Public Safety

A former Juneau chiropractor accused of assaulting a dozen women under the guise of medical care took the stand this week.

Jeffrey Fultz testified that he performed legitimate procedures while working at Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium in Juneau. The former patients accusing him of assault say the incidents took place during medical appointments between 2014 and 2020. 

“(The) truth is that I was doing the very best I could for the patients I get to work with,” Fultz testified.

In the last few weeks, the jury has heard from medical practitioners, expert witnesses and Fultz’s former colleagues. Some of them said providers should avoid touching women’s breasts and rears during treatment, while others said there are legitimate medical practices that involve touching those sensitive areas.

Fultz denied allegations that he told patients they had to undress fully for treatment, that he intentionally walked in on them while they were undressed and that he limited access to appropriate coverings during treatments. 

Several women testified to some or all of these allegations earlier in the trial.

Defense attorney James Christie asked Fultz directly about the allegations against him.

“In performing treatment, was your purpose or intention ever to seek sexual gratification?” Christie said.

“No, no,” Fultz said.

He also claimed that followed informed consent practices, and echoed their importance.

“Do you yourself have conversations with your patients about what to expect?” Christie said.

“Yes,” Fultz said. “Consent is an ongoing process.”

The women accusing him of assault said he did not tell or ask them in advance of touching sensitive areas of their bodies. 

Fultz was first arrested in 2021, but it took four years for the case to go to trial. He has been out on bail since his arrest and living in Colorado. The trial against him is in its sixth week. 

Testimony is wrapping up in the coming days, and attorneys are expected to give the jury closing arguments soon. 

The Indian Health Services established a hotline for callers to report suspected child abuse or sexual abuse by calling 1-855-SAFE-IHS (855-723-3447) or submitting a complaint online on the IHS.gov website. The hotline may be used to report any type of suspected child abuse within the IHS, or any type of sexual abuse regardless of the age of the victim. The person reporting by phone or online may remain anonymous.

Locally, people can call AWARE in Juneau at 907-586-1090.

Two people were rescued uninjured Monday afternoon after their small plane crashed near the Katzehin River flats outside Haines.

The U.S. Coast Guard was notified around 4 p.m. Monday that a plane had gone down near the Chilkoot Inlet, just south of Haines.

The control center dispatched a helicopter air crew from Sitka and a boat from Juneau. Shortly thereafter the Coast Guard made contact with the two people, who reported that they were on land and uninjured.

Travis Magee, a public affairs specialist with the Coast Guard, said the aircraft crew called for help when they were not able to take off again.

“They also reported that, at the time of the incident, they were attempting to land, but they had hit or struck a log, and they were unable to relaunch the aircraft,” he said.

Magee said he could not provide additional information about the aircraft. But he said the Coast Guard helicopter arrived on scene around 6 p.m. and brought both people to Juneau.

EMS personnel were waiting in Juneau to provide medical care, which Magee said was precautionary.

An immigrant seeking asylum in Anchorage was arrested outside the restaurant where he worked and detained by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials earlier this month.

ICE officials said they detained Santiago “Diego” Martinez, 30, for having a drunken driving conviction. However, his attorney said ICE admitted they made a mistake – Martinez does not have a criminal conviction – but he remained in custody as of Monday.

It was the morning of Aug. 11 that Jennifer Choi got a call from Martinez’s girlfriend, who said he needed help. Choi went behind her restaurant, Sushi Motto, and saw ICE officers detaining Martinez.

“So when I go, Diego was in the car,” Choi said. “And then I said, ‘OK, what’s going on?’ They say he don’t have a green card. I tell them, he has a green card. He has a green card. I tell them, like two, three times, but they said, ‘We have to take him.'”

Martinez had worked for Choi for more than five years as a sushi chef. She said he was a great employee.

“He has a good heart,” Choi said. “He helped, even though he’s a sushi chef, he helped in the kitchen, dishwash, whatever needed help. He did everything. He never complained.”

Martinez is a Mexican national who was in the country illegally, ICE spokeswoman Christine Cuttita said in an email. ICE officials first encountered Martinez in 2019 when he entered the country and was arrested by airport police, Cuttita said. His case was dismissed by a judge in 2022 for “prosecutorial discretion.”

