Former Juneau chiropractor Jeffrey Fultz sits during his sexual assault trial in Juneau on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (Photo by Yvonne Krumrey/KTOO)
State prosecutors will retry the sexual assault case against a former Juneau chiropractor facing 13 charges. They stated their intention to move forward at a hearing Tuesday.
Prosecutor Krystyn Tendy said the details of how many charges will be retried are still being determined.
It’s been nearly three weeks since the sexual assault trial against a former Juneau chiropractor ended with two acquittals and 14 charges declared mistrial. Last week, the judge in the case dismissed one of those charges. That means that though Jeffery Fultz wasn’t found guilty, the remaining 13 charges are still active. Those are the charges the state may retry.
More than a dozen former patients have accused Jeffrey Fultz of sexual assault under the guise of medical care between 2014 and 2020 while he worked at Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium in Juneau.
At a hearing Tuesday, Fultz’s attorneys said they are withdrawing from the case.
A representation hearing to determine Fultz’s future legal representation is scheduled for Sept. 30 at noon.
Former Juneau chiropractor Jeffrey Fultz (left) and his attorney James Christie (right) await the jury’s verdict in his sexual assault trial in Juneau on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (Photo by Yvonne Krumrey/KTOO)
After eight days of deliberation, the jury in a sexual assault trial against a former Juneau chiropractor returned a verdict of not guilty on two counts, and hung jury on 12 others on Thursday.
Twelve former patients accused Jeffrey Fultz of sexual assault under the guise of medical care. They say the incidents took place during medical appointments between 2014 and 2020 while he was employed at Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium in Juneau.
Fultz’s defense argued that he was offering legitimate medical care to these patients. His attorney said he was not available for comment Thursday afternoon.
Jamiann Hasselquist is one of more than a dozen women who filed charges against Fultz. He was acquitted of the charges associated with her complaints and she won’t be able to refile them.
“I thought that he was going to go in handcuffs after this whole time, you know, four years or so,” she said.
Jurors were unable to return a unanimous verdict on the 12 other counts. Those charges resulted in a mistrial. That means those charges, alongside two that were declared mistrial during proceedings, can be retried if the state chooses to do so.
Christina Love reported Fultz to Juneau police in 2021. At the courthouse Thursday, she said Fultz can leave Juneau, but she and other women are left without justice.
“He gets to hop on a plane, and there are 12 victims in this case that are left here holding it,” Love said. “That is absolutely earth shattering that we’re gonna have to do this all over again, like I can’t even comprehend it.”
Love said she plans to move forward with her charges.
“As long as he’s out walking, we’re going to keep trying to make sure that he’s never able to do this to anyone ever again, ever,” she said.
Hasselquist said she plans to support the women who plan to testify again.
The trial lasted six weeks. A status hearing to decide will happen next for the mistrial charges is scheduled for Sept. 23 at 10 a.m.
Charlene Aqpik Apok is the executive director of Data for Indigenous Justice, a nonprofit that requested a list of every Alaska Native murdered in the state over the past three years. The state said it doesn’t collect that information. (Marc Lester/ADN)
This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with the Anchorage Daily News. Sign up for Dispatches to get our stories in your inbox every week.
Leaders in Alaska and elsewhere have repeatedly promised action in recent years to address the nation’s chronic failure to solve the murder or disappearance of Indigenous people.
Federal legislation backed by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski called for improving data collection and information sharing among law enforcement and tribes. Gov. Mike Dunleavy said again and again and as recently as May 5 that the state government would work with Alaska Natives to address the crisis.
“My administration will continue to support law enforcement, victim advocacy groups, Alaska Native Tribes and other entities working together to solve these cases and bring closure to victims’ families,” Dunleavy said in a news release last year.
Yet when an Alaska Native group asked state law enforcement officials in June for one of the most fundamental pieces of data needed to understand the issue — a list of murders investigated by state police — the state said no.
