Alaska Airlines has banned 506 people as of Friday.
Reinbold said in a message to a Daily News reporter Saturday — after telling an anti-mask group she was en route to Juneau by car — that she had not been notified of a ban.
In the state Capitol on Monday, she said she had received a message either Friday or Saturday from the airline. Thompson said he was not able to provide a copy of the notice sent to Reinbold, “but the notice was received.”
“I hope to be on an Alaska Airlines flight in the near future,” Reinbold said earlier Saturday.
Reinbold has been vocal in her objections to COVID-19 mitigation measures in the Alaska Capitol and in public and has repeatedly objected to Alaska Airlines’ mask policy, which was enacted in 2020 before the federal government began requiring masks aboard aircraft and public transportation earlier this year.
Last year, she referred to airline staff as “mask bullies” and the airline itself as “part of mask tyranny” after being asked by Alaska Airlines flight attendants to wear a mask aboard a flight. After the incident, she sent a cake to some airline flight attendants. The cake bore an inscription saying, “I’m sorry if I offended you.”
The airline’s ban comes after an incident this week at Juneau International Airport in which Reinbold was recorded apparently arguing with airport and Alaska Airlines staff about the mask policies.
A video posted to social media by the Alaska Landmine website appears to show part of the incident. A Juneau Police Department officer responded to the scene.
“JPD has an officer staffed at the airport full time, so we would be present or in the area of any issues there, but we didn’t take any enforcement action,” said Lt. Krag Campbell, a spokesman for the department.
The airport’s manager said surveillance video of the incident would be released only by court order.
Reinbold addressed the situation in a text message.
“I was reasonable with all Alaska Airlines employees,” she said. “I have been flying on Alaska Air for decades and am an MVP Gold (frequent flyer). I inquired about mask exemption with uptight employees at the counter.”
She said the timing of the complaint “and a specific employee” is of keen interest.
“I have been assured this (will) be looked into,” she said.
Reinbold was able to board a flight to Anchorage and said it was a “pleasant, safe flight with happy flight attendants and great, talented pilots.”
An Alaska Army National Guard helicopter responded to the helicopter crash in the Chugach Mountains, near the Knik Glacier, Sunday, March 28, 2021. (Alaska Mountain Rescue Group photo via Alaska State Troopers)
A helicopter that crashed Saturday evening near the Knik Glacier, killing five of six people aboard, just missed clearing the top of a mile-high mountain ridge, according to federal investigators.
The Airbus AS350B3 carried two guides and three clients from a lodge on a heli-skiing expedition in the steep, snowy backcountry of the Chugach Mountains near Palmer.
Among those killed, along with the Soloy Helicopters pilot, were a billionaire businessman considered one of the wealthiest men in Europe, along with luminaries in the worlds of snowboarding and heli-skiing.
Investigators say they’re just starting to examine what caused the helicopter to slam into an unnamed 6,000-foot peak, just 10 or 15 feet from the top of a ridge.
Killed in the crash were: Gregory Harms, 52, of Colorado; Petr Kellner, 56, and Benjamin Larochaix, 50, both of the Czech Republic; and two Alaskans, Sean McManamy, 38, of Girdwood, and the pilot, Zachary Russell, 33, of Anchorage, according to Alaska State Troopers.
The lone survivor — David Horváth, a 48-year-old Czech snowboarder — was in serious condition Monday at Providence Alaska Medical Center, a hospital spokesman said. No additional information was immediately available about the extent of Horváth’s injuries.
The helicopter crashed about 21 miles southeast Palmer on a mountain between Metal Creek and Grasshopper Valley, above the Knik Glacier. The remote crash site and a pending snowstorm made for a challenging recovery effort, federal officials say.
An investigator managed to get photographs of the wreckage before snowfall obscured the site, National Transportation Safety Board officials said during a briefing Monday.
“We wanted to document the area to the best of our ability before the snow came,” said the safety board’s Alaska chief, Clint Johnson, on Sunday after returning from the scene.
‘Chasing the dream’
The helicopter carried three guests and two guides from Tordrillo Mountain Lodge, said lodge spokeswoman Mary Ann Pruitt. The lodge contracted with Soloy for all helicopter services.
Soloy, a longtime family-owned business based at Wasilla’s airport, declined to comment Monday. Soloy provides various charter services with a fleet of 19 helicopters.
