Crime & Courts

A woman accused of driving drunk and hitting another vehicle on Douglas Highway earlier this month is being charged with felony assault.

A Juneau grand jury on Friday returned with an indictment against 30-year old Mellissa A. Derr.

Police have also charged Derr with misdemeanor driving while intoxicated in connection with the February 11th incident. Officers believe that Derr was heading inbound, driving a truck, when she crossed the centerline and collided with another vehicle at about the 3200 block.

Police say the accident closed a lane of Douglas Highway for about an hour. The driver of the other vehicle, a 65-year old woman, was treated for her injuries at the hospital and later released.

Derr appeared to be upset and clutching a tissue when she appeared in Juneau Superior Court during an arraignment hearing on Wednesday afternoon. Public defender Grace Lee entered a ‘not guilty’ plea on her behalf.

A jury trial is tentatively scheduled to last three days starting on May 7th.

An 18-year-old Seattle-area man has been charged with first degree murder in connection with the January 3rd shooting death of Ashton Reyes, of Juneau.

Jacob Mommer was charged Thursday morning in King County Superior Court, where his bail was set at $1-million. He was arrested on Tuesday in Maple Valley, south of Seattle.

Charging documents indicate the shooting was drug-related.

Ian Goodhew is Deputy Chief of Staff for the King County Prosecutor’s office.

“The deceased victim, Ashton Reyes, and a man she was with, arranged to meet Mommer and another individual to conduct a drug transaction,” he says, “and during the course of the drug transaction Mommer and the other individual began an attempt to rob Reyes and the man with her of the drugs. Gunshots erupted and at the end of it, Miss Reyes was dead, and Mr. Mommer and the other suspect had fled the scene.”

Mommer also has been charged with first and second degree robbery of items stolen from Reyes’ vehicle.

Goodhew says Mommer will be arraigned March 1st, two days after his 19th birthday. He says Mommer has no prior criminal history.

According to charging documents, at about 10 p.m. on Jan. 3rd the 22-year-old Juneau girl was found sprawled over the front seat of her car in a Subway parking lot, where Seattle police were responding to calls of shots being fired in the Rainier Beach area. As KTOO previously reported, Reyes was rushed to Harborview Medical Center, where she died about 75 minutes later of a gunshot wound to the torso.

The man she was with, identified in the documents as J.R., was found in a parking lot across the street with a bullet wound to his buttocks. In interviews with police, he said the pair planned to sell an ounce of marijuana to Mommer and another man. While J.R. told police his cellphone would have Mommer’s number, both J.R.’s and Reyes’ phones were taken from the vehicle and never recovered.

Police were able to obtain phone logs for J.R.’s number, and traced Mommer’s number to numerous listings on Craigslist for sales of marijuana, cellphones, and sports memorabilia. Seattle police served a warrant to Craigslist, identified the IP address and traced it to the Internet service provider for Mommer’s Maple Valley residence.

Seattle Detective Mark Jamieson says police are still searching for another suspect in the robbery and shooting.

According to relatives, Reyes had completed a dental assistant program in Seattle and was working as an intern in a Seattle-area dentist’s office.

She was a 2008 graduate of Juneau’s Yaakoosge’ Daakahidi Alternative High School, and the daughter of Rick Reyes of Juneau and Terri Reyes of Oregon.

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A former Juneau police officer was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison in connection with a case that initially included accusations of sexual abuse of a minor.

Brian Ervin, 39, was later convicted of felony interference with official proceedings, or essentially contacting a witness in the case, as the sex abuse charges were dropped.

Ervin could be out of prison in three years with credit for good time. He declined probation which would’ve included any number of conditions. However, there may be conditions placed on his parole if it is granted.

Ervin didn’t say anything in court aside from answering routine questions from Ketchikan Superior Court Judge Trevor Stephens.

District Attorney Dave Brower conceded that neither side would be satisfied with the outcome.

“But I believe that this is the best result that we’re going to get here,” said Brower.

It’s a stiffer sentence than the one- to two-year sentence Ervin was facing earlier. He consented to a new sentence agreement after the first part of a sentencing hearing earlier this month. Brower questioned Ervin about alleged abuse of two siblings when he was a child. He denied those accusations as well as allegations that he had abused a teenage girl starting eight years ago. It’s those other accusations that formed the basis of recent charges of sexual abuse of a minor.

At least one of Ervin’s siblings was apparently prepared to testify during Friday’s continued sentencing hearing. That didn’t happen.

The accuser in the latest case also did not speak this time. But her foster mother read a statement handed to her by the accuser. She claimed the abuse started when she was ten-years old and became a nightly occurrence. She said Brian Ervin took everything from her.

“It scares me to think that in order for our court system to save a little time, that millions of sex offenders are able to secure a plea bargain,” she said. “And with that, receive little or no punishment for their actions.”

The accuser wanted the plea agreement dropped and the case on the alleged sexual assault to go to trial.

Ervin’s defense attorney Julie Willoughby said days, even weeks could be spent parsing through the truthfulness of the accuser’s statements and allegations.

“He stands by his testimony that none of those things happened,” said Willoughby. “Otherwise, he wants to put this and the public spectacle of this behind him.”

Ketchikan Superior Court Judge Trevor Stephens didn’t think the abuse charges were fabricated and he found the accuser credible by a preponderance of the evidence. That’s a lower standard than beyond a reasonable doubt.

“It’s not so much what she said, (but) how she said it,” said Stephens.

But Judge Stephens speculated that taking the abuse case to a jury at trial would be extremely problematic for the prosecution. He noted the lack of corroborating testimony or physical evidence, and seemingly shifting, even contradictory, recollections of the accuser.