Charlene Aqpik Apok launched Data for Indigenous Justice in 2020 after trying to collect the names of missing and murdered Indigenous people to read at a rally, only to discover no government agency had been keeping track. Over time, the nonprofit built its own homegrown database with the help of villagers, friends and family across the state.
In 2023, the state started publishing a list quarterly with names of Indigenous people reported missing. But the state still does not issue a list for the other key piece of the group’s efforts: Indigenous people who have been killed.
So on June 4, the nonprofit filed two public records requests with the Alaska Department of Public Safety concerning homicide cases the agency had investigated since 2022. The group asked first for victims of all races and then for those identified as Alaska Native.
Apok said she didn’t think the request was controversial or complicated.
But the state rejected the requests a week later. The agency said fulfilling the request would take “several hours” and cited a state regulation allowing a denial if providing information to a requester would require employees to “compile or summarize” existing public records.
“We do not keep lists of victims of any type of crime, including homicide victims, and to fulfil this request DPS would have to manually review incident reports from multiple years to create a record that matched what you are looking for,” Austin McDaniel, communications director for the department, wrote to the nonprofit.
McDaniel offered no direct response when the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica asked why the agency could not retrieve homicide records with a simple database query or why, even if the work required manual review and wasn’t required under state law, the agency didn’t simply create a list of homicide victims.
(Alaska’s public records law says any records that take state employees fewer than five hours to produce shall be provided for free, and the state can choose to waive research fees if providing records would serve the public interest. Even if an agency needs to create a new record, as McDaniel asserted in his denial, it’s allowed to “if the public agency can do so without impairing its functioning.”)
Data for Indigenous Justice appealed the denial to the head of the department, Public Safety Commissioner James Cockrell, who decided in favor of the agency.
The nonprofit’s records request and the state’s denial revealed that Alaska, four years after creating a council on murdered and missing Indigenous people, cannot readily identify murder cases involving Indigenous victims. The state now employs four investigators who focus on such cases.
“How do they know which cases are Alaska Native or Indigenous people for their MMIP investigators if they cannot do a simple pull of the demographics that we are talking about?” Apok said.
Apok said tracking complete and accurate data on Indigenous people who have disappeared or been killed matters because otherwise, law enforcement can shrug off individual cases and deny the scale of the problem.
“That’s the power of data. That’s the power of collective information,” she said.
Grace Norton holds a photo of her niece, Ashley Johnson-Barr, who was murdered in Kotzebue, Alaska, in 2018. Kotzebue residents walked along Shore Avenue and scattered rose petals in remembrance of missing and murdered Indigenous people in 2023. (Marc Lester/ADN)
In lieu of answering detailed questions for this story, McDaniel provided a one-page response saying that the department receives thousands of records requests each year. He said the agency is a “leader in data transparency” for missing and murdered Indigenous people, adding that “to imply that we are not invested in this work due to the denial of one records request from an advocacy group is absurd.”
He cited as examples of transparency the department’s publication of information about missing Indigenous people and its provision of law enforcement data to tribal governments in support of their requests for federal grants.
Anchorage, which runs the state’s largest municipal police department, recently reversed a policy that withheld the identities of certain homicide victims. The police chief released the records after Daily News reporting revealed the policy had no basis in law and was opposed by some victims’ rights advocates.
State troopers, meanwhile, handle about 38% of all murders in Alaska, according to statistics that law enforcement reports each year. From 2019 to 2023, the most recent data available, troopers investigated an average of 22 murders each year. That means the agency would likely need to review just a few dozen reports to provide the requested names.
Watershed reports published in Canada in 2017 and by the Seattle-based Urban Indian Health Institute in 2018 revealed the scope of the crisis of missing and murdered people from Indigenous communities.
Those reports, Apok said, “named exactly what a lot of us were seeing and feeling, where we didn’t know our experiences were part of a larger collective.”
In 2021, Data for Indigenous Justice published the first report on the crisis in Alaska, highlighting the failure of media and local governments to gather data on cases of missing and murdered people to analyze patterns. A council appointed by Dunleavy even relied on Apok’s findings — including her conclusion that little data is available — when trying to describe the scope of the problem.
