KFSK - Petersburg

Two men suing the Petersburg borough, a local police officer, a regional narcotics task force and state law enforcement are trying to broaden the lawsuit into a class action that would allow more plaintiffs to become involved.

The lawsuit challenges the secrecy of search warrants for law enforcement investigations that do not result in criminal charges. If it ends up going to trial, the case won’t go before a jury until next year.

The plaintiffs in the case are former Petersburg resident Danny Thompson, who has moved to Washington state and a current resident Greg Richeson. The two men say in separate investigations in 2013 Petersburg police officers obtained search warrants and seized property from their homes.The plaintiffs say the police seized coins, guns, computers, electronics, cameras, cell phones, personal papers, jewelry and other private property and did not return the items for years.

Thompson said his belongings have been returned; about four years later, Richeson still is waiting for the return of his possessions.

Attorney Fred Triem argued in late July that the suit should be a class action.

“There’s hundreds of people throughout the state of Alaska who are in the same position as the two plaintiffs here,” Triem said. “They’ve been served with warrants. Their stuff has been taken away and they cannot get the warrant file or access to it because the only way they can get access is if the police filed a criminal case as a result of the warrant based on information they obtained when they served the warrant, then but only then the defendant can go in and see his warrant file. Otherwise it remains sealed.”

Attorneys for the state and Petersburg borough say Richeson’s items have not been returned because he is the target of an ongoing investigation by the Petersburg Police Department.

Triem disputes that he is.

As for Thompson, charges were forwarded to the Juneau district attorney’s office in 2015, but dismissed by the office and his property was returned.

Alaska law requires police to obtain a search warrant from a judge or magistrate judge and spells out the reasons for issuing a warrant.

Police are required to give the owner of property seized a copy of the warrant, a copy of the supporting affidavit for obtaining the warrant and a receipt for the property taken. Police also are required to make an inventory of property seized.

Search warrants become part of the public record once a criminal case is filed in court.

However, according to the state’s court rules, search warrants, affidavits, receipts and inventories are kept sealed, and not part of the public record for four years if no criminal case is filed.

Someone who has had property seized can request an inventory of those items but that unsealing request needs approval by a judge.

The plaintiffs are seeking disclosure of court files in all search warrants and argue that Alaska’s court rules are a violation of the state’s constitution.

The defendants in the suit are the Petersburg borough, local police officer Kalin Rosse and the Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs or SEACAD, a cooperative drug enforcement effort involving the Alaska State Troopers and police departments around Southeast.

Also named in the suit are former Sitka police chief Sheldon Schmitt and Chris Russell of the Alaska State Troopers for their administrative role with SEACAD.

Superior court judge William Carey earlier this year denied a motion by Triem to add new plaintiffs to suit as well as adding other regional narcotics task forces from around Alaska as defendants.

Carey did agree to add the Statewide Drug Enforcement Unit and Alaska Department of Public Safety as defendants.

Assistant attorney general Marianna Carpeneti, representing those state agencies and trooper Russell, argued that the case should not be a class action.

“As for Mr. Thompson, he has admitted that all of his property has been returned to him,” Carpeneti said. “It’s totally unclear and the plaintiffs have not explained how a person who had all their property returned to them is an adequate representative of a group of people whose main complaint is their property hasn’t been returned to them.”

The plaintiffs also have entered in the court record numbers of search warrants known to be filed at the Petersburg court between 2012 and 2015, with the number of those not referenced in a criminal case.

The data was compiled by former deputy magistrate Cris Morrison who’s now working as a paralegal for Triem.

She found that the court authorized 42 to 64 warrants a year and in those years about half to three-quarters or more of the warrants were not referenced in a criminal charge.

Carpeneti argued those numbers weren’t proof of the need for a class action.

“What has been brought forward by the plaintiffs is an affidavit which relates to search warrants and whether the search warrants were later referenced in criminal cases,” Carpeneti said. “But that evidence doesn’t show a pattern of law enforcement whether at the municipal or state level engaging in a practice of taking people’s property and not returning it.”

Timothy Bowman, representing the Petersburg borough and police officer Rosse, argued that Triem has not shown a common group of people with the same complaint.

“We don’t know whether or not this is the kind of stuff that the subject of warrants would even want to have returned,” Bowman said.

“Isn’t it fair to assume people want their stuff back?” Carey asked.

“Well, I think Ms. Carpeneti made a great point,” Bowman responded. “I mean, why does somebody wanna have a DNA sample returned? The information that’s provided by the plaintiffs, there’s no indication. We don’t know if those are hundreds of such cases. I mean, probably not. The burden is on the plaintiff to demonstrate a class. They just simply haven’t done that.”

