Sexual Abuse & Domestic Violence

When the U.S. government released its tally of investigations into sexual violence on college campuses in 2014, Stanford wasn’t on the list. But in the new list that’s out this month, Stanford has the most cases, with five — and the figure doesn’t include the notorious assault that’s been making headlines.

That crime, committed by former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, generated outrage after a judge sentenced Turner to six months in the county jail after he was convicted of three felony counts related to his sexual assault of an unconscious woman on Stanford’s campus in January of 2015.

Turner’s sentence has sparked a renewed debate over the role of race and privilege in sentencing; it has also led some to urge a recall of Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky, whose explanation for the decision to spare Turner from a potential 3-14 years in prison included concern that prison might “have a severe impact on him.”

The Turner case was handled by the criminal justice system, not by Stanford. But the number of complaints to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which enforces the Title IX gender equity, law shows that the prestigious university is still facing criticism about how it handles such cases – criticism that has included both a protest and a federal lawsuit.

Here’s the list of investigations into incidents at Stanford, from the Office of Civil Rights. We’ll note that the dates refer to the timing of an OCR complaint, not to the initial allegations of an attack:

Case 1: 2/26/2015
Case 2: 5/28/2015
Case 3: 7/23/2015
Case 4: 7/23/2015
Case 5: 4/18/2016

To put the number of cases in context: The federal list includes 243 sexual violence cases at 192 post-secondary institutions, as of June 1. Apart from Stanford, two other schools had four cases: Kansas State University and Saint Mary’s College of Maryland. Six other schools had three cases.

Here’s the full list:

When we sought comment from Stanford about how it accounts for the number of open investigations, Lisa Lapin of the university’s communications office said the school “is fully cooperating with the OCR investigation, which as at other universities will be comprehensive.”

Lapin added that while the government lists five cases, they reflect four different incidents.

“In one of the matters, both the complaining student and the responding student filed concerns with OCR,” she said.

Lapin also described the cases in question, omitting details such as names and places:

• “One was by a student who felt that although male student she accused was found responsible, his punishment was not severe enough. One complaint was by this same male student who was found responsible and feels that the process was not fair to him.
• “One OCR complaint was brought by two students who had made complaints against the same male student, who was found responsible in both cases, and their concern is about the process.
• “One OCR complaint was brought by a student who refused to go forward in the disciplinary process and complains that her concerns were not adequately addressed.
• “One OCR complaint is by a student who was not satisfied with the outcome of her matter in which the student she was accusing was found by the disciplinary panel to not be responsible.”

Discussing the timing of the cases, Lapin says, “All of these cases precede our existing Title IX procedure, and some took place as long ago as 2011. Some were investigated by the Office for Community Standards as well as the [university’s] Title IX office.”

As for the Turner case, Stanford noted this week that it had banned him from its campus within weeks of the attack, saying in a statement Tuesday that it had also reached out to the victim to inform her of the steps being taken.

Stanford says it “did everything within its power to assure that justice was served in this case, including an immediate police investigation and referral to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office for a successful prosecution.”

While much of the current criticism over the Turner case is now being directed at the judge, Stanford has found itself at the center of another high-profile sexual assault case — continuing a string that goes back at least to 2014, when a female student took the rare step of going public to criticize how the school handled her case, as the Palo Alto Weekly reported.

The federal list of open sexual violence investigations, which is compiled by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, debuted in 2014 as part of an effort to improve the way colleges and universities handle reports of sexual violence. In addition to the list, the government offered guidance and other resources at a new website, called Not Alone.

When the government took that step, Stanford was also taking action: When the first OCR list was published, the school was in the process of hiring its first full-time Title IX coordinator, an expert on preventing sexual misconduct.

That coordinator, Catherine Criswell, was a veteran of the federal Office for Civil Rights. She left Stanford just before the start of the most recent school year, to take up a more senior position at the University of Virginia.

Since February, Stanford has been handling sexual assault claims under a pilot program that reflects changes that were recommended by a provost task force. We were curious about how the new investigation and resolution process works; here’s how Lapin described it:

“Among other things, the process calls for a unified investigation and adjudication system, highly trained hearing panels to decide responsibility and sanction, the ability of parties in a case to receive up to 9 hours of paid legal assistance if they wish, and expulsion as the expected sanction for sexual assault cases as defined by university policy.”

Lapin added that because the program is being run as a pilot, it will be monitored and evaluated for possible further changes. For it to become permanent, she said, the process would need the approval of groups representing both the students and faculty of Stanford.

