Sports

The defense of an accused arsonist is suggesting that investigators went easy on another defendant because he is the son of a veteran police officer.

Ashley Johnston, 19, is standing trial this week on felony arson and criminal mischief charges, and a misdemeanor criminal trespass charge.

She’s accused of hopping a fence surrounding the field at Adair-Kennedy Memorial Park last June and starting the fire that destroyed equipment and supplies for the laying of new turf. She’s also accused of vandalizing an announcer’s booth at the field that included the discharge of a fire extinguisher.

Ryan Martin, 24, and Dillon West, 24, are expected to stand trial April 1st on charges related to the arson.

After the jury had been excused for the day on Wednesday, Johnston’s attorney, public defender Timothy Ayer, said he wanted to question the Juneau Police Department’s lead investigator in the case about possible bias that favored Martin.

Martin is the son of Detective Kim Horn. He was read his rights during an in-custody interview at the police station and a search warrant was served at his home. Johnston was not Mirandized during an interview at a neutral location and her backpack, in plain view of officers, was simply seized. Detective Horn was interviewed by a department colleague who was one level above her immediate supervisor.

Assistant District Attorney Amy Williams suggested that questioning the investigator’s bias on the stand would eventually require the jury to hear earlier interviews with both Martin and Johnston as a comparison.

Superior Court Judge Philip Pallenberg said there isn’t enough objective evidence of any bias which has any real relevance to the case.

“The fact is that Mr. Martin has been charged with essentially the same crimes as Miss Johnston,” Judge Pallenberg said.

If there was some favoritism, it certainly has not been manifested in the nature of the charges.”

Judge Pallenberg indicated he might be willing to revisit the issue after hearing testimony from the investigator in the case.

Ayer tried to bring it up during opening arguments on Wednesday morning, but Williams objected before he could continue describing the relationship to the jury.

During her turn at inital arguments, Williams said that Johnston changed her story about the fire as much as six times in conversations with investigators.

So, we go from ‘I wasn’t even there, not even there,’ to ‘OK, maybe I did. But I don’t know because I was not myself that night.’”

But Ayer said Johnston’s comments that she made to investigators were not an admission. He said there was no video of her starting the fire or discharging the fire extinguisher.

There’s actually no hard evidence to point to Miss Johnston as the one who started the fire.”

Some of the first witnesses on Wednesday included Deputy Fire Marshall Sven Pearson and Fire Marshall Dan Jager of Capital City Fire and Rescue. Pearson described the scene and Jager described the investigation process. Jager testified about ruling out mechanical, electrical, and natural causes – like lightning – for the fire. What was left, as a process of elimination, was that the fire was intentionally set.

A small tractor was damaged. A pallet of containers of adhesive, and a small trailer – towed behind the tractor – used in laying the turf were destroyed in the June 19th fire. Damages were estimated at least $20,000.

Another witness included Donny Haynes, Jr. who delivers papers for the Juneau Empire. He said he saw black smoke near Floyd Dryden Middle School, reported the fire to emergency responders, and talked to a girl on a bike leaving the scene.

I told her that if she didn’t want to talk to anybody, then she better get out of here. And not to say anything to me because I don’t want to know.”

When asked, Haynes said he did know the girl, and said Johnston – as she appeared in the courtroom with mostly black hair – probably was not her.

“I would have to say no,” answered Haynes when asked if he recognized her in the courtroom. He said he only noticed the girl’s bike and her blond frizzy hair. But, just as Haynes left the stand, Johnston took a moment to flip and readjust her apparently-bleached ponytail in plain view of the jury.

More testimony and presentation of evidence is expected on Thursday.

A seven-man, six-woman jury is hearing the case.

One of the jurors appears not to be giving the case his full attention. Seated in the jury box adjacent to where reporters have set up shop in the courtroom gallery, the juror appears to have dozed off at least once, and played with his smartphone or checked his email at least three times on Wednesday. That’s even after he was gently reminded by Judge Pallenberg after the first time to turn off his phone and put it away.

(Spelling of Donny Haynes’ name has been corrected in this story.)

The Books To Boards program at Eaglecrest Ski Area is in its fourth season, offering a select group of Juneau middle school students a chance to learn to ski and snowboard for free.

It’s sponsored by the Eaglecrest Foundation, a non-profit corporation formed to raise, invest and manage donations for programs and projects at Eaglecrest that are not funded by the City and Borough of Juneau, which owns the ski area.

KTOO volunteer Amanda Compton tagged along with two Books to Boards participants, brothers Cameron and Brenden Okins, at the end of the 2011-2012 season.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A demoralized and disappointed Lance Mackey pulled his dog team into Dawson City Thursday morning and voluntarily scratched from the Yukon Quest.

