Sexual Abuse & Domestic Violence

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Despite Alaska’s small population, a 2018 report by the Urban Indian Health Institute identified it as the state with the fourth-highest number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and Anchorage as the city with the third-highest number of such cases in the nation.

A new law aims to address some of the reasons for those high rates.

Experts say the causes are complex but clearly the lack of any law enforcement in a third of rural Alaska villages is an issue. Then, where there is law enforcement, there are various layers, including: Alaska police departments, village public safety officers, Alaska state troopers, and sometimes the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In a 2021 report, the nonprofit Data for Indigenous Justice said when jurisdictions overlap, the result is not dual coverage, but an “unwillingness by either system to assume responsibility for the safety of Indigenous people.”

“One sentiment that illustrates the issue is that law enforcement and criminal prosecution often mobilize to address hunting violations more quickly than they do for cases of homicide against Indigenous people,” the report stated.

In an effort to change course, Alaska has a new law addressing missing and murdered Indigenous persons (MMIP).

Kendra Kloster, who is Tlingit, is co-director of law and policy with the Alaska Native Women’s Resource Center. The center is part of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit Relatives (MMIWG2S) Working Group. The other group members are the Alaska Native Justice Center, Alaska Native Heritage Center, Data for Indigenous Justice and Native Movement.

Kloster said the bill addresses issues identified through working with and listening to Indigenous peoples. “So these ideas and these things that have come up are things that we’ve talked with our tribes about, we’ve talked about with our communities. And these were kind of some of the things that rose to the top that we really needed to do to really look into cases to develop our resources, to really understand what else we can do better.”

She continued, “we collaborate with a lot of other organizations across the state that are doing really great work on this as well, and talking with families who we really appreciate them sharing stories and their information. It’s really hard to do that. But without them, we wouldn’t be able to identify all the different things that really need to be addressed and kind of the loopholes. And so it really takes our whole communities coming together to make this change.”

Kloster said much more is needed — for example, 911 services that are available and responsive, better and more accessible data, and wellness and trauma services—but this new law is the result of efforts beginning in 2018.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed Senate Bill 151 into law on Sept. 3. In a prepared statement he said, “this legislation is a continuation of Alaska’s mission to recognize and solve missing and murdered Indigenous persons cases. 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.”

“Senate Bill 151 represents a pivotal moment in our fight to end the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples,” bill sponsor Sen. Donny Olson (D-Golovin) said in the prepared statement. “By bringing diverse voices together and enhancing our investigative efforts, we are making a clear statement: every life matters, and we will not rest until justice is served for all our missing and murdered loved ones. This legislation is a critical step in the state’s dedication towards healing our communities and ensuring that no family is left without answers.”

“The Alaska Department of Public Safety has led the local, state, and federal government efforts in Alaska of reducing instances of missing and murdered indigenous persons and will continue to invest resources into all of our MMIP initiatives,” Alaska Department of Public Safety Commissioner James Cockrell said in the statement. “With Senate Bill 151 becoming law today many of the initiatives that we started within DPS will now be codified into Alaska Statute and carried on into the future. Your Alaska State Troopers are committed to continuing to aggressively investigate cold case homicides and suspicious missing persons cases that involve Alaska Native victims.”

The prepared statement states the new law:

• Creates a nine-member MMIP Review Commission to review unsolved cases and submit a report to the Legislature every three years with its recommendations and findings;

• Requires indigenous cultural training for new police officers;

• Requires the Alaska Department of Public Safety to conduct a one-time assessment of its protective and investigative resources for identifying and reporting MMIP cases; and

• Requires the Department of Public Safety to file a missing persons report to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System database within 60 days after the first report is filed with state and local law enforcement.

The legislation takes effect Jan. 1.

ICT originally published this article. ICT is an an independent, nonprofit, multimedia news enterprise. ICT covers Indigenous peoples.

A warning: this story contains references to child sex abuse. 

Juneau’s Echo Ranch Bible Camp is among the places where a California man allegedly abused boys over the span of decades. Now, the people who say they were victims of Bradley Earl Reger are trying to hold the institutions where the abuse took place accountable. 

Reger was affiliated with Juneau’s Echo Ranch Bible camp for about 30 years. In the 1970s, the California resident volunteered as a nurse there. He also brought minors on trips to the camp from his home in California as recently as the early 2000s. Multiple men have accused Reger of abuse at the camp, under the guise of medical care.

Reger was already criminally indicted on federal sexual abuse charges last year. But a recent lawsuit, which names Echo Ranch’s owner, Avant Ministries, aims to hold the organizations Reger was involved with accountable, too. 