Dunleavy and Murkowski have been vocal on the issue in the years since.
A spokesperson for the governor did not respond to emailed and hand-delivered questions about the state’s failure to provide names of homicide victims to Apok’s group. Told of the decision not to release the names, Murkowski’s office said the senator was unavailable for an interview and offered no comment on the state’s actions.
Apok said her group will continue making public records requests to the state while building its own database through community connections.
“We’re going to keep doing what we do,” she said. “People will keep telling us names.”
Roses are piled at the conclusion of a ceremony to remember missing and murdered Indigenous people in Anchorage in 2023. The event coincided with Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day, for which events were held nationwide. (Marc Lester / ADN)
Former Juneau Chiropractor Jeffrey Fultz and his defense team at the Dimond Courthouse in Juneau on Thursday, July 31, 2025. (Photo by Yvonne Krumrey/KTOO)
After a week of deliberation, the jury continues to consider the evidence in a sexual assault trial against a former Juneau chiropractor. As of Friday afternoon, the jurors had yet to return a verdict.
Twelve former patients accused Jeffrey Fultz of sexual assault under the guise of medical care. They say the incidents took place during medical appointments between 2014 and 2020 while he was employed at Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium in Juneau.
Fultz’s defense argued that he was offering legitimate medical care to these patients.
The jury has been deliberating 13 counts of sexual assault and one count of sexual harassment against Fultz.
When the trial started, there were two more counts of sexual assault associated with one alleged victim/complainant, but presiding Judge Larry Woolford declared a mistrial for those counts. Woolford said the state failed to disclose new evidence related to those charges.
Those charges can still be tried if state prosecutors choose to retry them.
Jury deliberation follows standard work hours, and will resume Tuesday after Labor Day. There is no time limit on how long the jury can deliberate.
If the jury convicts Fultz on any of the counts, there will be a sentencing hearing. That’s when Judge Woolford will determine Fultz’s penalty for these convictions. Convictions in sexual assault cases can lead to years in prison.
Attorneys James Christie and Krystyn Tendy speak with Judge Larry Woolford in an aside during the trial against Jeffrey Fultz on August 21, 2025. (Photo by Yvonne Krumrey/KTOO)
The trial against a former Juneau chiropractor accused of assaulting a dozen patients under the guise of medical care has ended, and jurors are set to begin deliberation.
The former patients that accuse Jeffrey Fultz of assault say the incidents took place during medical appointments between 2014 and 2020 while he was employed at Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium in Juneau.
The state prosecutors and Fultz’s defense attorneys gave their closing arguments Friday. It was their last chance to show what all the testimony was intended to prove — or disprove – and to sway the jurors to their side.
State prosecutors argued that Fultz abused his patients’ trust and sexually assaulted them in a clinical setting. Fultz’s defense said that he provided appropriate medical care to those patients.
Prosecutor Krystyn Tendy told the jury that from the state’s perspective, the only verdict that is consistent with the evidence is guilty on all counts.
“He believed that he could count on their silence. He believed he could stay in control,” Tendy said. “But he was wrong. They didn’t stay silent. He is no longer in control. You are in control.”
Tendy said that Fultz took advantage of the power dynamic between doctors and patients. She pointed to witness testimony about the challenges of seeking care, and the pain the women sought treatment for.
“That is a relationship that is supposed to be based on trust that is supposed to be based on the principle of do no harm,” she said. “They are literally putting themselves in his hands.”
The prosecutor said all witnesses — the ones they called and the ones the defense called — showed that Fultz didn’t follow legitimate medical practices.
“This wasn’t about treatment,” Tendy said. “This was about what the defendant wanted to do and what he did.”
State prosecutor Krystyn Tendy addresses the jury during her closing arguments in the trial against Jeffrey Fultz on August 22, 2025. (Photo by Yvonne Krumrey/KTOO)
Defense attorney James Christie reminded jurors of Fultz’s education and expertise as a medical provider, and how some of the women accusing him also reported relief from his treatments. He said the questions of informed consent and how exposed the women’s bodies were during treatment come secondary to the primary question.