Some of Mackey’s dogs stopped eating and drinking early in the race, forcing him to drop four of them in Carmacks – the race’s second checkpoint. Over the past two seasons Mackey has been working with a new group of dogs, but he can’t explain why the team has had so many issues.

“I pride myself on the way they look,” Mackey said. “So if they don’t look to me like I want them to look, I’m gonna leave them and dammit, leaving four at a time is a hard thing to do but it was the best thing. I wish I had the answers.”

Mackey says it’s only the fourth time in his career that he has scratched from a race. He has no plans to retire from mushing, but says it could be a while before he signs up for another Quest.

“I can only get beat down so many times before I gotta take a little breather here,” he said.

Mackey has run the Quest six times, winning it four times.

He plans to enjoy a little respite in Dawson City, before he heads back to Fairbanks to regroup and get his team ready for the Iditarod next month.

Nearly 80 Juneau youth – ages 6 to 18 — are in race programs this season at Eaglecrest Ski Area.

The youngest group, known as the Mighty Mites, is also the largest group, with more than 40 kids training each weekend.  The key is keeping the young skiers interested in racing over the next few years.

This past weekend Eaglecrest hosted one of two statewide qualifying races for older youth, with 40 skiers from Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau.

As Rosemarie Alexander reports, it takes a community to put on a ski race.

Forerunner Sophia Wahto radioed some valuable information to the racers waiting at the top of the course.

“Way soft so that coming into the throat you’ve got to be really, really prepared and up, and don’t dig your edges in too deep because you’re going to get sucked down.”

Home on break from college,  Sophia Wahto has skied the trail known as Hilary’s  hundreds of times in training and races.  Her dad, Doug Wahto, is the technical director of the race.  He stands at the throat of the course and lets officials at the top know when each racer has passed.

His daughters were about six when they started racing in Mighty Mites.  They’re adults now, but Wahto still works with the Juneau ski team.

“Thirty years here. Actually I still have my original USSA card from 1964, Juneau High School then University of Alaska in Fairbanks.  I skied for Jim Mahaffey up there for a number of years, and have been involved in racing ever since.”  

Ski racing is usually a family affair.

“Typically the kids that are racing here, their parents were involved in skiing and their parents were involved in skiing.

Parents lined the course or worked in the race shack during the three-day race series for youth ages 11 to 16, sponsored by Juneau’s NAPA Auto Parts store.

Some of the parents recently became certified race officials with the United States Ski and Snowboard Association, taking classes and passing tests.  There are lots of jobs –technical directors, race and course chiefs, referees, timing officials – and all to make sure the Alaska racers are ranked evenly with their USSA peers across the country.

Juneau Ski Club head coach Dan Ord says it would be impossible to pull off even a local race without the parent volunteers.

“The coaching staff – we’re two junior coaches and three devo (development team) coaches and you know we don’t do this. The parents and volunteers do it,” Ord says. “ And the mountain, too. The mountain manager,  we talk every day, and the groomers are in our court.  You know, we’re gettin’ it done.”

Challenging weather

Juneau’s blustery wet weekend weather posed big challenges for the young racers.

The first race was Friday – a giant slalom.  Fourteen-year-old Jeanne Lin Muller of Juneau says her first run was “OK.”

“It started off kind of slow, but it was really like fast and rhythmical.”

 And she knew she needed to get more forward on her skis in the second run.

“And rolling my ankles and absorbing more,” Muller says. 

 Fifteen-year-old Riley Howard of the Alyeska Ski Club calls giant slalom his thing.

“I just like going fast.  I don’t know (why), I just love it.”

 Even on a day when weather changed from heavy wet snow at the top of the course then to sleet then to a downpour at the finish.

“It was tough conditions. You had to be on that downhill ski, couldn’t be late (or) you’d get in that soft snow and lose all your speed,” Riley says. 

Sixteen-year-old Joe Greenough of Juneau is also a GS fan, but he wasn’t impressed with his first run.

“I got late a lot, back seat too much.  Couldn’t hold an edge, skied out way too much. ” 

By the end of the weekend, Greenough and Riley took home medals for their overall performance.

Greenough was happy to show off his gold medal for finishing all three races and earning the highest number of World Cup points for the series.

“It was a combination of speed, mental determination. Mostly I had fun.”

With an eye on Western Region Championships in March, Greenough will compete next week in the second statewide qualifier at Alyeska Ski Resort in Girdwood.

“And there’ll be a lot stiffer competition. A lot more intense.  It’ll be a great time.”

Meanwhile, Eaglecrest hosts another state championship next month for racers under the age of 14; Coach Ord is planning.

“So all our youth ski league, Mighty Mite, Devo programs across the state send down their kids.  I hope we get a hundred kids here,” Ord says. 

Eleven-year-old Tyler Weldon, of Juneau, expects to compete, with new confidence from the races just finished.  He was sporting a medal after Sunday’s award’s ceremony.

