Public Safety

The Alaska Bar Association’s board of governors is considering whether to recommend the disbarment of former federal judge Joshua Kindred and will vote on the issue next month.

Kindred, appointed by President Donald Trump to the U.S. District Court of Alaska, resigned in 2024 after investigators found that he had a “sexualized relationship” with a clerk who became a prosecutor and lied about it to a senior judge and investigators, and maintained a hostile workplace for law clerks.

Kindred’s Alaska law license is listed as “inactive” in the ABA database; disbarring him would mean that he is unable to practice law in the state.

A final decision on disbarment would come from the Alaska Supreme Court, which makes the final decisions on attorney discipline in the state, said Annette Blair, legal secretary of the discipline section for the bar association.

No current or former federal judge has ever been disbarred in Alaska.

According to documents made available ahead of the bar association’s August meeting, someone filed a complaint against Kindred in January, requesting a discipline hearing.

Kindred did not attend that hearing, which took place in June.

“Based on the uncontested facts, the (area hearing) committee agrees with, and adopts, the legal analysis set out in the petition as well as in the memorandum that disbarment is the appropriate sanction for Mr. Kindred’s misconduct,” the hearing report states.

In a footnote, the committee recommended that Kindred be given a path to restoring his law license after at least five years of disbarment.

“We enter our decision not with any joy. It is our collective hope Mr. Kindred can recover emotionally, financially and physically notwithstanding the hardships Mr. Kindred confronts,” a footnote states.

The bar association’s board of governors is scheduled to meet Aug. 21 by Zoom, with the vote on action against Kindred expected in the afternoon.

If the board approves disbarment, that recommendation will be sent to the Alaska Supreme Court for final action, to be taken at an as-yet-unscheduled date.

A 35-year-old woman has died after the vessel she was on capsized Sunday near Sitka, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard is investigating the accident and has not yet released her name.

At about 5 p.m. Sunday, Air Station Sitka received reports of a capsized skiff and an overturned kayak in the Redoubt Bay area, each with one person on board. A Coast Guard helicopter crew, an emergency response vessel from the Sitka Fire Department, and several nearby boaters responded to the calls that came in over VHF radio.

In an email to KCAW, Coast Guard public affairs officer John Hightower said the man operating the skiff, which was a Boston Whaler, was rescued by a nearby good Samaritan boater — he was taken to emergency responders who were waiting on shore in Sitka.

Hightower said the woman was recovered from the water by another good Samaritan. She was then transferred to the Sitka Fire Department vessel, and the Coast Guard helicopter crew lowered a rescue swimmer onto the boat to help with medical treatment while they headed back to town.

Fire Chief Craig Warren said the crew made it back to Sitka shortly after 6 p.m. Sunday, where an ambulance was waiting to take the unresponsive woman to Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center. Hightower said she was pronounced dead at the hospital. He said the woman’s next of kin have been notified.

Former state Rep. David Eastman has won his lawsuit against Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the state of Alaska, successfully challenging the governor’s decision to allow a bill to become law last year.

In the suit, Eastman — a Republican from Wasilla — challenged the constitutionality of Senate Bill 189, citing a clause of the Alaska Constitution that requires lawmakers to limit bills to a single subject.

In the final hours of the 2024 legislative session, lawmakers combined several other bills into SB 189. Dunleavy and the executive branch had no role in the crafting of the bill, but because the governor allowed the bill to become law without his signature, the suit named him as a defendant.

On Tuesday, Juneau Superior Court Judge Larry Woolford signed an order declaring that the bill “was passed by the 33rd Alaska Legislature in violation of Article II, Section 13 of the Alaska Constitution and is therefore void.”

Woolford’s order also awards Eastman $20,250 in costs and attorney fees. Eastman was represented in the suit by attorney Joe Geldhof.

The legal victory has limited immediate impact because lawmakers this year re-passed all the bills that were combined into Senate Bill 189. Woolford’s order “does not address and has no effect on subsequent legislation repealing and reenacting the provisions of SB 189.”

Its biggest impact may be to constrain current and future legislators, preventing them from repeating the kinds of legislative logrolling that have become commonplace in the final days of each two-year legislative cycle.

Because bills die at the end of the legislative cycle and few bills pass both House and Senate, it has become common for lawmakers to make last-hours amendments that combine bills in an effort to speed them across the legislative finish line.

“We are pleased to have resolved the Eastman v. Dunleavy case, which challenged a bill on the grounds of violating the single subject rule,” Attorney General Treg Taylor said by email on Tuesday.

“Following the filing of the lawsuit, the Department of Law sought to provide the Legislature with an opportunity to rectify this by breaking the bill into separate pieces of legislation. Fortunately, the Legislature successfully completed their work prior to the conclusion of the case, avoiding confusion on the laws enacted,” Taylor said.

No appeals are expected.

Federal investigators say the plane that crashed in September 2023, killing former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola’s husband, was overloaded with cargo.

That’s according to the National Transportation Safety Board’s final report released Tuesday on the crash near St. Mary’s that resulted in the death of pilot Eugene “Buzzy” Peltola Jr., 57. Peltola was a well-respected Bethel community member who’d previously served as Alaska regional director for the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. He retired from the position to support his wife’s successful run for Congress.

According to the report, in the days before the accident, Peltola was transporting a group of hunters from Holy Cross to an airstrip near St. Mary’s, where the hunters set up camp. The hunters killed a moose, and Peltola made a series of two flights to transport the meat and other remains back to Holy Cross.