“Focus on the question,” he said. “Was the treatment recognized, legitimate, and lawful?”
Christie spent some time reminding the jurors of their role, and what it means to deliver a not guilty verdict.
“The first thing I’ll tell you is that criminal cases are not about choosing sides,” he said. “Voting not guilty doesn’t mean you are for Dr. Fultz. It doesn’t mean you are against the state, it doesn’t mean you are against the 12 women. It means the state did not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.”
He told the jury to put aside their feelings about victims of sexual assault. He said that criminal trials must come down to the state’s burden to prove Fultz’s guilt, based on more than speculation or probability.
“This is not a heart decision,” Christie said. “This is something that’s going to require thought, careful thought.”
Christie said that most of the women accusing Fultz of assault came forward after reading about initial accusations against him in the media.
He told the jury to deliberate carefully, and remember their duties.
“You all agreed that you would hold the state to its burden,” Christie said. “You all agreed to the presumption of Mr. Fultz’s innocence.”
And Christie told them to carefully consider the weight of their verdict.
“This is not a decision you can undo,” he said.
Defense attorney James Christie addresses the jury during his closing arguments in the trial against Jeffrey Fultz on August 22, 2025. (Photo by Yvonne Krumrey/KTOO)
Jurors will now deliberate until they reach a unanimous verdict. The jury can return a verdict at any time. There is no time limit on their deliberations. The trial lasted six weeks and involved testimony from dozens of witnesses. If jurors cannot reach a verdict, it will be declared a mistrial.
Former Juneau chiropractor Jeffrey Fultz sits during jury selection ahead of his sexual assault trial in Juneau on Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (Photo by Yvonne Krumrey/KTOO)
A former Juneau chiropractor accused of assaulting a dozen women under the guise of medical care took the stand this week.
Jeffrey Fultz testified that he performed legitimate procedures while working at Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium in Juneau. The former patients accusing him of assault say the incidents took place during medical appointments between 2014 and 2020.
“(The) truth is that I was doing the very best I could for the patients I get to work with,” Fultz testified.
In the last few weeks, the jury has heard from medical practitioners, expert witnesses and Fultz’s former colleagues. Some of them said providers should avoid touching women’s breasts and rears during treatment, while others said there are legitimate medical practices that involve touching those sensitive areas.
Fultz denied allegations that he told patients they had to undress fully for treatment, that he intentionally walked in on them while they were undressed and that he limited access to appropriate coverings during treatments.
Several women testified to some or all of these allegations earlier in the trial.
Defense attorney James Christie asked Fultz directly about the allegations against him.
“In performing treatment, was your purpose or intention ever to seek sexual gratification?” Christie said.
“No, no,” Fultz said.
He also claimed that followed informed consent practices, and echoed their importance.
“Do you yourself have conversations with your patients about what to expect?” Christie said.
“Yes,” Fultz said. “Consent is an ongoing process.”
The women accusing him of assault said he did not tell or ask them in advance of touching sensitive areas of their bodies.
Fultz was first arrested in 2021, but it took four years for the case to go to trial. He has been out on bail since his arrest and living in Colorado. The trial against him is in its sixth week.
Testimony is wrapping up in the coming days, and attorneys are expected to give the jury closing arguments soon.
The Indian Health Services established a hotline for callers to report suspected child abuse or sexual abuse by calling 1-855-SAFE-IHS (855-723-3447) or submitting a complaint online on the IHS.gov website. The hotline may be used to report any type of suspected child abuse within the IHS, or any type of sexual abuse regardless of the age of the victim. The person reporting by phone or online may remain anonymous.
Locally, people can call AWARE in Juneau at 907-586-1090.
Close
Update notification options
Subscribe to notifications
Subscribe
Get notifications about news related to the topics you care about. You can unsubscribe anytime.
