Crime & Courts

A client of a Juneau guide is the latest to be implicated in possible poaching activities in the area.

Bradley Deffenbaugh, 51, of Honolulu, Hawaii has been charged with a single count of negligently falsifying information required on a sealing certificate or temporary sealing form. That’s a class ‘A’ misdemeanor.

A ‘not guilty’ plea was entered during an arraignment on Tuesday. A jury trial is tentatively planned for late February.

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

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. Their father, Michael W. Duby, is also being charged with providing guide services without a license.

Michael Patrick Duby is currently awaiting sentencing on a federal charge for selling migratory bird parts over the internet for use as fly-tying supplies. But no charges related to the bear hunting have been filed against him yet by the State of Alaska.

Michael Patrick Duby and Michael W. Duby were already sentenced in September for five years of poaching elk, deer, and antelope in Montana.

According to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle newspaper, Michael Patrick Duby received a 20-year suspended prison sentence and was ordered to pay $15,500 in restitution. Michael W. Duby was sentenced to two six-month suspended jail sentences and three years probation for unlawful possession of game animals.

There will be no jury trial next week in the case of this summer’s fatal accident out the road.

An attorney for Ryan West on Thursday filed a motion to dismiss the indictment of second degree murder, knocking the trial off the calendar as the judge considers the motion and any additional briefings.

The 25-year old West is being charged in connection with the death of 19-year old Gabriel Carte. West and Carte were both in a truck that went into a ditch and rolled several times at Mile 35 Glacier Highway last June. West sustained minor injuries. Carte died when he was ejected from the vehicle. Police believe alcohol and speed were factors in the crash.

Defense attorney David Seid said whether or not West was the driver, there was no way that anyone could be charged with second degree murder in this case. He suggested that there may have been a little alcohol consumption, but no one was intoxicated.

In a 20-page motion handed to Superior Court Judge Louis Menendez, Seid says prosecutors chose the wrong charge to present to the grand jury. Seid writes that the accident at Mile 32 (not Mile 35 as indicated in previous reports) occurred when Carte was driving West’s truck at about 80 miles an hour. West told investigators that Carte lost control and the truck spun about six times. The Dodge pick-up was sitting in a creek bed, heavily damaged with a missing wheel and its top crushed in. But the investigating officer told a grand jury later that he would be skeptical if West would’ve allowed anyone else to drive his truck.

West volunteered to testify before the grand jury and told jurors that he let Carte drive the truck and switched places with him after leaving a gathering at Eagle Beach. West also said that he drank two beers at the gathering, but he could not recall if Carte drank anything. A blood draw at the hospital sometime after the accident, considered inadmissible by Seid, showed that West had a blood alcohol content of .071 percent, under the legal limit of .08 percent. Seid argues that the charge of murder in the second degree has been reserved for “instances of extreme intoxication with egregious driving conduct” and the grand jury had received misleading or insufficient instructions on the law. Seid also questioned the prosecution’s cross-examination of West before the grand jury which Seid considered as unfair and inadmissable impeachment of his client.

District Attorney Dave Brower was aware that a motion-to-dismiss was being filed, but he said that he “not had a chance to see it yet.”

A two-week jury trial was scheduled to start on Monday, December 5th.

Prosecutors also want to revoke West’s probation stemming from an earlier case in which he injured a woman by dragging her with his truck. That will be considered pending the outcome of the murder trial.

The next hearing in the case is planned for January 3, 2012. That may push any potential trial into next spring.

November 29, 2011 4:30 pm update
Because of what appears to be a simple scheduling error, Jason and Joel Duby were not arraigned as planned on Tuesday. A supplemental summons will be issued and a new arraignment hearing is tentatively planned for the next two weeks.

November 29, 2011 6:20 am
Prosecutors have filed charges against two other close relatives of a Juneau guide. That now makes at least three men from the same family implicated in what appears to be an expanding investigation of possible poaching activities in the area.

The Attorney General’s Office of Special Prosecutions has filed charges against two brothers of Michael Patrick Duby, 37, owner and operator of FishHunter Charters.

Jason W. Duby, 36, of Clelum, Washington faces charges of bear baiting without a permit, hunting in a closed area, and taking a black bear without an appropriate permit.

Joel M. Duby, 27, of Richland, Washington faces charges of guiding without a valid sport fish license and engaging in sport fish guiding without a guide license available for inspection.

Both of the Duby brothers are scheduled to be arraigned telephonically in Juneau District Court on Tuesday.

Alaska Fish and Wildlife investigators say they were tipped to Michael Duby operating bear baiting stations roughly 270-feet behind his house and about tenth of mile from the 7200 block of Glacier Highway. Such stations – even if permitted in Juneau – would be illegal less than a mile from a residence and a quarter-mile from the road. It’s alleged that the Dubys set up a trail camera and bears were lured with marshmellows, fish, dog food, and whole duck with breast meat intact. Investigators set up their own trail camera and logged several instances of Jason and Michael Duby checking the bait site, setting more bait, and going out with a compound bow and a rifle in June 2009. Investigators say Jason Duby at first denied ever trying to hunt because he didn’t want to pay license or permit fees, but he changed his story when confronted with a picture from a trail camera. A picture discovered at Michael Duby’s house also allegedly showed Jason Duby taking a bear there in June 2007. Investigators named two other men, Jordan Morse and Andrew Morse, who were convicted for helping Jason Duby haul out that illegally taken bear.