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Fueled by sexual abuse allegations against comedian Bill Cosby and the Catholic Church, and other high-profile cases dating back decades, state legislators across the country are considering lengthening or eliminating statutes of limitations on rape.

Statutes of limitations, which exist for most crimes besides murder, are intended to encourage the timely reporting of crimes. As time passes, evidence deteriorates or gets lost, memories fade and witnesses die.

But it can take years for sexual abuse victims to find the courage to come forward. Advocates for victims say statutes of limitations for rape and sexual assaults are arbitrary and outdated, and note that police departments across the country are still digging through a backlog of rape kits, some of which are three decades old.

Forty-three states have statutes of limitations for sex crimes, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. Of the states with statutes, 27 include an exception that allows prosecutors to file charges when there is DNA evidence. State statutes of limitations often range from three years to 12 years, but in some states, accusers have more time to come forward when they say they were abused as children — until they are 21 in some states or as old as 50 in others. Some states don’t start the clock until the victim turns 18.

Legislators in states such as California, Illinois, New York, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania are currently considering bills that would extend statutes of limitations for rape and sexual assault or eliminate them entirely.

In Pennsylvania, where the statute of limitations is 12 years in adult rape and sexual assault cases, prosecutors late last year beat the deadline by just weeks when they charged Cosby for a crime he allegedly committed in 2004. Backers of a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations for people abused as children have pointed to the Cosby case, and to an attorney general’s report released last month alleging decades of abuse by Catholic priests.

Democratic Attorney General Kathleen Kane accused previous bishops in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown of ignoring or hiding decades of sexual abuse by priests, but Kane said that nearly all of the allegations were too old to be prosecuted.

Nevada last year extended its statute of limitations on rape cases from four years to 20 after a woman who alleges that Cosby raped her in 1989 in Las Vegas pushed for the bill. And Oregon recently approved a law allowing prosecutors to file rape charges beyond the statute of limitations if there is new corroborating evidence or multiple victims come forward.

In Illinois, where former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert admitted molestingstudents when he was a high school teacher and wrestling coach in the 1970s, lawmakers are considering eliminating the statute of limitations for people abused as children. Under current law, prosecutors may file charges up to 20 years after the victim turns 18.

Illinois state Sen. Scott Bennett, a former prosecutor, proposed the measure after Hastert was indicted for related financial crimes rather than for the actual sexual abuse.

“He admitted that he did things with children and you can’t do anything about it, but you can get him on money laundering charges. That seems wrong,” said Bennett, a Democrat.

Changes in public policy often follow cases like Hastert’s, according to Polly Poskin with the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault. “Most law and public policy is really a response to an event,” she said. “Why it’s so critical is because when one person comes forward, if there are other survivors — and inevitably there are — it gives courage to other victims to come forward … you see a pattern.”

In the last several years, Hawaii and Minnesota have approved “window” laws that lift the statute of limitations for two and three years, respectively, to allow people to sue their alleged abusers in civil court.

The Pennsylvania bill also includes a “window” provision, because lawmakers can only eliminate the statute of limitations for future crimes, not ones that have already occurred.

“We’re going to put the liability back on the people who caused this. We need to be able to go back and sue the perpetrators and institutions who covered it up,” said Democratic state Rep. Mark Rozzi, who shepherded the bill through the House and says he was abused by a priest when he was 13.

Tough to Tell

Victims of rape and sexual abuse are often reluctant to report the crime. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, nine out of 10 child sexual abuse victims are abused by someone close to them, and may be hesitant to report them. Many initially feel it is their fault or they will not be believed. For others it may take years, or even decades, to come to terms with what happened and to tell others about it.

“It wasn’t until the last year and a half that I was able to use that word and call it what it really was — rape,” said Victoria Valentino, who says she was raped by Cosby in 1969 in California — a state where the current statute of limitations on rape is 10 years. Calls to Cosby’s attorney were not returned.

Barbara Blaine, president of the Illinois chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, which has advocated for the bill pending in the Illinois Legislature, long blamed herself for the abuse she says she experienced as a child. She didn’t tell anyone about it until she was nearly 30 and a therapist asked her about her first kiss.

“Well, I was in seventh or eighth grade, and it was the priest at my church,” she said.

Blaine said she spent years working with the church to try to keep her alleged abuser away from children. But, she said, by the time it became clear that legal action was necessary, the statute of limitations on her case had run out.