Cases have to meet certain legal standards to earn class action status. Such a finding would allow plaintiffs beyond Thompson and Richeson to become part of the case, with the case argued on behalf of a larger group of people who have a common complaint.

The defendants argue the practice of seizing evidence is a critical to law enforcement investigations everywhere.

Those attorneys are asking the judge to rule in the defendants’ favor before the case goes to

trial. Carey said he expected to rule on that motion relatively soon.

A jury trial had been scheduled for this August but has been rescheduled for February 20, 2018. Attorneys expected a trial would take about a week.

Charging documents state that a seizure caused an accident that left two people dead July 4th last year.

The driver in a van accident, William Christopher “Chris” Allen, 24, is facing murder and manslaughter charges.

Prosecutors filed a new charge against Allen, alleging he lied on applications for a driver’s license by not disclosing a history of past seizures.

It was a nearly full courtroom with family, friends and co-workers of both the defendant and the victims of the accident.

Allen was in custody and took part in the hearing on the phone from Fairbanks.

On the same day of the arraignment, assistant attorney general Adrienne Bachman filed a new charge against him: a second-degree misdemeanor charge of unsworn falsification.

A court document explaining the allegation says Allen suffered from a “well-documented seizure disorder dating back to at least November 1, 2011.”

Alaska State Troopers collected evidence in the case.

The state alleges Allen had seizures in Idaho, multiple times in Petersburg and was on anti-seizure medication.

The charging document alleges some of the seizures happened while Allen was working for the Petersburg Parks and Recreation Department.

It also alleges supervisors there adopted a plan to have a second employee with him at all times, doctors told him he should not be driving and a doctor also contacted Allen’s supervisor at work to warn that he should not drive.

That was a little over three months before the accident.

Allen was driving a Parks and Rec van on July 4 with three other employees.

The charging document state his seizure “began while driving through downtown Petersburg. He stared straight forward and did not respond to passengers who were yelling at him to slow down. His eventual speed was estimated at 52 mph in a 30 mph zone. Allen was headed toward a cement retaining wall with his hands still gripping the wheel when he suddenly slumped over into the passenger area. The van veered sharply to the right, vaulting over a guardrail and crashing upside down into an embankment. The two back seat passengers were killed but the front seat passenger was propelled into the wheel well space below the front dashboard. The upper half of the van was crushed to the bottom of the window openings.”

Molly Parks and Marie Giesbrecht were killed in the crash, while another passenger Catherine Cardenas was injured.

The four were preparing to help with the community’s Independence Day celebration.

Allen already had been indicted on two charges of murder in the second degree, two manslaughter charges and one charge of assault.

He pleaded not guilty to all six.

Bachman requested bail be kept at the initial amount of $50,000.

“Fifty-thousand dollars and a court approved third party custodian is appropriate,” Bachman said. “Mr. Allen has ties to Alaska, he has parents and a wife. But given the gravity of the offense and some of the history that’s documented in the probable cause statement with the filing today, I think substantial monetary bail and a court approved monitor for Mr. Allen is appropriate.”

Allen testified he has been on worker’s compensation since the accident and based on his finances he was appointed a public defender.

Assistant public defender Jay Hochberg asked for lower bail amount.

“The fact is he’s been at liberty for well over a year,” Hochberg said. “He’s not any more dangerous today then he was a month ago or six months ago. Yes, the charges are serious and, yes, he will face them. But 50,000 is an astonishing amount of money that no reasonable person can afford. You’d have to be quite wealthy to even come close to that.”

Hochberg said Allen and his wife been living with his parents in Fairbanks since the accident.

He also noted the community support on display for the defendant in the courtroom.

Allen’s father Perry testified that the family and his son had cooperated with the investigation of the local police and Alaska State Troopers.

Superior court judge William Carey was not swayed and agreed on the bail amount of $50,000.

“I’m supposed to consider the nature and circumstances of the offense charged,” Carey said. “The circumstances are certainly tragic and serious. I think the addition of the misdemeanor charge in this case today gives the court a better picture of what happened here. Frankly, I wasn’t quite sure.”

Carey explained he’s also required to consider the evidence in the case in determining the bail amount.

“There’s considerable evidence,” the judge said. “We essentially know what happened on July 4th of last year as far as the end result, if not all the explanation of it. But again, the filing of the misdemeanor count today does fill a lot of the blanks about that. I think that if anything that just gives the court more reason for being concerned.”