Soloy Helicopters is headquartered Wasilla Airport. Photographed on Monday, March 29, 2021 (Marc Lester / ADN)
Tordrillo Mountain Lodge is about 60 miles northwest of Anchorage, across Cook Inlet. The lodge bills itself as a luxury multi-sport resort, and offers guided heli-ski packages through the winter that start at $15,000 per person.
A statement from lodge said this was the first time in its 17 years in business “we’ve had to face an event of this measure.”
In an Instagram post Saturday, Harms said Horváth and friends were riding in the North Chugach.
“After a huge effort to get here @daviddhc and crew are back in Alaska chasing the dream of endless winter and shredding with good friends,” said the post by Harms’ company, Third Edge Heli.
The helicopter’s last signal broadcast around 6:35 p.m. Saturday, officials said during Monday’s media briefing. The helicopter was reported overdue around 8:30 p.m. Another operator participating in the search found the wreckage at about 9:30 p.m.
Harsh terrain made it impossible for National Transportation Safety Board investigators to reach the crash site and snowfall was expected, board member Tom Chapman said during the briefing.
The scene of the helicopter crash in the Chugach Mountains, near the Knik Glacier, Sunday, March 28, 2021. (Alaska Mountain Rescue Group photo via Alaska State Troopers)
So troopers flew Johnson to the crash site, where he shot photos of the wreckage before snow covered it, Chapman said. Johnson described the helicopter impacting the mountain at about 5,500 feet, just below the ridge line, before rolling 800 or 900 feet downhill.
Troopers, several Alaska National Guard units, the Rescue Coordination Center, and members of the Alaska Mountain Rescue Group assisted in the rescue and recovery.
Volunteers with the Alaska Mountain Rescue Group are on the scene of the helicopter crash in the Chugach Mountains near the Knik Glacier, Sunday, March 29, 2021. (Alaska Mountain Rescue Group photo via Alaska State Troopers)
The NTSB will examine weather, recording devices, mechanical aspects and human performance, said Chapman, who said preliminary reports described relatively clear weather in the area and the helicopter was believed to carry a recording device.
“Our mission (is) to understand not just what happened but why. And to recommend changes to prevent it from happening again,” he said during the briefing, according to a transcript.
International attention
Word of the crash, a rarity in the heli-ski industry, quickly spread around the world.
In this Sunday, August 23, 2020 file photo, PPF’s main shareholder Petr Kellner watches as his daughter Anna Kellnerova and horse Catch Me If You Can Old compete during the equestrian CET Prague Cup, CSIO Grand Prix, in Prague, Czech Republic. Kellner was one of the five people, including the pilot who died in the accident on Saturday, March 27, 2021. One person onboard survived. (Roman Vondrous/CTK via AP, File)
Kellner owned a 98.93% stake in the PPF Group, an international investment company, according to the Associated Press. The group operates in 25 countries in Europe, Asia and North America with assets of $52 billion. PPF Group confirmed Kellner’s death.
“His professional life was known for his incredible work ethic and creativity, but his private life belonged to his family,” a message posted on the PPF Group website said.
The funeral is planned for only close family members, and the company asked the media to respect the privacy of the family.
Kellner and Larochaix “were loyal and frequent” guests at the lodge, Pruitt said in an email to the Associated Press.
She did not immediately respond to additional questions emailed Monday.
Benjamin Larochaix, 50, was an experienced snowboarder from Saint-Martin-de-Belleville, France, the Le Dauphiné newspaper reported. The Alaska State Troopers had described Larochaix as being from the Czech Republic.
The French newspaper described Larochaix as a slopestyle snowboarder and coach, as well as the father of French snowboarders Thaile and Noé Larochaix. In a profile on the website of Belgium’s Verdad Snowboards, Larochaix said the Tordrillo Mountains were some of his favorite in the world.
‘Going to these incredible locations’
Members of Alaska’s close-knit, heli-ski community expressed shock and sadness at the sudden loss of several luminaries in a rare crash.
Greg Harms, 52, of Colorado, was a pioneer in the heli-skiing world, said his friend Chris Davenport, an Aspen-based skier and guide.
Greg Harms, pictured during a Jan. 2015 interview with Aspen 82. Harms was among five people who died in a helicopter crash Saturday, March 27, 2021 near the Knik Glacier. (Aspen 82)
Harms had been guiding for 23 years and was known as one of the most experienced and respected ski guides in the industry, famous for taking skiers to unfrequented mountains where they could go “deeper, further, do something a little more interesting,” Davenport said.