California resident Zack Winfrey, the lead plaintiff in the recent suit, attended Reger’s home church in California as a kid. He said Reger abused him for years in California and on trips to Alaska. Winfrey said the people around Reger at his church – and organizations like Echo Ranch – allowed it to happen.

“Brad could have been stopped decades ago,” he said. “I mean, some of them not even just reporting to — some of them were in the positions of power to completely cut them off from this, and didn’t do it.”

Winfrey reached out to lawyers about taking legal action against organizations Reger worked and volunteered for. Now, 18 of Reger’s alleged victims are involved in the lawsuit. 

“But there’s even more victims signing on now,” he said.

Morgan Stewart is one of Winfrey’s lawyers. He’s a partner at the law firm Manly, Stewart, and Finaldi. They specialize in representing victims in widespread child sexual abuse cases at churches and schools. 

“It’s essentially taking back their power over a perpetrator and those who allowed the perpetrator to abuse them,” Stewart said.

He said lawsuits like this one target the people who turned a blind eye and enabled abusers.

“The intent is to hold those entities accountable for it, their endorsement, approval and participation in his sexual abuse of these young men,” he said.

Stewart said the total number of Reger’s victims could be in the hundreds. 

His firm has won hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements in famous child abuse cases. For instance, those involving the Roman Catholic Church and Larry Nassar, the U.S. Olympics Gymnastics physician who assaulted hundreds of athletes. 

When asked for comment, a lawyer representing Avant Ministries wrote in an email that they will be “aggressively defending” the claims against the organization. 

As news of the lawsuit spreads, Winfrey, the lead plaintiff in the case, hopes more victims of Reger will come forward. 

The FBI has an online form for anyone who wants to report that they — or their minor dependent — may have been victimized by Bradley Reger. 

Survivors of sexual abuse in Juneau can call AWARE at 907-586-1090 to find resources for support. There is also a national 24-hour phone and online chat hotline that offers counseling and support.

The Alaska Legislature recently increased state funding for domestic violence and sexual assault efforts, but a leading advocate says the effort doesn’t go far enough to meet the need.

One of the main federal funding sources for Alaska’ domestic violence and sexual assault prevention efforts and programs has dropped over the years, creating a hole in service providers’ budgets as state funding has remained the same for seven years.

Lawmakers plugged that hole with a $3.7 million budget boost for the state’s Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, the body that distributes state grants to local agencies, this year. Previously, CDVSA filled the gap with one-time funding and COVID relief dollars, said MaryBeth Gagnon, the council’s director.

The increase is intended to stabilize the nonprofits that run victim’s services and prevention programs throughout the state. It is the first increase to CDVSA’s state funding since 2017, but some program managers say it doesn’t go far enough to keep one of the state’s most vulnerable populations safe.

Brenda Stanfill, director of the state’s network of service providers, the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, told the council that the nonprofits that administer the state’s response need a $20 million investment to make inroads on addressing and preventing domestic and sexual violence.

“It is the only part of the criminal justice system not fully funded by the State of Alaska or a local community government. They are still expected to host galas and do bake sales,” she said.

“This is concerning, with the high rates of domestic and sexual violence in our state, and distracts from the core mission of these agencies, which is to provide safety and support for victims of crime.”

Stanfill said the state needs to invest in its core programs and prevention efforts to reduce the growing need for services. She said funding has not kept pace with inflation and wage increases — and the result is affecting what shelters can provide.

“They are having to reduce services. Some have had to limit how many people they can help come into shelter at a time. Some have had to cut their outreach services,” she said.

Stanfill said she appreciates the recent budget increase, which means programs are less likely to have to cut services in the future, and points to data to show that increases to funding for treatment and prevention are good investments for the state.

The rate of domestic violence in Alaska fell between 2010 and 2015, and Stanfill credits former Gov. Sean Parnell’s Choose Respect campaign and his investment in domestic violence prevention programs for the drop.

But since then, as investment has waned, the rate of domestic violence and sexual assault has crept back up, according to the the Alaska Victimization Survey, a comprehensive statewide survey conducted by the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Justice Center, which measures domestic and sexual violence.

$20 million

Twenty million dollars is a lot of money. It would roughly double the amount of money the Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault works with.

CDVSA distributes money that comes from multiple state departments, so to get the funding increase Stanfill said the state needs, several commissioners would have to advocate for funding increases, and Gov. Mike Dunleavy would have to agree.