Making a Case

But critics, including some prosecutors and defense attorneys, say efforts to eliminate the statutes are misguided.

Natasha Minsker of the American Civil Liberties Union of California is opposing a bill that would scrap the state’s 10-year statute of limitations for rape. Minsker points out that California already allows extra time to file charges if there is DNA evidence. She said the accused affected by the change would have a hard time mounting a defense.

“When you’re talking decades later trying to reconstruct what you were doing and finding witnesses to testify on your behalf it becomes nearly impossible,” Minsker said.

In Oklahoma, where a pending bill would allow prosecutors to file charges up to 18 years after the crime becomes known to a third party, prosecutors have expressed concerns.

Trent Baggett with the Oklahoma District Attorneys Council said crimes become harder to prosecute the more time passes. Evidence gets destroyed or lost, witnesses’ memories fade, and prosecutors may doubt their ability to persuade jurors “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

It’s understandable that victims want to have their day in court, Baggett said, but the likelihood of a conviction is low. “You hate for that person to get their hopes raised and then feel they’ve gotten victimized again by the state.”

Even some victims are worried about scrapping the statutes.

Sujatha Baliga, who said she was sexually abused as a child, now works in restorative justice, a process in which victims and offenders come together to talk about the incident and reconcile.

She said many victims may be hesitant to use the process if there’s a chance that something said during it might be reported to police. Many victims don’t report what happened to them because they don’t want their abuser, who may be a relative, to get in trouble, Baliga said.

“They need to hear it wasn’t their fault and that the other person is sorry,” she said. “Because the only option is punitive, I suffered in silence for a decade.”

But Susan Howley of the National Center for Victims of Crime said prosecutors should be free to determine whether to pursue each individual case, regardless of how much time has lapsed since the crime occurred.

“If in a given case the prosecutor believes the available evidence is strong enough to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt, there should be no arbitrary time limitation prohibiting the case from going forward,” Howley said.

Bennett, the Illinois legislator and former prosecutor, said when victims don’t report crimes right away it can make it harder to win cases, “but that’s true whether it’s been a year after it happened or 20 years after it happened. You’ve got to take more time to explain to jurors why they didn’t come forward.”

Read original article
High-Profile Cases Spur States to Reconsider Statutes of Limitations for Rape

A King Salmon air taxi operator has been charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse of a minor.

In an online dispatch, Alaska State Troopers said a monthslong investigation led to the arrest of 40-year-old Robert Joseph May, who owns and operates RJ Aviation out of King Salmon.

May was arrested Friday night and charged with five counts each of second-degree and third-degree sexual abuse of a minor, as well as one count of Reckless Endangerment. He’s being held without bail at the King Salmon jail.
State Troopers are asking that anyone with information regarding similar complaints against May contact the King Salmon Post at (907) 246-3464.

In the last couple of years, the number of sex offenders living on the streets of Milwaukee has skyrocketed, from 16 to 205. The sharp increase comes as no surprise to some. There are few places for them to live.

In October 2014, the City of Milwaukee began prohibiting violent and repeat sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of any school, day care center or park. That left just 55 addresses where offenders can legally move within the 100-square-mile city. And their living options soon will become more limited across Wisconsin. Republican Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill in February that prohibits violent sex offenders from living within 1,500 feet of any school, day care, youth center, church or public park in the state.

Cities and states continue to enact laws that restrict where convicted sex offenders can live, applying the rules to violent offenders such as pedophiles and rapists, and, in some cases, those convicted of nonviolent sex crimes, such as indecent exposure. They are doing so despite studies that show the laws can make more offenders homeless, or make it more likely they will falsely report or not disclose where they are living. And though the laws are meant to protect children from being victimized by repeat offenders, they do not reduce the likelihood that sex offenders will be convicted again for sexual offenses, according to multiple studies, including one from the U.S. Department of Justice.

In all, 27 states have blanket rules restricting how close sex offenders can live to schools and other places where groups of children may gather, according to research by the Council of State Governments. Hundreds of cities also have restrictions, according to the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA). And many laws are becoming more restrictive — along with Wisconsin, they expanded last year in Arkansas, Montana, Oklahoma and Rhode Island.

The restrictions can make offenders’ lives less stable by severely limiting their housing options, and can push them away from family, jobs and social support — all of which make it more likely they will abuse again, according to researchers who have studied the laws, such as Kelly Socia, assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

“If [the laws] don’t work, and they make life more difficult for sex offenders, you’re only shooting yourself in the foot,” Socia said.

