For a moment last weekend, it seemed possible that Mayor Ethan Berkowitz had been trafficking in child porn of some sort.
At least that was the bizarre claim being made by television news anchor Maria Athens, in a Facebook promotion on Friday that never materialized to anything other than a separate scandal: The mayor of Anchorage admitted he had had a torrid sexual “messaging” relationship with Athens and resigned from office. Athens posted a naked photo of the mayor on Facebook; she also was arrested for assault of her fiancé, and spent last weekend in jail.
But the original allegations of kiddie porn sat there to be sorted out by reporters, who interviewed witnesses and determined that a young lady, who has worked as an escort, had mentioned something to her mother about a “short” politician involved with a kiddie porn website. By now, we know the young lady never said it was Berkowitz. She emphatically says it is not.
But it was, apparently, another short politico in Anchorage. A state worker? A lobbyist? An elected official? We don’t know and the media has left that trail unexplored whilst trying to find ways to slut-shame the anchor and make her entire existence not credible.
Athens sticks by her story, but has had the equivalent of a nervous breakdown and is now sequestered in Interior Alaska in a safe place. The mother of the young escort says she misunderstood her daughter when she relayed that information to Athens. It was all a big mistake.
If the young escort is to be believed, Alaskans should expect that the FBI is following up with her, interviewing her about who this guy is, this short politico who likes to engaged in kiddie porn. It’s evident, considering her age, that she may have been trafficked herself as a teen, and that would be of great interest to the FBI.
Must Read Alaska has, in fact, learned that the FBI has not dropped the case and is pursuing leads. Anchorage Police, which quickly closed the case publicly and said there was no crime evident by the soon-to-be-ex-mayor, is working with the feds to determine who this political pervert actually is who is dabbling in felony behavior.
Alaska has some of the worst levels of child sexual abuse in the country. More than 9% of Alaska high school students have experienced sexual violence, according to the State of Alaska Child Abuse Investigation Units in the Department of Public Safety.
According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, Alaska has had 15 known cases of human trafficking this year and 51 contacts with the hotline.
Take a guess ,content being censored so there must be something to it.
I love the “short” remarks about a politician. Of course its “Berky,” short on stature, short of intelligence, short of a real conscience, and short on moral terpitude. Yes, he comes up short in many ways. Following in the footsteps of Clinton, Epstein, Carlos Danger, and the rest the immorals.
I don’t agree with the assumptions in the article. Someone knows who it was and that is the escort. Perhaps it’s just a question of how afraid she was of what the perp. would do if they were exposed by HER. So the only way to rule ANYONE OUT is if she identifies who it actually WAS. As far as I can tell, that hasn’t happened. And until it does, we shouldn’t rule out anyone fitting the description.
Who trusts the FBI? Not me, they are as rotten as the Bidens and Clintons. To the core and irredeemable.
Right. It would appear that Chris Wray sat on the H. Biden laptop since Dec. 2019, as the nation watched the democrats (commies) attempt to impeach the President. The info on that laptop should have been made known months ago. Wray is just another dirty cop. Seems like most or all of them at the top are.
Or a short ‘celebrity type’ maybe, who knows?
APD cannot be trusted. Big Union all in for Berkowitz.
The rank-and-file certainly do enjoy their union benefits No Doubt. A separate issue and you should look back at Begich who made an eleventh-hour deal on his way out the door with all the big unions in this town, very slimy and wrong.
The APD Command Staff is not represented by the union. And although the police chief serves at the pleasure of the mayor… he would not be involved in any kind of preferential treatment / cover-up of the subject being discussed here.
Perhaps your personal experience with police has been a certain way, possibility bad. Such is unfortunate but does not mean that the department is involved in a conspiracy to protect the outgoing disgraced mayor.
They sure protected his wife 12 years ago!
Finally, the real question. If there is a child being victimized by sexual predators – that’s the story! Finding that child and rescuing him/her; identifying the people manipulating children for sexual gratification and locking them up. That’s what matters, it’s what’s important. APD opened and closed that too fast to have done anything at all. The FBI should be looking into this and looking hard.
“Restore faith in government ”
Governor Dunleavy’s promise
Do have any faith in the leaders, FBI, Attorney general, governor, mayor, etc. to do what’s right and be “TRANSPARENT”?