Joel Duby’s charges stem from taking out sport fish clients in May 2007 even though he didn’t have a valid annual guide license. Investigators suggest that Joel Duby may have even forged Michael Duby’s signature in a logbook on the ‘Brody,’ one of his brother’s boats. Clients identified Joel Duby as captain for their particular trip, not Michael Duby. Investigators also say that Joel Duby didn’t even have a standard sport fishing license that season which they say is a prerequisite for a guide license.

Michael Patrick Duby’s father, Michael W. Duby, 61, has already been charged with providing guide services without a license, allegedly for a sport fishing trip in April 2008 while taking out the ‘Brody.’

Michael Patrick Duby has not been charged with any recent infractions or crimes under state law. He’s currently awaiting sentencing in January 2012 on a federal charge related to selling migratory bird parts over the internet.

(Editor’s note: Joel Duby’s hometown corrected to Richland.)

A former assistant bank manager has been sentenced in federal court to 33 months in prison for stealing money from a Juneau bank, the Mendenhall branch of Keybank.

Antonietta “Ann” Robinson, 44, of the Philippines, was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Burgess in Anchorage. The court also ordered her to pay restitution for the total amount stolen and serve five years of supervised release.

Assistant U. S. Attorney Aunnie Steward, who prosecuted the case, said Robinson stole $300,000 by falsifying bank paperwork over a period of four years. According to filings made by prosecutors, they also say that Robinson bullied, cajoled, and manipulated her fellow Filipino employees into not verifying vault balances and to cut tape from the bank’s security cameras. She used the $300,000 for a new house in the Phillipines and designer brand goods.

Ultimately, Robinson was fired in 2006 for fraudulently opening up customer accounts to get credit for new accounts opened. The following day she withdrew $150,000 from her personal account and fled to the Phillipines.

The new incoming assistant branch manager did an audit, discovered the thefts, and fired the head teller under Robinson for not properly verifying vault balances.

Robinson was extradited in June of this year and pled guilty to the charges.

A Juneau man will spend more time in prison after firing a shot at a downtown apartment building last May and then barricading himself in a separate house nearby.

Jeffrey Allen Isturis, 52, was sentenced on Monday in Juneau Superior Court.

The sentence includes five-years in prison with three-years suspended for a weapons misconduct charge, three-months for violating a domestic violence restraining order, plus over eleven-months of previously-suspended time now imposed. That comes to a total of about three-years and two-months in prison. The sentence also includes five-years on probation.

Two other charges of assault were dismissed as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors. Isturis pled guilty to the remaining charges in August.

Isturis said he was nervous and claimed that he did not understand why the sentence seemed to be so harsh. But Superior Court Judge Philip Pallenberg said he had a different way of looking at it, especially considering the serious nature of the crime and Isturis’ prior criminal history.

“In my mind, the issue is whether the sentence that was agreed to is too lenient or not,” said Judge Pallenberg.

Pallenberg suggested that – if he had the leeway — would’ve imposed more time in prison, especially if Isturis was convicted during a jury trial and went through open sentencing. But Pallenberg said the sentence was not unreasonable when compared to what other judges might independently hand down for a similiar crime.

“I think that this is a very favorable resolution for him,” said Assistant District Attorney Amy Williams.

Williams says Isturis has twenty-six prior convictions going back almost thirty years, ten of those convictions were just for assault. Isturis was already on probation for two other assaults when the May incident occurred.

“If Mr. Isturis is concerned that this sentence is too harsh, then his concerns are terribly misguided considering the seriousness of the offense,” said Williams.

The incident at the Fosbee Apartments near the Governor’s Mansion last May happened just hours after a woman had a domestic violence protective order served against him. After shooting at the woman’s door, Isturis fled and spent over five hours in the garage of a house a few blocks away near West 11th and ‘C’ Streets until surrendering to Juneau Police. Officers had cordoned off the area until the stand-off was resolved.

Isturis sat through part of the sentencing hearing with elbows on the table and head against his cuffed hands. He appeared to be trembling during part of the proceeding, and he reached for a tissue when he broke down as he issued his own comments later. Isturis apologized to the community, his parents, the court, and police. He essentially admitted that alcohol was at the root of all of his problems and he said he needed to get sober for himself.

“I hurt my kids really bad,” said Isturis. “I (also) hurt someone that I really cared about. We were in love with each other.”

“We both knew that — when we both drank — we’d get into an argument and that it’d be about the past,” said Isturis.

As part of his sentence, Isturis must participate in addiction treatment, a batterers intervention program, and a mental health evaluation and any potential treatment.

Sentencing has been rescheduled for January 18 in the case of a former Juneau police officer charged with interfering with a witness.

Brian Ervin, 39, had initially been charged with three felony charges of sexual abuse of a minor. But those charges were dropped in August as Ervin pled “no contest” to the felony interference charge.

Ervin’s prison term of two years may be well above the presumptive minimum of a year because the crime occurred while he was out on release.

Juneau Police Department officials say they removed Ervin from normal police duties when the allegations initially surfaced. He had been reassigned to another position within the City and Borough of Juneau.