Ervin entered a ‘no contest’ plea to the felony interference charge at the same time that sexual abuse charges against him were dropped last August.

Sentencing wrapped up Friday morning in Juneau Superior Court.

Ervin already reported to Lemon Creek Correctional Center last year to start serving out his expected sentence.

A sentencing hearing is planned for early April for a Juneau couple who was charged with theft after leaving their jobs as managers of the Airport Mini-Mall and Apartments.

Cheryl Hansen, 67, and Paul Hansen, 63, changed their pleas to guilty to reduced charges of second degree theft in Juneau Superior Court on Monday.

That charge carries a maximum of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. For first time offenders like the Hansens with an aggravating factor as a ‘most serious offense,’ the presumptive term would be two years. That prison term will likely be suspended entirely with no time to serve in prison for the couple. They may also be put on probation for three years and ordered to pay restitution which will likely be determined during the April 5th sentencing hearing. They will also be ordered to write letters of apology.

Cheryl and Paul Hansen didn’t say anything in court besides entering their pleas and answering routine questions from Juneau Superior Court Judge Louis Menendez about whether they understood the process.

Assistant District Attorney Amy Williams says owners of the Mall discovered at least $68,870 in rent deposits were missing after the Hansens left their employment in June 2010.

“The ledgers of the organization showed that beginning in about November 2009 the amounts deposited were slightly less than the amounts collected,” said Williams.

“That number increasingly grew from November 2009 through May and June 2010 when there were no deposits made at all.”

Williams says the Hansens acknowledged to officers that the deposits had not been made. They claimed they had the funds, but a search by officers of the Hansen’s belongings could not locate the money.

Cheryl Hansen said outside of the courtroom afterward that they really didn’t know how they’d pay the money back since they are on social security and disability.

The Hansens started work as managers of the Airport Mini-Mall and Apartments in 2001. She did the bookkeeping and he did the maintanence.

Another case related to the investigation of a Juneau guide for illegal hunting and fishing has come to an end.

Bradley Deffenbaugh, 51, of Honolulu, Hawaii on Friday entered a guilty plea to a strict liability violation. He was ordered to pay a total of $510 in combined fines and fees. Deffenbaugh was allowed the unusual provision of withdrawing his plea if there are any new charges.

Special prosecutor Andrew Peterson says he doesn’t anticipate any other charges being filed against Deffenbaugh.

Deffenbaugh also forfeits the bear that was at the center of the violation including the hide, skull, and claws.

Deffenbaugh was intially charged with a single misdemeanor count of negligently falsifying information required on a sealing certificate or temporary sealing form. He could’ve been sentenced to as much as a year in jail and fined 10-thousand dollars if he was convicted.

Alaska Fish and Wildlife investigators alleged that Deffenbaugh killed a black bear near the end of the Juneau road system, traveling by vehicle with guide Michael Duby on June 4th, 2009. According to charging documents, Deffenbaugh “signed a sealing form certifying that the bear was taken south of Lynn Canal with the use of a boat on June 3rd, 2009”.

When interviewed by investigators, Deffenbaugh admitted to signing the sealing certificate, but he did not know why it stated that the bear was killed on the previous day with a boat.

Deffenbaugh initially entered a ‘not guilty’ plea during an arraignment in December. A jury trial was tentatively planned for late February.

Defense attorney Julie Willoughby says her client had simply signed the sealing form that was filled out by his friend, Michael Duby, without reading it carefully.

“That was simply his mistake,” says Willoughby.

The charge against Deffenbaugh was filed by the Attorney General’s Office of Special Prosecutions which has also filed charges against Michael Duby’s brothers, Jason W. Duby and Joel M. Duby, both of Washington state, for alleged bear hunting and sport fishing violations.

Michael Duby was sentenced last week to nine months in jail and penalized nearly $44,000 on state and federal charges. He pled guilty to a number of crimes included selling migratory bird parts on the internet, baiting bears behind his home, and falsifying a hunting license application and Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend application. Duby also got caught committing sport fish guide violations while taking undercover investigators out on a halibut trip. The violations included too many poles and too many halibut taken, and falsifying guide reporting requirements.

A Juneau man is facing six misdemeanor counts of maintaining a nuisance property, failure to close a building, and not using a public sewer.

Seventy-one-year-old Ronald W. Hohman was arraigned in Juneau District Court this afternoon (Friday) after being arrested by police earlier in the day.

City Prosecutor August Petropulos told Judge Tom Nave that neighbors have complained that Hohman’s Nowell Avenue house is unsafe to occupy, and that sewage from the property is overflowing onto the street.

Hohman’s attorney, Deborah Holbrook, said her client did not know why he was being arrested and booked at Lemon Creek Correctional Center this morning. She also said the sewage can’t be from his house, because the city shut off his water and sewer for not paying the bill late last fall.

Hohman was released on $250 bail, which he posted earlier in the day.

Judge Nave barred him from the house except between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. to make repairs.

Hohman’s next court appearance was scheduled for April 2nd, with a jury trial to begin April 10th, though a plea agreement is possible before then. If convicted, he faces a $1,000 fine and up to 90 days in jail for each of the six misdemeanor counts, according to JPD Spokeswoman Cindee Brown-Mills.

Petropulos and CBJ Building Inspector Charlie Ford declined to discuss the case.

It’s not the first time Hohman has been in trouble for activity at the property. In July 2000 he was convicted of two misdemeanors after being charged with five violations of the city’s building, housing and zoning codes. In that case he was sentenced to one year of probation, a $3,000 fine, and 150 hours of community service.