What effort have they made to gain or regain our trust?
The whole thing is collapsing in on itself, this is a one way trip
John the Baptist said it well” repent”
Hmmmm wonder how much the young ‘escort-ress’ was paid to change her story, insisting it certainly was not one particular politician of compact size. I would suspect such an individual might not disclose their actual name in such a situation. It all sounds a bit slippery.
Rae, the escort, claims that she was a non-sexual escort. So old dudes just pay for a “date” with a young lady with no happy ending?? Yeah, that is *totally* believable. She got involved as an escort as a teen and admitted to currently being in the adult entertainment industry and conveniently, claims to live in Portland. Everyone seems to believe this young lady over everyone else like her word is gospel. Wow.
Somehow the fact that the FBI is investigating this case doesn’t inspire much confidence. The Untouchables (from prosecution), Comey, McCabe, Stryok, et al, have shredded the FBI’s reputation.
Am I missing something here? Redhead Rae confirmed she had a non-sexual relationship with a short guy who worked for the state. She never said he was into kiddie porn. That allegation came from Maria Athens in all of the accounts I’ve read, and she was trying to pin that unfounded claim on Berkowitz. So how did you arrive at the premise that there is some other rando Alaska politician who likes kiddie porn?
Exactly.
On a slightly less nefarious topic, our ‘for a few more days’ mayor has stated that he will be answering no more questions pertaining to his resignation or the reason therefor. You know there’s a turd in that punchbowl that needs to be ferreted out and as soon as we have just a little bit more investigative journalism there will probably be an interesting story.
Dang sure won’t be coming from the paddlewheel people’s paper. Might come from here. Might be a landmine. It’d be a shame to see that little roach get a free pass.
Kathy – a non-sexual escort relationship? That’s hilarious and if you fell for that, well gullible is your middle name. Everyone knows what escort services are and if an escort worker says they don’t engage in sexual activity, they are lying through their teeth.
There is a 90% chance that i’ts Berkowitz.
The statement is kinda like qanon’s statement about Democrats and “Hollywood elite” its so generalized, the statement can not be disproved. Both groups are large enough, they probably do have pedophiles. As do Republicans, self-proclaimed Christians, any large group.
If true I hope that more detailed information is given to the authorities.
Mr. Berkowitz
Don’t let the door hit you where we all saw the pictures that the good Lord split you.
ADN will solve this. They are good at finding the lies.
hahahaha! Good one Mark!
Look up Josef Boehm, Bill Allen – the guy who testified against Ted Stevens. There is a history of political high flyers out of Anchorage mis-using under-aged girls. It is a part of the political culture of Anchorage.
Pedophilia is a sexual interest in pre-pubescent children. People use it loosely to include an interest in pubescent teens. So when Maria Athens was throwing around “pedophilia” heaven knows what she meant. It seems more likely she meant teens than children. Something set her off, and it seems odd she would be that triggered right now, if all the stuff with the mayor was several years ago. I hope that, at some times, she has recovered enough to tell her full story. I suspect that Mr. Berkowitz has behaved more badly than he has yet admitted, at least toward Ms Athens, and that his caddishness involved younger females than Ms. Athens.
Man, I really hope this comes to something. I really, really, REALLY hope so. Here’s why: Lots of the comments above are speculations about the honesty of the young escort and about the trustworthiness of the FBI. But Suzanne’s point is probably the most important one: with our child sexual violence and human trafficking record here in AK, we need some real action to take place and a few people in power to fall, hard.
I used to live in West Anchorage, and there was a small massage business over there called Yin’s Massage. I actually stopped in once to get some work done on a minor neck injury–my first massage ever. It was full of very, very young looking, non-English speaking, apparently Chinese women. And an old lady ran the place. I never went back because I just had a feeling something wasn’t right… though I had no direct evidence of any wrong doing. Just too many young, Chinese, female faces in one place (Yeah, but they could all be family members… yada yada yada). A couple years later, I read in the paper that Yins was busted for Human Trafficking. So my instincts were right. But here’s the kicker. The FBI took FOUR YEARS to investigate them. My immediate thought was, “If I can tell that something is not right on my first step through the door, why would it take four years for the FBI to take it down? How many happy endings do they need before they’ll bring down a human trafficking operation in Anchorage?” The system is so corrupt, it boggles my mind!
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