Some state and local governments — in California, Florida, Iowa, Georgia and Texas — are finding the laws don’t work and are changing them or, more often than not, being told by the courts to do so. Many courts, such as in California and Michigan, have found the laws to be unconstitutional for being too vague or too restrictive in impeding where offenders can live.

False Perceptions

Psychologists who have treated sex offenders, such as Gerry Blasingame, chair of the California Coalition on Sexual Offending, say the impetus behind the laws — the belief that offenders who have been released will continue to seek out child victims who they do not know — is more perception than reality. Most perpetrators abuse children they know; just one in 10 perpetrators of child sex abuse is a stranger to the victim.

There may be merit in restricting housing for sex offenders who victimized a child they did not know, Socia said. But these laws often apply to all registered sex offenders, including anyone convicted of a sex crime, even nonviolent offenses such as indecent exposure and statutory rape.

Maia Christopher, executive director of the ATSA, said the laws are based on “the myth of the sex offender — that there is a stranger who is lurking in the bushes and grabbing people” and that they cannot be treated. Some treatment programs, such as one in Minnesota, have been found to reduce recidivism rates for sexual offenses, but researchers haven’t concluded that treatment is effective, according to the Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs.

A U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics study in 2003, the most recent available, found that 5.3 percent of inmates released from prison after being convicted of a sex offense are arrested for another sexual offense within three years. (Although researchersgenerally acknowledge that the recidivism rate may be low because these crimes are underreported.)

After studying housing restriction laws for about a decade, Socia said he hasn’t seen one that has been effective in reducing recidivism. Several studies, including one from Florida and another from Minnesota, have shown the laws have no effect.

What they can do is make offenders even greater outcasts. A U.S. Department of Justice report released in October 2014 said there is fairly clear evidence that residency restrictions are ineffective, and the laws cause a “loss of housing, loss of support systems, and financial hardship that may aggravate rather than mitigate offender risk.”

After California created new restrictions in November 2006, the number of homeless offenders on parole shot up from 88 to 1,986 in March 2011, according to a reportfrom the state’s Sex Offender Management Board. And the board soon will release a study that will show that, once homeless, a sex offender is more likely to reoffend.

“These guys that are homeless, they become desperate,” said Blasingame, a board member. “They look for opportunities.”

California stopped enforcing its blanket rule requiring offenders to stay 2,000 feet from schools and parks statewide last year, after the state Supreme Court ruled in March 2015 that the law imposed unconstitutional restrictions on paroled sex offenders in San Diego County. The restrictions made 97 percent of rental housing there unavailable to offenders. And, the court found, that contributed to homelessness, and hindered the parolees’ access to medical, drug and alcohol treatment, counseling and social services.

Following the court decision, the state started to enforce the rules on a case-by-case basis. As of October, a third of the 5,901 offenders in the state needed restrictions and the rest didn’t, the state found. From February 2015 to October 2015, the number of transient sex offenders without a permanent address fell by 20 percent, from 1,319 to 1,057.

Advocates — such as Christopher of the ATSA and Kurt Bumby, director of the Center for Sex Offender Management, a project run by the Center for Effective Public Policy that provides guidance on how to best manage sex offenders — are encouraged by efforts in some states. They point to Oregon, Vermont and Washington, where there is a more unified effort among state corrections and parole officials and nonprofits to provide a safe, structured re-entry for offenders, using monitoring, stable housing and access to treatment.

In a state-run program in Vermont, Circles of Support and Accountability, community volunteers meet regularly with high-risk sex offenders to offer support. Program participants have lower rates of recidivism.

‘A Dumping Ground’

In Milwaukee, most of the 55 places where offenders can move to are single-family houses, tucked in alcoves of pricy suburban areas. City officials there passed the 2014 law out of desperation, said Alderman Michael Murphy, who voted against the ordinance.

The city had become “a dumping ground” for sex offenders, he said, because most other cities in the county had passed residency restrictions, leaving nowhere else for the offenders to go. Sixty-three percent of county residents live in the city, but 2,269 sex offenders, or 82 percent of the county’s total, live there. The rules ended up pitting cities against each other, Murphy said.

But at least one state prohibits local government from creating the restrictions:Kansas passed a ban in 2006, and New Hampshire is thinking of doing the same.