Margaret Stock, Martinez’s attorney, said Martinez is an Indigenous person from Mexico and was seeking asylum in the United States. The charges for his initial immigration arrest were dismissed, because the judge ruled he had a valid asylum case, Stock said.

“He does have a very good reason not to return,” Stock said. “I mean, people in the family have been killed and murdered.”

It’s not uncommon for asylum cases to take years to resolve, she said.

Cuttita with ICE wrote that Martinez, “jeopardized any legal privilege to remain in the United States when he was arrested by the Anchorage Police Department on Nov. 12, 2024, for driving under the influence.”

But the charges were thrown out, Stock said, and Martinez doesn’t have a drunken driving conviction on his record.

“I talked to the ICE people, and they were operating on misinformation that he had a DWI conviction, which he doesn’t have,” Stock said. “But they claim that was the reason, on the telephone to me, that they were arresting him, was that he had a DWI conviction.”

Stock said the ICE officials told her they made a mistake arresting Martinez, since he doesn’t have a drunken driving conviction, but they still won’t release him.

“They told me that once they grab somebody, they’re not allowed to release him anymore,” Stock said. “And they say that this is a new rule that has been made up by the DHS leadership, that people who are pending asylum, they can just grab them anytime and put them in detention.”

Cuttita said that convictions and arrests can both jeopardize someone’s immigration status. But Stock said the Department of Homeland Security isn’t following the law.

“I think it’s illegal and it’s un-American,” Stock said. “It’s unconstitutional, and then on top of it, there’s obviously errors in the system. So how can we trust the Department of Homeland Security when they make these kinds of egregious errors all the time?”

For now, it remains unclear if Martinez will be deported.

Stock said she was able to meet with Martinez when he was being held at the Anchorage Correctional Complex, but the opportunities were limited.

“He was freezing cold and shivering while he was talking to me,” Stock said. “He said it’s freezing in there, and then he also told me that they would only let him make one phone call a day. They’ve denied me access to speak with him because they have special rules that attorneys aren’t allowed to go in there for huge chunks of the day. You know, they have hours that are off-limits to attorneys.”

Those rules, Stock said, contradict what ICE’s website says about the Anchorage Correctional Complex, that attorneys can access clients from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day.

Martinez was transferred to a detention center in Tacoma, and Stock is there, too, working to get him released. But she said she was worried that the center will have similarly harsh conditions and the same lack of access as the Anchorage jail.

Meanwhile, Choi, Martinez’s boss, said she’s concerned about how his detention will impact her business and her employees.

“Everybody is getting sad, like, depressed, I think,” Choi said. “And, you know, some people, they don’t even want to work, even though they have a green card. You know, they’re just scared to work.”

Choi said she’s also pitching in to try to get Martinez back to Alaska.

Friday marked the end of the third week of a sexual assault trial against former SEARHC chiropractor Jeffrey Fultz, who stands accused of abusing patients in Juneau between 2014 and 2020. 

Presiding Judge Larry Woolford declared a mistrial Wednesday for two of the 16 sexual assault and harassment charges. Fultz will continue to stand trial for the remaining 14 charges.

The mistrial happened because a witness testified that she had experienced misconduct from Fultz beyond what she had previously testified to on record. The witness is an alleged victim of sexual assault and has not been publicly identified outside of the courtroom. KTOO is not identifying her in this story.

Woolford ruled that state prosecutors withheld information from the court and Fultz’s attorneys, which then came up in the witness’s testimony in front of jurors.

“After an objection by the defense, it became clear that the prosecution knew of [the witness’s] allegation at least as early as the day before her testimony in court but intentionally withheld the allegation from the defense,” Woolford’s order states.

The jurors have been told to disregard that witness testimony.

Fultz’s defense attorney James Christie said the prosecutors intentionally withheld the witness’s disclosure. 

“We are entitled to have all of the evidence that is in the state’s possession ahead of time,” he said. “There’s no question about that.” 

Prosecutor Krystyn Tendy said she thinks Woolford’s ruling is assuming that the prosecutors had bad intentions. 

“The state disagrees with the characterization of the bad faith analysis that the judge conducted,” she said.

The charges can be retried if state prosecutors choose to pursue them again. Tendy said they are still deciding how to move forward with these charges. 