Nominally based out of Aspen, he lived a nomadic skiing life following the best snow: Colorado in early winter, Alaska in the spring, the Andes in the summertime. Harms had recently become a father, according to Davenport.
“His clients would follow him, he was kind of the Pied Piper of heli-skiing, going to these incredible locations,” Davenport said.
In the 1990s, Harms survived a helicopter accident in Chile that killed two people, Davenport said.
In general, however, avalanches are seen as a much bigger risk than aviation crashes, he said. “When I first heard Greg had been killed, my initial thought was that it was an avalanche. That’s typically what gets us out in the mountains.”
On Sunday, dozens of people who knew Harms gathered in Aspen and skied a run in his honor. ”His passing leaves a big hole in the heli-ski industry,” Davenport said.
Sean McManamy, 38, was originally from Hanover, New Hampshire, but had moved to Alaska more than a decade ago to attend Alaska Pacific University and guide for Mountain Trip, a Colorado-based company that leads Denali mountaineering trips.
Sean McManamy (in yellow jacket) is pictured in the back seat of a helicopter in the San Juan Mountains in Colorado. McManamy was killed in a helicopter crash near the Knik Glacier, Saturday, March 27, 2021. (Photo by Bill Allen / Mountain Trip)
He guided more than 15 trips on Denali, along with heli-skiing work in the winter, said Bill Allen, the owner of Mountain Trip. More recently, he’d worked as operations manager for Mountain Trip.
McManamy was known for gentle humor and positivity, Allen said. He was married to a fellow Alaska mountain and heli-skiing guide. “He was the heart and soul of our operation in Anchorage,” said Allen.
Russell was a certified instrument helicopter pilot and flight instructor whose positions included one as an instructor with a Bend, Oregon, company.
He started flying with Soloy in February 2019, according to a post on his Facebook page.
“It’s definitely the job I’ve wanted since I started flying, so stoked to be working for Soloy!” Russell said in response to supportive comments. “Special thanks to all you who have helped me get here!”
Both Harms and McManamy were scheduled to start working with Valdez Heli-Ski Guides next week until the season ended in May, said owner Jeff Fraser.
This would have been McManamy’s first season. Harms had worked with the company for years, bringing his clients to ski rather than working full-time, Fraser said.
He couldn’t remember a fatal heli-ski crash in decades.
“Alaska is the best terrain on earth. It takes the highest level of guiding to do it safely and it takes the highest level of piloting,” Fraser said. “We don’t use Soloy, but I’m sure just like with our pilots, there’s a hundred of them that want to be heli-ski pilots but only the top two or three are good enough.”
Andy Teuber listens to discussion during a meeting of the University of Alaska Board of Regents in Anchorage in September 2019. (Marc Lester / ADN archive)
A week ago, one of Alaska’s most powerful executives abruptly resigned from his job leading the largest tribal health organization in the state. Neither the outgoing president nor the group said why.
Earlier that day, his former assistant had delivered a scathing three-page letter to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium that described a pattern of abusive behavior, harassment and coerced sexual encounters by president Andy Teuber, according to the document, obtained by the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica.
The woman, Savanah Evans, who is 27, delivered her own resignation letter on Feb. 23, describing workplace abuse, harassment and intimidation at the hands of Teuber, who is 52.
“Andy unrelentingly coerced, forced, and required sex of me,” Evans wrote in her letter. In a phone interview Monday, she told the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica that much of the abuse took place in ANTHC offices, and that it derailed her personal and professional life.
Evans gave her permission to be named in this article, saying she wants to end a cycle of abuse.
Savanah Evans is a former special assistant to the chairman and president of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. Photographed on Monday, March 1, 2021. (Bill Roth / ADN)
“If I don’t speak up,” she wrote in her resignation letter, “I will be no less guilty than those who have done nothing but swept it under the rug.”
Teuber’s departure follows the recent resignations of two consecutive Alaska attorneys general, Kevin Clarkson and Ed Sniffen, and of Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, all following allegations of inappropriate interactions with women. Clarkson apologized for sending hundreds of text messages to a junior state employee, including some inviting her to his home. Sniffen has not responded to requests for comment about allegations that three decades ago he had sex with an underage high school student when he was her mock trial coach. Berkowitz acknowledged “unacceptable personal conduct” after a TV news reporter disclosed that he had sent her nude selfies.