Since Milwaukee enacted its law, Dereck McClendon, who works with prisoners being released from jail, said he has watched more sex offenders released onto the streets because they have no place to go. McClendon, a program director for Genesis in Milwaukee Inc., a Christian nonprofit that helps people find work after prison, said each ex-offender needs to be given an assessment, and then help re-entering the community. If not, he said, they will inevitably start to get into trouble.

“Man, I tell you, the lack of hope these men possess,” he said. “Oh man, it kills me.”

Murphy and others in Milwaukee are pleading with Walker for a statewide solution. The law the Legislature passed this year that establishes the 1,500-foot rule for violent sex offenders also requires the state to release prisoners only to the county where they lived before, and allows a judge to rule that an offender being released from jail can live within a restricted area if there are no other options. Murphy said that helps, but doesn’t solve the problem.

The new Wisconsin law also won’t address what Republican state Rep. Joel Kleefisch calls “a patchwork quilt of sex offender laws” across the state, because it does not supersede local rules.

He introduced a bill that would ban local restrictions and create a 1,000-foot restriction statewide — a smaller restriction than some cities have currently.

“Having a statewide, easily understandable residency requirement will mean we can watch them,” Kleefisch said. “If they are underground or off the grid, God only knows what they’re doing.”

Read original article
Despite Concerns, Sex Offenders Face New Restrictions

A prominent Alaska storyteller and performer faces felony charges after police say he had sex with a 14-year-old boy he met on Craigslist.

KTUU reports that Jack J. Dalton, 43, appeared in court Wednesday in Anchorage. He is accused of visiting the teenager’s home for sex in March and later admitting in a text message that he knew the boy was underage.

Police say Dalton told investigators he previously had sex with a different juvenile he met online five to six years earlier and has used anonymous online software to view child pornography.

Dalton’s celebrated work, such as Raven’s Radio Hour, has explored Alaska culture and tackled themes of boarding school abuse in statewide and national productions. His website describes the artist as a “professional storyteller, writer and teacher.” He was the recipient of a 2008 Expressive Arts grant from the National Museum of the American Indian, among other honors.

Dalton was arrested April 26, when police say he had arranged to meet the boy a second time but was greeted by police outside his apartment.

The teen had portrayed himself on a Craigslist post as 19 years old and arranged to meet Dalton and another man on separate occasions, according to an April criminal complaint that charged Dalton with second-degree sexual abuse of a minor.

That complaint was expanded this week to include an additional charge of attempted sexual abuse.

In a text message to an undercover investigator who was posing as the boy, Dalton said he suspected the teen was not really 19 and guessed he was closer to 14, the boy’s true age, according to a detective.

“I do still want to get together, but we need to understand how dangerous this is for me,” Dalton texted, thinking he was writing to the boy, according to the charges. “If anyone found out, I could go to jail.”

Teen’s mother found texts, photos on phone

According to police, the felony case against Dalton began March 30 when a detective began investigating the possible sexual abuse. The boy’s mother reported finding sexually explicit photos and text messages involving the boy and two men, according to a complaint written by Det. J. David DeLesline.

The boy told his mother he had solicited sex online. The charges say that Dalton and another man visited the teen’s house for sexual encounters on separate dates in late March. It was not immediately clear if the second man also has been charged.

The teen said he ignored subsequent texts from both men and had not discussed age with either man.

On April 15, police texted Dalton’s phone, pretending to be the teen. Dalton “acknowledged that he remembered me … and agreed to ‘hookup sometime soon,’” according to the charges.

Using the teen’s phone, the detective sent Dalton a text saying that he was not actually 19. The following exchange is described in the original criminal complaint:

Det. DeLesline: “Just by seeing me how old do you think I am?”

Dalton: “Honestly, I can’t tell nowadays. I would have guessed 14. But that just a guess.”

Det. DeLesline: “Good guess. I’m almost 15. That makes me feel better that you’re ok with my age. I’m looking forward to next week.”

The charges say that Dalton suggested they meet at his home.

Det. DeLesline, under the guise of being the teenage boy, texted Dalton again and arranged to meet April 26. On that day, police waited outside Dalton’s apartment.

Police sent a text saying the teen was outside the building hoping to come inside, the charges say. “K. On my way down,” Dalton texted in reply.

Police confronted Dalton and took him back to his apartment, where he was interviewed and arrested. Dalton told a detective he knew the boy was under age and that the place where the sex took place was “a kid’s bedroom,” according to the charging document.

Released on bail, no use of computers allowed

Dalton was in custody Wednesday when he appeared before a magistrate judge for a bail hearing. The judge granted a public defender’s request to appoint Dalton’s 75-year-old mother as his third-party custodian.

