Crime & Courts

The man convicted of burning down the historic 110 year old Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, McPhetres Hall, and an adjacent home is back in jail.

Twenty-nine year old Bob Huber was arrested early Friday morning after an alleged altercation with a woman. He’s been charged with assault in the fourth degree and is now being held at Lemon Creek Correctional Center.

Huber told District Court Judge Thomas Nave during an arraignment hearing on Friday afternoon that he did not have any savings. He’s only been working at a local motel for the last three months. That’s roughly the same amount of time that Huber has been out on parole after serving his sentence down south for arson.

Huber was sentenced to 15 years in prison with seven years suspended. Probation was set at ten years for the March 12th, 2006 fire that burned down all three structures in downtown Juneau. No one besides Huber was reported injured from the blaze. A cat in the private home reportedly died in the fire.

It was just this year that church and community members celebrated reconstruction of the new Holy Trinity Episcopal Church and McPhetres Hall.

A new attorney is on the case and new trial date has been set for a man accused of stealing a vehicle and crashing it into the brewery to get some beer.

A jury trial was scheduled to start Monday for Michael Rae. He’s the 54 year old Juneau man who was arrested after a vehicle was crashed into the Alaskan Brewing Company storefront on Shaune Drive last May.

“Want to dismiss today?” Rae loudly asked District Attorney Dave Brower from the other side of the courtroom during a hearing Thursday. He repeated the question when he received no answer.

Rae’s jury trial has been rescheduled for December 12th as his new lawyer comes up to speed on the case. The judge also is expected to consider the latest set of motions to suppress evidence and dismiss the indictment.

A grand jury has returned with a set of indictments against a Juneau man accused of setting fire to an apartment building on Lemon Creek Road this summer.

Twenty-five year old Timothy D. James is being charged with burglary, theft, criminal mischief, and arson in connection with the July 11th incident.

James is accused of entering a Juneau woman’s apartment on Lemon Creek Road, damaging some of her belongings and taking others. The arson charge is because James allegedly returned to his own nearby apartment building and endangered other people’s lives by creating an explosion or starting a fire.

Electronic court records indicate that James was arraigned in Juneau Superior Court on Wednesday. A competency hearing is planned for later this month.

According to a statement from Juneau Police at the time, a neighbor heard a commotion in the first apartment and witnessed someone leave who was ‘oddly dressed and had several items in his possession.’ Officers say they later contacted the burglary suspect on a nearby trail. As they tried talking to the man who was described as ‘very uncooperative,’ officers noticed smoke coming from the man’s own apartment in a nearby building at 1995 Lemon Creek Road.

The fire was put out by responding firefighters and no one was reported hurt.

Fire and police officials investigated several fires in the early half of 2011 that they considered as suspicious in nature or arson-caused.

A jury trial is still scheduled for December 5th stemming from this summer’s fatal accident out the road.

Twenty-five year old Ryan West is being charged with second degree murder 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 on 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 signalled that delay would still be possible if he doesn’t get all the evidence that he needs, including a report and results from toxicology testing. Another pre-trial hearing is in two weeks. Any change from the scheduled trial date will likely be made at that time. Two weeks has been set aside for a jury to hear the case.

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.

A 62-year-old Juneau woman has been medevac’d to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center, after suffering serious injuries in a vehicle-pedestrian accident early this morning (Thursday).

The incident happened just before 7:30 a.m. Juneau Police say the woman was running across Glacier Highway at Davis Street when she was hit by a Jeep Wrangler driven by a 34-year-old man.

An ambulance took her to Bartlett Regional Hospital, where her injuries were deemed serious enough that she be medevac’d to Harborview, according to Bartlett Spokesman Jim Strader.

Her current condition is unknown. The woman’s name and the name of the driver have not been released. The incident is under investigation.

The Juneau woman convicted of neglecting seventeen cats is still trying to appeal her case — filing motion after motion — in an effort to obtain justice and eventually regain ownership of the animals. The latest motions filed by 54-year old Christen Blake allege judicial misconduct and ask for more time to submit documents supporting her appeal.

Blake appears to have given up with her civil suit seeking custody of the cats. That case was essentially thrown out June 1st, but Blake continued filing motions as much as seven weeks after the judge tossed out the lawsuit.

She’s forging ahead in the appeal of her criminal case by acting as her own attorney and producing numerous filings. Many motions are multiple pages in length and some filings include a mix of pages produced on both a manual typewriter and a computer.

After a conviction by a jury in April, Blake was sentenced to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine. But the jail time and fine were both suspended and probation was set at five years. As part of her sentence, she was also forced to give up the cats that she collected and confined in her van at the Auke Bay harbor parking lot last winter. Another condition of her sentence makes any future possession of animals contingent on her compliance with mental health treatment.

The original charge of cruelty to animals in the form of neglect is a misdemeanor normally handled at the District Court level. But the case was eventually handled by Superior Court Judge Philip Pallenberg of Juneau partly because another judge had recused himself. District Court criminal cases can usually be appealed to Superior Court or the Alaska Court of Appeals. Superior Court Judge David George of Sitka is currently considering the appeal, but it’s unclear yet whether he plans on hearing any oral arguments. CBJ attorneys said they’ll wait to file a response until they know for certain which judge will consider the case.

Meanwhile, as part of her effort to get the cats back, Blake has threatened to sue the trial judge in federal court. In a short letter recently sent to Judge Pallenberg and copied to the local media, Blake said there was never any evidence that she was hurting the cats and alleges that the Gastineau Humane Society is euthanizing all of them. She wants Pallenberg to be found guilty of cruel and unusual treatment.

One cat was returned to its previous owner. Aside from three cats that were considered feral, the rest were put up for adoption. Shelter officials said shortly after the jury trial at that least seven cats were quickly placed in new homes.