This week, the court also heard from two people who have been mentioned a lot in the trial so far — two medical providers that worked with Jeffrey Fultz in SEARHC’s physical therapy department at the time of the alleged crimes.

The women accusing Fultz of assault repeatedly contrasted Fultz’s treatment — the amount of touching, the places he touched, and the way he encouraged them to take their clothes off — with the treatment they received from these two providers. 

Emily Haskell is a physical therapist who worked in SEARHC’s physical therapy department. The prosecution asked how she approaches patients with a history of sexual trauma — something a few of the alleged victims told Fultz they experienced.

“I think especially if someone has had experienced sexual or interpersonal trauma, I think I was a lot more cautious with if I was going to touch them,” Haskell said. “Probably a lot more cautious with asking them to, you know, pull their shirt down to look at their shoulder, or pull their pant leg up, or something like that.”

Haskell said she doesn’t give massages to patients in the course of her physical therapy treatments.

“Because it really is not within the scope of practice of physical therapy. I’m trying to find, like, dysfunctional or painful spots in muscles, sometimes a whole muscle itself,” she said. “But I think of massage therapy as like a more broad and less direct approach to managing muscle tension.”

A massage therapist with SEARHC, Amanda James, also worked with some of Fultz’s patients. 

She said she would work with patients on their comfortability level with covering their bodies.

“If you’re not comfortable taking off certain clothing, or any, that’s okay,” James said she told patients. “I can work over the sheets.”

James said she wouldn’t ask a patient to disrobe fully to treat upper body issues. She said she always does work on the glute muscles over sheets and as a rule, doesn’t work on muscles in the groin area. 

Fultz’s defense asked James if any of the alleged victims she treated complained to her about their treatment with Fultz. She testified that they did not.

The trial was scheduled through Friday, but it’s continuing into another week. The state has called about two dozen witnesses — each alleged victim, partners of complainants, medical experts, former SEARHC employees and one Juneau police detective. The state rested its case Friday. 

The defense began calling its witnesses Friday. The trial is expected to wrap up at the end of next week.

The Juneau Police Department has released the name of the officer who slammed a man to the ground last month during an arrest. The department says it also plans to release the body-worn camera footage from the incident at the end of this month. 

The officer’s name is Brandon LeBlanc. He started his position in Juneau last fall. The department placed him on paid administrative leave following the arrest.

The department says LeBlanc has 17 years of law enforcement experience. Before beginning his position in Juneau, LeBlanc worked as an officer in Louisiana.

While there, court documents show that a man sued LeBlanc in 2016 for excessive force and battery, among other accusations. The man claimed he received a broken jaw and was unlawfully tased by LeBlanc during an arrest. 

LeBlanc testified during the trial that the man was punching another officer, and that he tackled and tased him when he resisted arrest. A jury found LeBlanc not guilty. 

During the incident involving the Juneau man last month, witness Ibn Bailey recorded a video of the arrest that circulated widely online. Later, Bailey said the officer responded in “the most professional manner, given the circumstance.”

The video showed LeBlanc attempting to handcuff the man before slamming him to the ground. The man appeared to lie unconscious for the remainder of the video and was later medevacked out of town with a head injury. 

Dozens of Juneau residents gathered at the police station days after to protest the officer’s actions. The man’s family has publicly identified him as Christopher Williams, Jr. They say he plans to sue the department.

The Juneau Police Department requested an independent investigation by an external agency to review LeBlanc’s use of force. That investigation is still ongoing. 

Once it’s finished, the state Office of Special Prosecutions will then review the case to determine if LeBlanc was justified in his response. The city says it will also conduct an internal investigation of the incident to examine whether his actions aligned with the department’s current policy.

In May, the Juneau Assembly passed an ordinance mandating that the Juneau Police Department release body-worn camera footage no more than 30 days after a city police officer’s actions cause serious injury. That means the footage will be released on Aug. 29.

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Floodwaters from Juneau’s glacial outburst are receding. The flood reached a record-breaking crest of 16.65 feet at about 8 a.m. Wednesday.

The temporary levee the city installed along the Mendenhall River this year protected hundreds of homes nearby. But water still leaked through some sections and flooded several streets.

In the middle of Meander Way, Sean Smack tugged a raft through muddy floodwaters. He ferried diesel jugs to neighbors so they could run generators to pump the water from their homes since power was cut Wednesday morning as the river level rose.