“I don’t want him to be in jail. I can take care of him until this is complete,” Linda Dalton told the court.

Prosecutor Arne Soldwedel questioned the mother’s ability to supervise her son 24 hours a day, seven days a week, particularly when it comes to keeping him away from minor males, computers and smartphones, which are conditions of his bail.

“At some point, people need to sleep. I don’t trust this man at any time of the day,” Soldwedel said.

Jack Dalton spent the 25-minute hearing with his hands clasped, looking down.

Wearing a blue fleece jacket and jeans, Linda Dalton stood at the wooden podium before the judge. She said she was willing to be the eyes and ears of the court as far as watching her son while he’s out on bail.

As a public safety precaution, Soldewedel asked the judge to order Linda Dalton remove her computer from the East Anchorage home where she’ll be sharing with her son.

Magistrate Judge Hanley Robinson asked Dalton if she would be willing to do that.

Dalton appeared reluctant at first, saying she could discontinue her Internet service but the request to remove the computer entirely seemed “kind of crazy.”

Robinson agreed that “in this day and age” it’s difficult to be without Internet access to do necessary things like pay bills. She decided to allow Linda Dalton to keep her computer but ordered her to change the passwords so that her son cannot access the Internet.

Dalton agreed.

Soldewedel asked Dalton if any children, particularly teenagers, live near the Carnaby Way home. She said yes. Soldewedel noted that people who sexually abuse minors have high rates of recidivism and that Dalton admitted to police that he had sex with a juvenile boy five of six years ago, someone he met on the Internet.

Robinson asked Dalton if she understood the seriousness of the offenses her son is charged with committing. The mother responded that she did.

By the end of the hearing, the prosecutor did not object to having Dalton’s mother as his third-party custodian.

On her way out of jail courtroom, Dalton was asked what she thought of the situation in which her son finds himself.

“I don’t know anything other than what the attorney says,” she said.

The father of the alleged victim participated in the hearing by telephone. Asked by the judge if he had anything to say about the bail conditions, a man identified only as S.B. said, “If there is any contact, I will immediately report it to authorities.”

Dalton was released to his mother’s supervision this afternoon.

This story has been republished with permission from KTUU.

Editor’s note: This story has been expanded and references to Dalton entering a not guilty plea have been deleted. An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Dalton pleaded not guilty to the charges. While Dalton’s public defender stated his intent to plead not guilty, and the magistrate judge told Dalton that she would enter a not guilty plea on Dalton’s behalf, a plea cannot formally be entered on a felony case until after an indictment or waiver of indictment.

An accomplished musher was in a Palmer state court Tuesday over a domestic violence incident that happened in December of 2015. Critics have asked whether Iditarod organizers were aware of the assault charges prior to the race and let 24-year-old Travis Beals compete anyway.

Beals is accused of an Assault 4 misdemeanor, causing fear of injury, over an incident in Willow.

The case was still pending in January when Iditarod CEO Stan Hooley learned about it. According to Hooley, the organization didn’t ignore the charges at the time but was told by its legal counsel to wait for a court ruling.

“We feel, and have felt all along, that we need to let the legal process complete itself,” Hooley said by phone. “Then we’ll have decisions to make based upon that.”

However, the law firm handling legal advice for the Iditarod, Davis, Wright, Tremaine, did not report any information on an earlier, separate domestic violence assault from May of 2015, in which Beals pled guilty to a lesser charge of criminal mischief.

Hooley said the Iditarod officials learned of that conviction from Frontiersman newspaper editor Matt Tunseth as he was reporting the story. Had race organizers known, Hooley believes they would likely have decided Beals violated the Iditarod’s standards for personal conduct.

“He probably wouldn’t have run the 2016 race,” Hooley said.

The personal conduct rule was introduced last year, and Hooley thinks it will need to evolve in order to take into account rising standards of professional behavior among mushers. Unlike the National Football League, which has faced intense criticism lately over its handling of domestic violence, the Iditarod doesn’t currently have the resources to monitor and investigate claims year round.

“We’ll do the very best job we possibly can,” Hooley said, before adding that the staff and funding needed “to do this right” will be significant.

Beals’s hearing was held in a therapeutic court, as part of a program to divert “misdemeanor and low-level felony” offenders toward mental health treatment instead of the criminal justice system.

Beals did not respond to phone calls or emails directed to his kennel in Seward.