Stanfill said most of her proposed increase — nearly $14 million — is necessary to maintain agencies operating at the necessary level by adjusting for inflation and offsetting funds that will expire or be lost next year. Of that, $4 million would be to offset the end of a federal appropriation secured this year by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. Roughly $3.5 million would adjust for inflation for current programs and it would take another $1.25 million to make up for continued decreases in federal funds. Just under $2 million would bolster child advocacy centers as the Department of Justice ceases funding them, and another $3.3 million to adjust their cost for inflation.

More than $6 million would go towards prevention and rehabilitation. Stanfill hopes the Department of Health will put $4.25 million towards prevention efforts. “Batterer intervention” programs need $2 million, she said, and suggested it come from the Department of Corrections. Batterer interventions are programs aimed at teaching nonviolent alternatives to people who have used violence.

CDVSA is a part of the Department of Public Safety. Commissioner James Cockrell has been an outspoken supporter of related issues, including increasing law enforcement presence in rural areas of the state, adding law enforcement positions to address the state’s crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People and taking action to hire and retain enough staff to address human trafficking. Department spokesperson Austin McDaniel said DPS is working with the governor’s office to come up with a budget, but said the funding decision ultimately comes from the administration.

“Providing resources to the groups and programs that care for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault remains a top priority for Commissioner Cockrell and the Department of Public Safety,” McDaniel wrote in an emailed response to questions.

He did not say if the department plans to seek more money for CDVSA, but said the public will find out how much of the DPS budget will go to CDVSA when the governor’s office announces its proposed budget in December.

Stanfill said that from the law enforcement perspective, the cost of addressing domestic violence is very high. And she said that survivor services are a large, unsung part of the state’s response to violence and crime that should be considered alongside village public safety officers and state troopers.

“We have looked at supporting troopers and police departments; we looked at the support for VPSOs and making sure their wages were increased. But oftentimes we forget that survivor services is a core part of our first response,” she said. “We really want to elevate attention and talk about this issue, because oftentimes the victim of the crime gets forgotten in the process of it all.”

Stanfill admits that a $20 million boost is a lot more than ANDVSA has asked for in the past. And she said the results of the increase would take time to measure, just as the results of the Choose Respect campaign are most visible more than a decade later.

But she didn’t apologize for asking state commissioners to reach a big goal:

“I think I probably caught all of them a little bit off guard. But I do want us to think big. I do want us to think about, how do we end this in Alaska?”

The family of a woman whose photos Anchorage police found on a convicted killer’s phone think she is yet another of his victims.

A jury convicted Brian Steven Smith of murder in February for killing two Alaska Native women, and a judge in mid-July sentenced him to 226 years behind bars. In their sentencing memorandum, prosecutors included photos from one of Smith’s cellphones showing another woman who appeared to be unconscious or dead, along with a forensic artist’s sketch of her.

Now, Cassandra Boskofsky’s family says she is the woman in the photos, and they want answers about where her remains are located and why police haven’t identified her as Smith’s third victim.

Protestors stood in the rain across from the Anchorage Police Department at noon on Friday. Their faces were stamped with red handprints, a symbol of solidarity in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People movement.

They carried signs that said, “Where is Cassandra?” and “Bring Cassandra home.”

Raindrops streamed like tears on a poster-sized photo of Cassandra Boskofsky’s face. She was 38 when her family reported her missing in August 2019.

Detectives seized the phone from Smith, when they took him in for questioning in another case, about a month after Boskofsky disappeared.

That was almost five years ago. In February, a jury convicted Smith of the murders of Kathleen Jo Henry and Veronica Abouchuk. Both were from remote coastal communities in Western Alaska. Evidence in Smith’s trial included video of him taunting and killing Henry.

Prosecutors said in their sentencing memo that the woman in the newly released photos was likely another of Smith’s victims, and they used them to make a case for a harsher sentence. Their recommendations prevailed, with Smith receiving the equivalent of two life sentences.

But Cassandra Boskofsky’s family still wants justice for their loved one.

Marcella Bofskofsky-Grounds is Boskofsky’s cousin, and said they were raised together like sisters when they were small. It was Bofskofsky-Grounds who reported her missing, shortly after her disappearance in 2019.

Bofskofsky-Grounds said she doesn’t understand why police kept the photos a secret for so long and why they waited to share them only days before Smith was sentenced. She said she recognized Boskofsky instantly and felt shocked, distraught and angry with police.

