Six Anchorage residents were sentenced for their involvement in a mail theft ring that went on for nearly a year in and around Anchorage, said U.S. Attorney Bryan Schroder. Two ringleaders were sentenced this week, the last of six arrested and convicted in the fraud fest.
Two of the six were out of jail awaiting trial on similar charges when they committed more of these types of crimes in the Anchorage bowl.
Sara James, 31, was sentenced Thursday to serve 42 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, for conspiracy, bank fraud, aggravated identity theft, possession of stolen mail, and passing counterfeit money.
David Gonzales, 37, was sentenced earlier earlier last week to serve 72 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, for conspiracy, bank fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
From August 2016 to May 2017, Sara and Jonathan James conspired with Gonzales and others to steal mail and pass stolen checks with stolen IDs at banks around Anchorage. They also recruited others into their mail theft ring.
According to the U.S. Attorney, the two Jameses would take turns driving Gonzales from mailbox to mailbox, on the hunt for checks and credit cards.
Gonzales
Most of the stolen checks were then altered to make the payee a separate stolen identity that was used by the defendants to negotiate payment. Sara James and Gonzales would share in the proceeds from negotiating the stolen checks, and trade drugs for stolen mail and IDs.
Sara James and Gonzales were out of jail and cruising for more mail to steal while awaiting state charges on similar crimes.
In August 2017, federal charges were brought and included the state charges. The feds added other co-defendants. Sentenced as part of this investigation:
Jonathan James, 34, sentenced to 24 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, for conspiracy, bank fraud, aggravated identity theft, possession of stolen mail, and passing counterfeit money;
Brandon Madrid, 29, sentenced to 30 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, for conspiracy, bank fraud, and aggravated identity theft;
Braden Asbury, 21, sentenced to one day in prison (credit for time already served), followed by five years of supervised release, for conspiracy and bank fraud; and
Karri Embach, 35, sentenced to time already served and five years of supervised release, for conspiracy and bank fraud.
Anchorage and Palmer police, as well as the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Criminal Investigations Unit of the State of Alaska Department of Revenue assisted in the case, prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Aunnie Steward.
Need a ferry reservation? Don’t go to the Alaska Department of Transportation’s web site this weekend. It’s been crashed for over 30 hours, as of 6 pm Saturday.
Meanwhile, 52 passengers were stranded in Angoon for seven hours on Thursday, after the ferry LeConte’s power system failed, according to one passenger who called the KTOO newsroom to report toilets filled to the brim with “nasty stuff.”
To add insult to injury, Alaska’s largest state ferry, the Columbia, broke down in Bellingham on June 29, but repairs are taking longer than expected and it will not be in service until July 13 at the earliest. Hundreds of northbound travelers had to scrap their trips.
No general announcement was made on the State’s websites regarding these outages and inconveniences. And while the DOT website was black, a message was posted on Twitter by the Department of Transportation on Friday morning. No updates or information has been posted since.
To reschedule your travel, contact a ferry terminal directly until the Department of Transportation fixes its websites. The terminals can be reached by phone at:
FREE SPEECH POLICE? DEFENSE OF WOMEN’S SHELTER ALLEGEDLY VIOLATES MUNICIPAL CODE
The director of the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission has filed a complaint against the law firm of Brena, Bell, and Clarkson, saying that statements made to a newspaper reporter by a partner in the firm in a case involving Downtown Hope Center, a women’s shelter, constitute a violation of the equal rights of transgendered people.
The law firm is accused of violating the Anchorage nondiscrimination ordinance as it represented a faith-based shelter for homeless women. The shelter has also been accused of the same offense.
The Anchorage Equal Rights Commission filed a formal complaint against Brena, Bell & Clarkson, charging the law firm with committing “unlawful discriminatory acts or practices” in violation of a city ordinance regarding gender identity.
The complaint, 18-167, seeks to censure the legal team representing the women’s shelter, which denied overnight accommodations to a transgendered individual this past winter. The shelter is a wide-open space with mats on the floor, and only admits women; it says many of its women are traumatized and should not be forced to sleep with men on the floor.
But it’s the media coverage of the complaint that got the law firm in trouble with the commission.
“Against centuries of jurisprudence, Complaint 18-167 seeks to censure Brena, Bell, and Clarkson P.C. … for statements it made while representing Downtown Hope Center,” wrote First Liberty Institute, the legal firm now representing Brena, Bell, and Clarkson.
The commission’s actions “improperly and insidiously” are trying to drive a wedge between the women’s shelter and its legal team, the lawyers said.
“The Commission should immediately withdraw the 167 Complaint because it violates the absolute immunity widely afforded to attorney statements pertaining to litigation. As the United States Supreme Court notes, this absolute immunity is “for the public interest, and best calculated to subserve the purposes of justice, to allow counsel full freedom of speech, in conducting the causes and advocating and sustaining the rights, of their constituents; and this freedom of discussion ought not to be impaired by numerous and refined distinctions,” First Liberty Institute wrote.