Carey required half the bail would be posted to ensure Allen appears in court and half to ensure he meets other requirements, including not driving or drinking alcohol, staying on his anti-seizure medication and having a third-party custodian approved by the court.

The bail set will be reviewed again in a review scheduled for Aug. 1st. No trial date has been set but that could be scheduled at another hearing Aug. 24.

The Petersburg borough has rejected applications for the recall of four borough assembly members.

The borough’s attorney has recommended against issuing recall petitions and defended the assembly’s decision to meet in May behind closed doors.

Borough Assembly members voted to hold a closed-door executive session May 30 to discuss the reorganization of borough department heads following the retirement of Petersburg’s electrical superintendent.

In early July a group of local residents turned in applications seeking a recall petition for assembly members Jeigh Stanton Gregor, Nancy Strand, Kurt Wohlhueter and Eric Castro.

Mayor Cindi Lagoudakis and Assembly member Bob Lynn were not the subject of recalls because they’re nearing the end of their terms and cant be recalled under state law.

Likewise new appointee Jeff Meucci is nearing the end of his appointed term. He was also not on the Assembly yet for that May 30 meeting.

The applicants alleged the meeting violated Alaska’s Open Meetings Act because the reasons given for the closed-door session were not specific enough and did not qualify for executive session under state law.

Borough attorney Sara Heideman disagreed with that contention.

Heideman cites past legal challenges on recall applications in Alaska in a six-page opinion on July 24.

Heideman writes that she advised the Assembly that it could go into executive session and suggested the language of the motion to go into a closed meeting.

She writes “Courts in other jurisdictions which also have ‘for cause’ limitations on the recall of public officials have held that public officials who rely on legal advice in connection with open meetings laws have not committed recallable offenses.”

Heideman recommended that the grounds for recall be found insufficient and that recall petition should not be issued.

Borough clerk Debbie Thompson agreed with that recommendation and notified the application sponsors July 24 that she would not be issuing petitions for recall.

Gary Morgan, the prime sponsor on the recall effort, said the sponsors of the applications will be meeting to decide their next steps.

“You can pretty much decide what way you wanna lean based upon different court decisions,” Morgan said of the case law cited on the issue. “What their attorney sent made sense. At this point we’re going to talk to our attorney. We’re gonna meet as a group and decide what we wanna do, whether we want to fight this first recall issue or if we want to file a new recall petition.”

Another option for the group is to have some candidates run for office this October.

Morgan thinks that may be the best option for a group of borough residents who don’t agree with the current borough Assembly.

“Maybe we’ll just wait and see how the next election goes and put our efforts into re-electing and balancing out this assembly,” Morgan said. “Our big concern is that the assembly isn’t listening to the citizens and representing them fairly.”

The month-long filing period for local candidates opened July 25.

Voters will be deciding on the borough’s next mayor along with two other seats on the Assembly.

For almost 30 years, the remote village of Kake has been running its annual summer Keex’ Kwaan Culture Camp – a chance for kids and adults to practice and celebrate Tlingit traditions.

It’s the longest running camp of its kind in Alaska.

This year, two young women are taking over the reins from a cherished elder and are bringing more Tlingit language to camp and into Kake.

Nae Brown, 32, is standing with a bunch of teenagers around a plastic fold-up table in the woods. It’s coated with deer legs, meat, and blood, and they are too. This buck was donated the night before.

“You guys going to boil these bones or what?” Brown asked. “From my experience, when you cut out the bones, you cut out the best part. You gotta boil the bones and then you can eat the [slurp]. What’s it called? Tsuk-ta something. That’s what it’s called. In Tlingit. That’s the best part.”

The word for bone marrow is on the tip of her tongue.

She has to look it up on her smartphone.

Brown is the new Tlingit language teacher at the public school in Kake.

She and her assistant, Teresa Moses, are at Culture Camp all week, trying to help the kids feel more comfortable speaking their Native tongue outside the classroom setting.

Neither woman grew up speaking the language, so they’re still learning too. They know how scary, and emotional, it can be at first.

“It’s like the more you learn, the less you know,” Moses said. “There’s that initial feeling of almost regret or guilt, but it’s really good for a Tlingit person’s spirit if they can push past that hurdle.”

Those feelings she mentions have deep roots.

Kake has been continuously inhabited by Tlingit people for thousands of years.

Forced assimilation in the 20th century meant that Native language and culture was put in something of a black box, for decades.