“I DQ’d in my slalom but I got second in the GS and the Kombi,” he says.

And what did he learn from the weekend races?

“To just go for it and have fun.”

 

 

Consistency is an emerging theme amongst dog teams moving along the Yukon Quest trail. A number of teams are sticking to the race plans they laid out from the beginning. Still, other mushers are having trouble keeping an even pace.

Nearly everyone is curious about 2012 Champion Hugh Neff’s strategy. He trains dogs specifically to run 1000 miles races, so his run-rest schedule is different compared with teams that also run in mid-distance races. By the time Neff pulled into Carmacks, 177 miles down the trail, he’d only rested for four hours. Neff says he’s try to keep his distance from the competition.

“One thing I’ve learned through the years is you know what they start doing is they start messing with you. That’s why I’m avoiding my buddy Lance and my buddy Allen and everybody else. We all might camp together sooner or later, but you know what, when it comes down to it, this is a race and we all gotta do our own thing,” Neff says.

But Neff only briefly relinquished his lead to Allen Moore at the McCabe Creek Dog Drop, roughly 40 miles outside Carmacks. He says it’s all part of his game plan.

“It will be fun for my leaders. I think they’re getting bored up there a little bit,” Neff says.

Allen Moore isn’t swayed by other musher’s decisions.

“I can’t let Hugh dictate what I’m doing because he’s running forever without any rest. Usually that bites you in the butt in the end and if he keeps doing it, I’ll bet a lot of money it bites him again,” Moore says.

Based on his run-rest pattern, Moore’s arrival in Pelly Crossing was so predictable, it was clear was paying very close attention.

Consistency may also explain why Moore’s dogs were jumping in harness when they pulled the Two Rivers musher into the race’s third checkpoint.

Brent Sass is known for running and resting his team consistently. He likes to run 50 to 60 miles and then rest for roughly for hours. He says he’ll stick to that for the first half of the race, regardless of the competition.

“I am blocking it completely out. If you start chasing Hugh Neff right now, I know I’d be getting myself into trouble. I’m trying to completely forget about my competitors at this point, get a real healthy team into Dawson and go from there,” Sass says.

Jake Berkowitz is also running a consistent run-rest schedule. He blew through Carmacks so fast, his wife, Robin had to answer for him as his team of energetic dogs nearly jumped out of their harnesses before they sped away .

“That’s the plan so far, that’s all I can tell you. He’s right on schedule,” Robin Berkowitz says.

Four-time Quest champion Lance Mackey hasn’t been able to pull together consistent runs. He has a few dehydrated dogs who have taken to dipping for mouthfuls of snow on their way down the trail.

“I don’t think the dipping would be so bad if it wasn’t the acrobatics that have come with it. They’re jerking each other all over the place, in the ditches, just back and forth. I think some of them are injuring one another just by doing that,” Mackey says.

Mackey was visibly disappointed. The more he has to stop and rest his dogs, the farther away his competition gets.

“Allen is probably gonna have to fall in a hole in the Yukon to get caught,” Mackey says.

A good musher never divulges their complete race plan, but most of them seem to think running steady could win this year’s race and they’re all biding their time until they reach the half-way mark in Dawson City. Teams should stop arriving there today.

 

 

Forty young ski racers from Juneau, Anchorage and Fairbanks competed at Eaglecrest Ski Area over the weekend in the first statewide race series of the season.

Friday’s giant slalom was wet, with the snowline just about the top of Hooter lift.  The snow was soft and it was hard to keep an edge.

Thirteen-year-old Jessica Gregg crashed in the first run. She said she found herself sitting back too far on her skis.  She knew what changes she had to make for a successful second run.

“Turning earlier and driving your hands forward,” she said.   And she succeeded in the second run.

That’s the story of ski racing – constant adjustments to the snow, the terrain, weather and visibility, as well as the course.

Kids ages 11 to 16 competed all three days in the Under 16 NAPA Auto Parts Race Series.  The slalom event was held on Saturday and a Kombi on Sunday.  Kombi is short for combination slalom and giant slalom race.

Juneau Ski Club Head Coach Dan Ord said the weekend series was one of two qualifying events for the Western Region Junior Olympics, now called the Under 16 West Championship Races.

“If you’re 14 and 15, NAPA Auto Parts Race Series and Alyeska Cup hold your qualifying races.  And there’s two GS and slalom here and there’s two GS and slalom at Alyeska, and two super G’s at Alyeska.  We score by run so all of a sudden the kids have four chances with our two races, because two runs make up one race.  Everybody gets a second run, so they have four chances to accumulate World Cup points,” Ord said.

The next statewide race is at Alyeska Ski Resort in Girdwood, Feb. 13 to 18.  The U-16 West Championship Races will be held at Alyeska in March.

Check back for more on ski racing later this week.

Saturday’s Results