“The Meander Way water taxi service — once a year, have no fear,” he said.

He delivered a jug to Locke and Melissa Brown’s house. Water from their crawl space flowed through a bright green garden hose down their porch steps.

The Browns have HESCO barriers stacked up in their backyard. But water worked its way through the barriers and rose through storm drains, hitting a handful of homes at the end of Meander Way.

The Browns were glad that the barriers are there, even with the seepage. This is the third year in a row their home has flooded.

“If they weren’t here, it would have been catastrophic for us,” Locke Brown said.

It’s not as bad this time. But he says they want a long-term solution before they have to sell their home in a few years. Melissa is on active duty in the U.S. Coast Guard.

“We’re going to be doing this for five years in total, and then we’re forced to move on military orders,” he said. “How are we going to sell our house?”

Around the corner, Andrew Hills walked along the grey pool in the middle of Northland Street with his toddler, Waylon, up on his shoulders. Their house got hit by the flood last year, but this year it was spared.

“This is awesome. I could not be happier,” Hills said. “I feel terrible for the people at the end of Meander, but, you know, really happy it didn’t hit us.”

He said he spent the night walking the streets and saw the barriers leaking.

At a press briefing Wednesday morning, Juneau City Manager Katie Koester said the barriers were largely a success.

“I know we’re not entirely out of the woods, but the HESCO barriers really have protected our community,” Koester said. “If it weren’t for them, we would have hundreds and hundreds of flooded homes.”

Building the levee was a controversial process, and it is considered a stop-gap solution. It’s only meant to work for around a decade, and the city doesn’t know how it would perform in floods higher than 18 feet. Experts still don’t know whether that could happen. This year’s record-breaking crest was more than half a foot higher than last year’s peak of 15.99 feet, which was also a foot higher than the previous year.

City officials are still assessing the damage and monitoring areas that saw some flooding, including parts of Meander Way, Meadow Lane, Marion Drive, Parkview Court, Center Court, View Drive, Long Run Drive, Betty Court, Gee Street and the Safeway parking lot.

Christopher Goins with the Alaska Department of Transportation said Back Loop Bridge was damaged by tree strikes and erosion. The bridge was closed to traffic Tuesday night.

“We are beginning to lose portions of the road associated with that abutment there, and that’s the main support where we have piles that go into the ground that hold up the bridge sections themselves,” he said Wednesday morning, adding that the bridge should be fine with some repairs.

The current swept away tons of trees from the riverbank, including one that crushed a HESCO barrier. The city reinforced it with massive sandbags called supersacks.

Nicole Ferrin, the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Juneau, noted the significance of this flood.

“This is a new all-time record-high crest for the Mendenhall Lake and river system,” Ferrin said.

The crest happened sooner than initially predicted. On Tuesday evening, the National Weather Service updated the forecast from an expected peak Wednesday afternoon to earlier that morning. Aaron Jacobs, senior service hydrologist at the agency, said that’s because rainfall from the prior few days masked when Suicide Basin started to release.

“It really hides the signal that we would be looking for if water was coming from Suicide Basin,” he said.

Jacobs said it now looks like the release began sometime on Monday morning.

Just outside the city’s emergency shelter on Floyd Dryden campus, Shari Weimer smoked a cigarette as sunshine broke through the fog. She and her husband Carl evacuated from Lakeview Court at around 10 p.m. Wednesday night.

“I’m right one street over from the river, and I just chose to evacuate because my life is worth more than home,” she said.

Their house flooded the past two years. This time, with a higher peak and concerns about the temporary levee, Shari said she didn’t want to deal with the panic again.

Just seven people stayed in the shelter overnight. Some residents stayed with friends and family in town, and others stayed home. Capital City Fire/Rescue Assistant Chief Sam Russell said during a Wednesday’s press conference that emergency responders did not need to make any rescues overnight as waters levels rose. 

The Juneau School District postponed the first day of school on Thursday until Friday in order to allow the area time to dry out.

Emergency officials issued an alert Wednesday afternoon that the flood threat had ended and evacuated areas are now open to residents only. The National Weather Service flood warning expires at 8 a.m. Thursday. 

This post has been updated.