In an email Monday, Teuber denied the allegations, saying he had a “completely consensual personal relationship.” In a separate email, Teuber said that Evans often initiated the sexual encounters between them. Evans, in turn, says that Teuber is the one who insisted their sexual relationship continue even after she wanted it to stop.
Teuber wrote that he couldn’t respond to some specific allegations about ANTHC, its employees or its practices because of strict confidentiality provisions he agreed to as part of his former position.
“I have never, and would never, engage in a non-consensual or ‘quid pro quo’ personal relationship with anyone,” he wrote. “The allegations of wrongdoing that I have been made aware of are false, and these allegations and their timing appear designed to portray me unjustly and falsely; to damage my personal and family relationships; but especially to sabotage my recent engagement and new marriage; and to undermine my professional prospects.”
Evans and her attorney, Jana Weltzin, said they were not aware that Teuber was engaged or had gotten married.
ANTHC spokesperson Shirley Young said the tribal health organization is conducting an “independent outside” investigation, but that the organization could not comment on specific allegations, citing personnel confidentiality rules.
Alaska law does not prohibit sexual relationships between supervisors and subordinates, and ANTHC’s policies do not explicitly prohibit them either. The organization’s policy on personal relationships in the workplace requires supervisors to disclose any sexual relationship with “an individual within their chain of command or area of influence” to the human resources department. It also requires employees who are in a relationship to behave professionally “during work hours and within the working environment.”
Teuber was not Evans’ direct supervisor even though she was his direct assistant, Weltzin said. Young said she could not comment on whether Teuber disclosed any kind of relationship with Evans, as would be required by the rule, citing personnel confidentiality rules.
Rebecca G. Pontikes, a Boston attorney who specializes in representing workers in gender-based employment discrimination and sexual harassment cases, said some companies go further and ban sexual relationships between supervisors and subordinates. Such relationships, if they aren’t consensual, would amount to sexual harassment, which is illegal in the workplace under federal employment law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, she said.
Teuber wrote that he would participate in the investigation and planned to offer “evidence refuting the allegations of wrongdoing made against me.” Evans said she possesses a “massive” number of text messages and one or more recordings that substantiate her claims. Teuber said he would forward video files and a “volume of exchanges” to the news organizations, but he had not done so as of Tuesday afternoon. Evans and her attorney declined to provide a copy of an audio recording that had been provided to board members, and did not respond to requests to see the text messages.
For more than a decade, Teuber was the president of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and one of the most powerful executives in Alaska.
The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium in Anchorage on March 1, 2021. (Emily Mesner / ADN)
ANTHC is “the largest, most comprehensive Tribal health organization in the United States,” according to its website, and it has a far-reaching impact in Alaska: The organization co-owns and manages the Alaska Native Medical Center, a major trauma hospital in Anchorage, as well as providing health services to more than 170,000 Alaska Native people and communities across the state.
The organization has more than 3,000 employees, making it one of the largest health employers in Alaska.
Teuber was paid a salary of more than $1 million per year to oversee ANTHC, at the same time serving as chief executive of the Kodiak Area Native Association, a regional tribal health provider. He served on other powerful boards, including the Alaska Federation of Natives, and he was a member of the University of Alaska Board of Regents. He resigned both of those roles last week as well.
Alaska has the highest rate of sexual assault in the United States, particularly among Alaska Native women.
A sexual relationship
Soon after she started work as Teuber’s special assistant in October 2019, Evans said she received a request for an “inappropriate photo” while on a work trip to Kodiak with Teuber, which she refused to provide. Their sexual relationship began the same month, according to the resignation letter. Within a month or two, Evans said she told Teuber she did not want to continue having sex with him, she said in an interview.
Teuber denied the allegation.
“After she made her interest plainly known, we did engage in intimate relations, which were always willing, voluntary and consensual, and often initiated by Ms. Evans,” Teuber wrote in an email.
The two continued to have sex. Evans said she was required to bring paperwork to Teuber’s home office.
“(On) my first trip to deliver papers for his signature, he pushed me into the downstairs front bedroom for sex and told me that, ‘You always listen better after I fuck you,’” she wrote to the board members.
“You may wonder if this relationship was consensual,” she wrote. “It is not, if the person controls your employment.”
In one instance, Evans wrote that “(Teuber) wouldn’t get off of me to let me leave.”
“Later he texted me, simply saying ‘I’m sorry; that wasn’t cool.’”