“She didn’t matter. That’s how I felt, like she didn’t matter to them,” Bofskofsky-Grounds said, “because they only brought it up to our attention, a week before his sentencing.”

So far, Anchorage police have not confirmed that the unidentified woman in Smith’s cell phone photos is Boskofsky.

It’s the department’s policy not to comment on active investigations, according to APD Detective Brendan Lee. Police try to avoid contacting a victim’s family until they have physical evidence, to avoid causing them grief over a case of mistaken identity, he said.

“APD takes the families affected into account and does not want to give information until it is 100% confirmed,” Lee said in an email. “Telling a family member that a loved one is missing or deceased without being 100% accurate can be just as mentally detrimental to them.”

Antonia Commack, a Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons activist, isn’t satisfied with that explanation. Once the photos and the artist’s sketch went public, she said, it was easy to identify the images on Smith’s cellphone.

“I knew of a lot of (MMIP) cases statewide, and I knew, I knew immediately, that that was Cassandra,” she said. “When regular people can just look at a photo and identify it immediately, that’s really poor investigation.”

Police should be held accountable for their failure to act, Commack said. If they had made an artist’s sketch of Smith’s victim public shortly after they found the photo of the unknown woman on his phone, Boskofsky might have been identified a long time ago, she said.

But there’s often more going on behind the scenes than police can share with the public, said Lee, the detective.

“APD does not give out all details about ongoing investigations in order to preserve the investigation and not compromise it,” Lee said.

Cassandra Boskofsky’s aunt, Terrie Boskofsky, was one of about eight family members at the protest who chanted, “Where is Cassandra?” and “Justice for Cassandra.”

Her message to police: Their work is far from over.

“I want them to help find the remains,” she said, “so we can put her to rest.”

Grief over Boskofsky is widespread, she said.

“She came from a very large family,” Terrie Boskofsky said. “She had 14 aunts and uncles on my side.”

Boskofsky was raised in Ouzinkie and Old Harbor, two communities near Kodiak, where she has dozens of extended family members who will feel her loss, made more painful by knowing the difficulties she faced throughout her whole life. Boskofsky lost her mother in an ATV accident when she was small, and as an adult, her family said, she struggled with addiction. She had seven children, and all were adopted out.

But despite that, another aunt, Lisa Ann Christiansen, said people loved her niece for her good qualities, like the way she enjoyed the outdoors and helping others.

“She had really pretty, dark, long hair,” Christiansen said. “Dark eyes. The high cheekbones. Dimples. Just beautiful.”

Boskofsky enjoyed showing off pictures of her children, Christiansen said.

“You know, she loved her family,” she said. “Even though she didn’t have her kids, she loved them.”

People always hoped Boskofsky would eventually turn her life around, Christiansen said, but Smith cheated her of that opportunity to find her way.

Smith, who moved to Alaska from South Africa, worked at a Midtown Anchorage hotel as a maintenance man. During his trial, the jury saw a video Smith made of torturing and killing Henry in a room at the hotel. In an interview with police, he admitted that he specifically targeted vulnerable women, who could be lured away with offers of alcohol, food or shelter. The Carrs grocery store on Gambell Street was one of his preferred spots to pick up women.

MMIP activists have offered two separate $500 rewards, one for information leading to the recovery of Cassandra Boskofsky’s remains and a second that asks for information leading to the arrest of Ian Calhoun, a man prosecutors said was a friend of Smith’s. In the sentencing memo, prosecutors said they believe Calhoun probably knew about one of the murders. So far, he has not been charged in the case.

A woman named Amber, who asked that only her first name be used for this story, stood in the back of the group of protesters. She said she once lived on the streets and could have easily been one of Smith’s victims. Amber also said she was friends with Henry and Boskofsky.

Amber is half Black and half Lingít and was raised mostly in Anchorage. She said she grew up marginalized and that she and her friends, including Henry and Boskofsky, shouldered the burdens of past traumas.

Their loss will be felt in small villages across the state and even by those who didn’t know them, because many families have loved ones who have disappeared, she said.

“Their story is my story. It’s their story. It’s a community story,” Amber said. “We put ourselves in some dangerous situations, especially those of us who are looking for love and acceptance.”

“And I come from that. I come from the streets,” she said. “It’s so easy to get into the wrong person’s vehicle, and you don’t even know it.”

Before Amber left the protest, she rubbed red paint on her hands and crossed the street to leave imprints on the police department’s glass doors, a reminder of Cassandra Boskofsky, she said, and of all the “missing sisters whose voices have been silenced.”