Lots of speakers went dormant. A few generations almost lost their language altogether.

Camper Dionna Jackson has heard those stories in her own family.

“It’s kind of hard to learn for everybody because of how history was back then – they couldn’t speak Tlingit on school grounds,” Jackson said.

I asked her if it was a story she’d heard from her grandparents.

“Yep – from my grandma,” Jackson said. “They said that every time they wanted to speak Tlingit they’d jump up in the air and say a word and then jump back down.”

But, like a lot of youth in Kake, Jackson is motivated to learn.

She actually volunteered to come practice some basic phrases when everyone else was hanging out near the fire.

She hopes she can have real conversations with her grandmother one day, who she says is excited that the language is resurfacing.

“It’s pretty cool – because history changes,” Jackson said.

For Brown and Moses, learning their language as adults really changed them. Brown got serious about studying it in college — she says that’s when everything started to shift.

“It’s in you,” Brown said. “Learning Tlingit gives you Tlingit Tundatánee. And it gives you a way of looking at the world that’s so different. It’s a true way of looking at the world as a Tlingit person. Like our old timers, like the people who came before us, and we want to give that to the people who are going to come after us also.”

Ruth Demmert, 79, is one of those old timers, or elders. She grew up in Kake, and is one of only four fluent speakers left in the village of about 550 people.

Demmert taught Tlingit in the schools for more 40 years. She retired last year – that’s when Nae Brown moved here from Anchorage with her family to take her place.

But Demmert can’t seem to stay away from camp.

“OK, we’re gonna do one word at a time,” Demmert said. “So repeat it after me. (Speaking in Tlingit) k̲a Haa K̲usteeyí, Haa Yoo X̲ʼatángi -– that means our way of life and our language. That’s what that sentence means.”

She’s sitting on a bench under a large tarp, with at least a dozen kids gathered cross-legged at her feet, teaching them a song.

This one is about the strength of the Tlingit people.

“You kind of have to read in between the words as you go along singing this because the respect, the values, it contains all that in this song. It’s all embedded in that song.” Demmert said.

Which is why – while language apps and new digital technologies are helping make Tlingit and other endangered indigenous languages more accessible to folks in rural, isolated places — they can never be a substitute for humans with hearts or memories.

For the new teachers though – that sense of urgency – to try to hold on not just to Tlingit language, but also their way of life, never goes away.

For now, Brown and Moses are doing their best to create immersion moments here at Culture Camp, and beyond.

“It’s not so much of a choice, but it’s something that just keeps drawing you back because we don’t speak Tlingit, is what I tell the kids. We are Tlingit,” Moses said. “No matter how much you push away from it, it will always draw you back.”

The driver of a van that crashed July 4, 2016, in Petersburg has been charged with murder and manslaughter for the deaths of two of young women in that accident.

A Juneau grand jury returned a five-count indictment Thursday against William Christopher “Chris” Allen, 24.

Allen faces two charges of second-degree murder and two charges of manslaughter for allegedly causing the death of Molly Parks, 18, and Marie Giesbrecht, 19.

Allen also is charged with first-degree assault. Another passenger, Catherine Cardenas, was injured in the accident.

The van belonged to the Petersburg borough and the four were working for the borough to help put on the Parks and Recreation Department’s Independence Day celebration.

The van went off the road near Petersburg’s South Harbor just before 7:30 that morning. Two were killed in the crash and two were injured.

All four are graduates of Petersburg High School.

Giesbrecht was the daughter of borough manager Steve Giesbrecht.

Following the accident, the Fourth of July celebration was canceled and the community held a candlelight vigil.

The Alaska State Troopers investigated the accident.

Allen was arrested July 21 in Fairbanks, according to Petersburg Police Department news release.

His bail was initially set at $50,000. The department release said, “our thoughts and prayers go out to all involved during this difficult time.”

He had a hearing Saturday before a judge in Fairbanks.

Allen is scheduled to be arraigned 3:30 p.m. Tuesday in Petersburg in front of superior court judge William Carey.

He is in custody in Fairbanks and will appear by telephone.

Allen’s attorney declined to comment on the charges.

Four of the six people on the Petersburg borough assembly could be facing a recall election.

A group of local residents has turned in applications to the borough seeking a recall petition for Assembly members Jeigh Stanton Gregor, Nancy Strand, Kurt Wohlhueter and Eric Castro.

The borough’s attorney is reviewing the applications.

The primary contacts on the recall application are Petersburg Municipal Power and Light employee Gary Morgan and former city mayor Ted Smith.