The report says the first flight on Sept. 12, 2023 was uneventful. During the second flight later that day, Peltola’s plane was ferrying about 117 more pounds of cargo than its maximum takeoff weight, or about 6% over. Additionally, Peltola had strapped the moose’s antlers to the plane’s right wing strut. While the report notes that transporting antlers in that manner isn’t unusual, it says the practice requires formal Federal Aviation Administration approval, which officials said had not been done.

The second flight took off at around 8:45 p.m. The report says that as the plane reached the end of the runway, “it pitched up and turned sharply to the right; however, rather than climbing as before, it flew behind the adjacent ridgeline and out of view.”

Hunters headed up and over the ridge, where they saw the plane had crashed. The hunters pulled Peltola from the crash site, according to the report, and one of them issued an SOS from a satellite phone. Though hunters were able to bundle Peltola in a blanket near a heater, he ultimately succumbed to wounds from the crash after about two hours. A National Guard helicopter sent from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage arrived about six hours after the crash occurred, at around 1:50 a.m. the following morning.

The report attributed the crash to Peltola operating the plane while it exceeded its maximum weight limit and installing an unapproved external load to the plane which resulted in “a loss of airplane control during takeoff into an area of mechanical turbulence and downdrafts.”

Investigators added that “there was no evidence that any of the meat had shifted in flight, and the antlers remained firmly attached to the wing strut and were not interfering with any of the flight control cables.”

Unrelated to the release of the NTSB report, Peltola’s widow, former Congresswoman Mary Peltola, filed a lawsuit Friday against the owners of the plane her husband was flying. The suit alleges negligence by hunting guide Bruce Werba and two companies under Werba’s control, which caused Gene Peltola’s death.

Tuesday marks one month since Juneau resident Benjamin “Benny” Stepetin was last seen in the capital city.  

Since then, police have listed him as a missing person. His brother, former Juneau School Board member Martin Stepetin Sr., said his family continues to search for him.

“It’s heartbreaking that we haven’t found my brother yet,” he said. “Every day, we start out hopeful, and it’s tough to come home every day and still not have found him.”

Benny is 42 years old and was last confirmed to be seen in Juneau on June 22 in the downtown area. He is an Alaska Native man, about 5 feet, 6 inches tall and has brown eyes. He has been homeless for the past two years. He is known to frequent and camp in the downtown area. 

Martin said Benny’s family and friends have searched for him all over town. They’ve covered coastlines, scanned downtown buildings and reviewed hundreds of hours of camera footage from downtown businesses.

The U.S. Coast Guard and Juneau’s SEADOGS K9 Search and Rescue team have also assisted in the search. Still, Martin said there’s no sign of Benny. 

Juneau is inaccessible by road, meaning the only way in or out is by plane or boat. Martin said there’s no record of his brother leaving. He also doesn’t have an ID or access to money. 

The Juneau Police Department assigned a detective to the case soon after Benny was reported missing. Juneau Police Deputy Chief Krag Campbell encourages anyone with information about Benny’s disappearance to contact the department. 

“Really, it’s through tips and information from community members is how these types of cases get solved,” he said. 

More than 60 people have donated more than $6,000 toward a fundraising effort to help the family continue its search effort. Martin said he won’t stop searching until he finds his brother. 

People can share information by calling JPD’s dispatch line at 907-586-0600 or submitting an anonymous tip through Juneau Crimeline.

Petersburg’s police chief and his employer, the Petersburg Borough, have officially resolved a lawsuit over his statements during the COVID-19 pandemic with a $70,000 out-of-court settlement.

That means the remaining claim about Chief James Kerr’s First Amendment rights will not go to trial this summer.

Kerr testified against enforcing a masking mandate during a fall 2021 borough Assembly meeting. He said he was speaking as a private citizen.

This ultimately snowballed into a multi-year legal battle between Kerr and the borough.

In the months following his testimony, Kerr told the borough he had become the subject of retaliatory harassment and intimidation by two Assembly members. The borough hired legal counsel to look into the matter, and the investigation’s findings did not favor Kerr.

After KFSK reported a story in summer 2022 with information about the investigation and a statement from the borough, Kerr’s supervisor, Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht, asked that Kerr submit any future public statements to him for prior review, noting that community members might conflate Kerr’s personal views with official borough positions due to his occupation.

Kerr maintained that he was speaking only as a community member, not as chief of police, when he testified against the masking mandate. He took issue with the borough’s actions and how the legal situation was explained to the public, and he filed a lawsuit in state court to seek reparations. The defendants — the borough and its manager — moved the case to federal court. By then, it had been nearly two years since Kerr’s initial testimony.

Kerr’s lawsuit claimed that the borough defamed him, portrayed him in a false light, and that the borough’s policy limited his speech and violated his constitutional First Amendment rights. In March, a federal court in Juneau ruled in favor of the borough on most of the claims. For the remaining claim regarding the police chief’s free speech rights, the court granted the borough manager immunity, but ruled the verdict would be better determined by a jury trial in August or for the parties to settle through mediation.

The two sides gave mediation a try in June, and the borough emailed a short press release announcing they’d reached a settlement: The borough’s risk pool insurance will pay Kerr $70,000 as part of the agreement.

According to the release, the parties believe that it’s important for borough officials to work well together and that settling the case is what’s best for the public. It said both sides made compromises, but it didn’t provide any specific detail and no clarification was given by either party when asked. They’ve also agreed not to comment further publicly about the settlement.

The borough’s attorneys did not respond to multiple requests for clarifying information, including questions about the “concessions” made by each party. Kerr’s attorneys also did not provide clarification or answers about any potential changes in policy they were seeking.

The parties reached the settlement agreement on June 11. The case officially closed in court July 2, with all of Kerr’s claims against the defendants formally dismissed.