An expert is visiting Southeast Alaska communities this week to talk to medical workers and first responders on documenting and reporting abuse. 

And she wants to hear from community members, too.

Angela Trujillo is a professor of nursing at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She’s worked with victims of abuse for years, and she helped design a training program with the Alaska Comprehensive Forensic Training Academy. 

The training is meant to help providers ask patients the right questions about abuse at the right time.

“They might not be ready to go to law enforcement at the time that they’re willing to talk to the health care provider,” she said. “But if the health care provider can get them to talk to them and can get that documented, then that’s something that can be helpful and useful to them long term.”

Trujillo said some practices to check for abuse are becoming more common, but there’s still work to be done — especially in a place like Alaska, which has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in the nation. 

“We often hear when you go to the doctor, you know, you’ll be asked, ‘Are you safe at home?’ Trauma-informed care takes it beyond that,” she said. “It really helps the provider to be able to ask those questions in a much more supportive manner.”

These visits will help her understand how to meet the specific needs of Southeast Alaska, whether in Juneau or in much smaller communities like Kake.

“We’re asking and seeking community feedback on how that is appropriate for their communities if they feel like there’s anything missing,” she said. “We’re seeking feedback from communities to make sure that the training is appropriate for everyone.”

She the meetings will be a brief look into the 50-hour training on documenting and reporting abuse she helped develop. Half of that program can be completed remotely. The rest of the training will be held in Anchorage, with dates in either August or December of this year. 

Trujillo will be in Juneau at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall Wednesday from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. She’ll be in Hoonah on Thursday at 8:30 at City Hall and in Kake on Friday at 10 a.m. at the Nest. 

As one-time funding expires, Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposed budget contains a nearly $4 million funding gap for services for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.

That’s because a major source of federal funding for Alaska’s domestic violence response has plummeted in the past five years. Over time, there have been fewer prosecutions for federal financial crimes. That in turn has led to a decline in fines paid by those prosecuted, which is the primary source of funding for services under the federal Victims of Crime Act.

That multimillion dollar reduction, paired with the end of pandemic relief money and high rates of inflation, has domestic violence advocates scrambling to adequately fund the groups that keep one of the state’s most vulnerable populations safe.

Alaska’s Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, the group that manages state and federal funding for domestic violence programs and distributes them to communities, has plugged the hole with pandemic relief money and one-time funding from the state in the past.

Brenda Stanfill, director of the nonprofit Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, said the gap is roughly 20% of the state grant money that shelters run on in Alaska. She said there’s a potential that shelters or victims services programs would be shut down.

“Programs, they just can’t absorb it. I mean, they’ve been trying to absorb the flat funding, and they’re struggling,” she said.

In a House Finance subcommittee meeting on Tuesday, Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, I-Sitka, introduced amendments to restore one-time funding to victim’s services and the state’s Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault.

“This amendment would restore the level of funding they had last year, which we all recognize as a cut,” she said, referring to the effect of high inflation rates. “But at least it takes them back to the amount that they had last year and will prevent the closure of shelters, that will prevent the reduction of programs and so on.”

Rep. Kevin McCabe, R-Big Lake, wanted to know which other budget item would be sacrificed to make room for the funding increase, which would come from the state’s general fund. “I do not necessarily want to use hope as a fiscal strategy,” McCabe said.

Rep. Julie Coulombe, R-Anchorage, has her own bill that would ensure state money goes to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, but did not support the amendment.

Himschoot’s amendment failed 3 to 5, with Reps. CJ McCormick, D-Bethel, and Donna Mears, D-Anchorage, supporting it. Later, Himschoot said it was shameful the amendment didn’t make it through committee, but that she is hopeful the money is restored otherwise in the budget process.

“I recognize the limitations on the budget right now, but I don’t think in the state with the highest rates of domestic violence and sexual assault that is the thing to cut,” she said. “The place to balance our budget is not on the domestic violence shelters.”

The office of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said states have been using spending directed by members of Congress for specific purposes to try and soften the blow of decreasing funds from the Victims of Crime Act. The office has explored other funding routes, but said it is going to be a challenge.

Stanfill said Alaska cannot simply wait for federal dollars that might not be coming. “This is really asking the state to step up and fund the services that they want, where we’re not reliant on federal dollars in order to make sure that everyone has access to the services they need,” she said.

The Alaska House Finance Committee will look at the Department of Public Safety budget next. Rep. Sara Hannan, D-Juneau, said she would propose an amendment in that committee that would fund the programs for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.

This story originally appeared in the Alaska Beacon and is republished here with permission.