The application alleges the Assembly members violated Alaska’s Open Meetings Act at a meeting of the borough Assembly May 30 by going into a closed-door, executive session.

That session was to discuss the re-organization of the borough department heads following the retirement of Power and Light superintendent Joe Nelson last month.

The applicants allege the reasons given for the closed door session were not specific enough and did not qualify for executive session under state law.

“Basically, there are some exemptions that allow you to go into executive session but none of those qualifications were met,” Morgan said.

State law sets specific reasons for an elected body like a borough Assembly to hold a meeting closed to the public. They are only three: “(1) matters, the immediate knowledge of which would clearly have an adverse effect upon the finances of the government unit; (2) subjects that tend to prejudice the reputation and character of any person, provided the person may request a public discussion; and (3) matters which by law, municipal charter or ordinance are required to be confidential.”

Morgan does not think the May 30 meeting met those standards.

“Financial, it has to have a direct and adverse effect on the borough’s finances,” he said. “In this case having this meeting in the open wasn’t going to cost the borough any money. It’s a proposed restructuring. Personnel issues, you have specifically say one person or multiple people and those people have the right to decide if this is aired publicly if they so chose, or go into executive session. No one was named.”

Morgan has opposed the borough manager’s proposal to reorganize department heads and have the public works director take over supervision of the electrical department.

Among the others sponsors of the application are another former mayor, Mark Jensen.

He resigned as borough mayor in May over concerns with the proposed re-organization. Other sponsors are Jensen’s brother John, former city councilor Dave Israelson and current school board member Brandi Marohl.

Under Alaska state law, grounds for recall are misconduct in office, incompetence or failure to perform prescribed duties.

The Assembly had already had an open discussion on the issue at their prior meeting May 15.

Assembly members Stanton Gregor and Bob Lynn and mayor Jensen during that open discussion all expressed interest in having a closed-door executive session on the topic at their following meeting.

“I think I’d have felt much more comfortable if this was in executive session that so we can discuss other parts of this facets of this, rather than have this as a public discussion,” Lynn said at that May 15 meeting. “At the same time if you wanna have some job descriptions, alternative job descriptions available to go through ‘em and to argue out the points of one versus another.”

“I agree if this discussion goes any further if it’s going to hurt anybody’s reputation or whatever, it should be in executive session, should have been in executive session,” Jensen said. “I guess maybe I should have pushed the issue and we had it in executive session.”

Jensen resigned three days later.

The Assembly then held their closed door discussion during their meeting on May 30, whichlasted over an hour and included borough manager Steve Giesbrecht along with public works director Karl Hagerman.

Nancy Strand made the motion to go into the closed meeting May 30.

“The Assembly will adjourn to executive session to discuss potential financial, safety and personnel matters relating to the proposed restructuring of Petersburg’s electric utility,” Strand said.

Mayor Cindi Lagoudakis and Assembly member Lynn voted with the rest of the Assembly to go into that closed meeting. Those two are not subject to recall applications.

The terms for Lynn, Lagoudakis and new appointee Jeff Meucci all run out in October.

State law does not allow recall of someone within 180 days of their term ending.

Wohlhueter said he is not surprised by the recall but does not understand the reason behind it.

“It’s one of the processes I think that we allow our citizens to be able keep us in check you know,” Wohlhueter said. “It’s hard to fathom on what grounds seeing how we consulted with our attorney before we went ahead with the executive discussion to make sure we weren’t out of line and they told us that we weren’t out of line to go into executive session for the reasons that we stated that we were going to go into executive session for.”

Wohlhueter noted that some past elected officials are among those seeking the recall.

“They had the opportunity of not having to worry about where the money’s coming from. They had money coming in. Their only big worry was how they were gonna spend the money when it came in,” Wohlhueter said. “Now we’re trying to figure out where we’re gonna get the money and how we’re gonna spend it. There’s gonna be some changes for sure. It’s not an easy task at this point and I would applaud anybody who wants to take my place to step up because I’m certainly not the brightest bulb in the marquee.”

Stanton Gregor and Strand declined to comment on the recall applications and KFSK phoned and emailed Castro on Wednesday but did not hear back.

If recall petitions are issued, residents would have 60 days to collect signatures.

State law also sets time frames for when a special election would be required or if the question can appear on a general election ballot.

Petersburg’s last recall vote was in 2009, when Lee Corrao was removed from the city council over allegations of violating state open meeting law.

The borough election this October already will be deciding who will be Petersburg’s mayor and the other two Assembly seats not covered in the recall.