Teuber denied that any sexual encounter between the two was not consensual.
Another time, Teuber and the woman had a sexual encounter inside the ANTHC boardroom executive suite, she wrote.
Teuber denies this happened.
“This is another degrading, dehumanizing example of the requirement to keep my job,” she wrote. “Any time I tried to ignore his calls or texts during my personal non-work private time, he would swear at me, demand responses, and threaten me by referring to my job and stating that I have it because of him.”
Teuber responded: “I did at times express myself strongly to Ms. Evans, but all such expressions were job performance related.”
Teuber said in an email that he resigned “a few minutes” after he learned of the allegations against him. He did not answer questions about why he resigned.
“I am a single mother of a 4-year-old daughter. I am an Athabascan from the Koyukon Region,” Evans wrote to the 15-member ANTHC board. She said she appreciated the opportunity to work for the organization and acknowledged that her complaint about Teuber’s behavior would normally be sent to a human resources department, not the board of directors.
In her resignation letter, Evans said that ANTHC has tolerated and enabled similar abuse in the past.
Teuber wrote that he was not aware of any prior allegations against him.
ANTHC did not respond to questions about any past reports of abuse. In a written statement Monday, incoming chairperson Bernice Kaigelak said the organization “will not tolerate harassment of any kind.”
“As the new chair, I am committed to a harassment-free workplace,” Kaigelak said. “This is particularly important given the rate of sexual harassment or abuse of Alaska Native women. All complaints of harassment will be investigated, and prompt action will be taken when issues are identified, regardless about whom they are directed.”
A member of the Alaska House of Representatives is facing criticism and is apologizing after delivering a speech on the House floor this week that included sexist remarks about the appearance of a female colleague.
Rep. Zack Fields, an Anchorage Democrat, spoke Wednesday to wish happy birthday to Rep. Sara Rasmussen, an Anchorage Republican. Lawmakers often give speeches celebrating birthdays of their colleagues, and they frequently include jokes in their remarks.
After praising Rasmussen, Fields said he had “recently become aware of a problem caused by the representative in her home district — a problem related to the risk of automobile collisions in her neighborhood.”
Fields then quoted from what he later said was a Facebook post by one of Rasmussen’s constituents: “Sara can wear a short skirt and stop traffic in Anchorage once the spring clothes can be worn.”
To recognize the need for traffic safety, Fields said, legislators would be giving Rasmussen a pair of sweatpants for her birthday.
“Madam speaker, I know we all share this voter’s concern about traffic safety, particularly in a neighborhood like Sand Lake where so many children walk to school,” Fields said, glancing across the House chamber toward Rasmussen. “Furthermore, I know nobody in this chamber would be so judgmental as to condemn a colleague for just being as the good Lord made her.
“Nonetheless, this being her birthday, and having heard concerns about safety in her neighborhood, I wanted to let my friend from Sand Lake know that her colleagues and I have teamed up to purchase her a pair of sweatpants that she can wear when she returns to the district this spring. It’s the least we can do for the safety of her residents. Happy birthday to our dear friend.”
As video clips of the speech spread on social media, Fields posted an apology on his legislative Facebook page, but respondents said it was inadequate.
“Commenting on the appearance of and sexualizing a female colleague in front of the entire legislature, in addition to buying her a humiliating gift, was the sexist part,” wrote Jo Richter, one of many people who responded.
“I believe that it was intended to be a light-hearted compliment, but like many ‘compliments’ women receive on their appearance at work, it was deeply sexist,” she wrote.
Fields said later he was trying to make fun of the social media comment about Rasmussen but failed.
“It’s a tricky thing to use humor to critique gender stereotypes. How do you do that without reinforcing them? I think I failed to do that,” Fields said.
Minutes before Fields’ speech, Rasmussen had spoken on the floor about the need to reform the House’s Women’s Caucus, in part because women in Alaska face challenges from domestic violence and sexual assault.
“It is up to us to set the example for ourselves and future generations,” she said.
Rasmussen said she received a call from Fields soon after the floor session, and that he apologized for what he said.
“I’ve accepted his apology and hope to move on from it,” she said.
She said she believes he didn’t intend any insult, but the speech — and the social media comment that led up to it — demonstrate a continued double standard in which it is not acceptable to attribute a man’s success to his appearance, but it is acceptable to do so for a woman.
“There’s still a lot that needs to be done to change our culture and respect women at the same level that men are already respected naturally,” she said.