A fact-finding conference over the matter has been scheduled by the commission for Monday, but First Liberty is asking the commission to cancel its hearing because it lacks jurisdiction.
The case started with Timothy Coyle, who is also known as Samantha Coyle, but who is a biological male, possibly going through a sex-change procedure, though that is unclear.
Coyle tried to gain entry into the Downtown Hope Center’s women’s shelter. The shelter refused him because he was inebriated, but gave Coyle cab fare to go to the emergency room to tend to injuries sustained in a fight he/she had been in at the Brother Francis Shelter.
Coyle later found shelter, and the AWAIC shelter for abused women assisted him in filing an Equal Rights Commission complaint against the Hope Center.
Coyle’s complaint said he/she was discriminated against based on “sex” and “gender identity,” in violation of Anchorage Municipal Code Section 5.20.050.
“I am female and transgender and thus I belong to a protected class,” Coyle wrote on the complaint.
Kevin Clarkson, with Brena, Bell and Clarkson, filed an answer to the complaint in March and said that Coyle was not denied services because of his sex or gender identity, but because he was drunk, and he had arrived at a time that Hope was not accepting new admissions into its shelter.
The Equal Rights Commission is now claiming that Clarkson was more than just an attorney to the Hope Center, but was acting as an “agent” of the center, something Clarkson and his law firm deny.
Pam Basler, Anchorage Equal Rights Commission (AERC photo)
The commission, however, says that media, including unnamed online sources and the Anchorage Daily News, reported on the matter, and statements made by Clarkson to Devin Kelly, a reporter for the ADN, were violations of the Equal Rights Commission process.
Kelly interviewed Clarkson and the statements he made to the reporter are what drew the commission to deciding that Clarkson should be investigated for those statements.
Must Read Alaska covered the original incident but only had a momentary conversation with Clarkson, in which he said he was not able to discuss the matter. He later did discuss it with an ADN reporter.
“Neither BBC [the law firm] nor DHC [the shelter] solicited media coverage nor had any role in the publication or content of any news articles regarding the ‘041 Complaint and related facts. Moreover, the Commission admits it does not know whether Kevin Clarkson was speaking at the behest of or on behalf of the Downtown Hope Center when he made these communications. The ‘167 Complaint does not dispute or contain any allegations contradicting that DHC is a nonprofit homeless shelter, that Mr. Clarkson was DHC’s legal counsel. Although the ‘167 Complaint alleges multiple ‘media sources,’ none are named in the ‘167 Complaint. Oniy the Anchorage Daily News is identified by implication through the attachment of a Daily News article to the ‘167 Complaint,” according to the First Liberty Institute’s motion to dismiss.
The law firm is asserting its First Amendment right to speak to a news reporter, and saying any ordinances prohibiting free speech are unconstitutional. Further, the law firm is immune because Alaska recognizes, “absolute immunity for lawyers involved in litigation.”
Monday’s fact-finding hearing is closed to the public, but First Institute has advised the commission it will be recording the event via a court reporter, and has asked the commission to either provide one or advise the Institute that it has no intention of providing one, in which case the firm will bring its own.
The commission itself has made no public notification of its complaint against Brena, Bell, and Clarkson.
Tuckerman Babcock, the chairman of the Alaska Republican Party, poked fun at Gov. Bill Walker’s Friday press release from Walker’s campaign manager John-Henry Heckendorn.
Heckendorn’s press release stated, “Alaskans are hungry for a credible fiscal plan that establishes a viable longterm path to growth. We are the only team in this race that has presented such a plan and that has put in the work to move that plan forward. We have alredy [sic] closed 80% of the fiscal gap. Once we hit our fundraising goals, we are ready and excited to bring that message to Alaskans.”
Babcock replied to the press release in an email Friday night: “Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, the incumbent governor, touting his tax and spend plan, has — by his own ‘Potemkin Village‘ poll — barely managed an anemic 28% re-elect! Stranger still, his campaign manager think that is just really, really nifty!”
Babcock was referring to the Patinkin Research poll that was Heckendorn’s message centerpiece, showing Walker with 28 percent of the vote, Mark Begich with 22 percent and Mike Dunleavy with 36 percent. 15 percent were undecided.
The Walker press release bravely continued, “There is an enormous appetite in America and in Alaska for leaders who are honest, authentic, and willing to prioritize the long-term future over short-term political points. We are the only team in this race with those priorities and that record.”
Babcock took liberties with the Walker press release to show that it was signed by:
“John-Henry Heckendorn, Campaign Manager for old “Honest and Authentic” Bill Walker the 2010 Republican, 2014 “Unity Ticket” with Democrats, 2018 Democrat Primary, 2018 Petition Candidate”
WALKER POLL: ‘MY NUMBER IS BIGGER THAN YOUR NUMBER’
Mark Begich and Gov. Bill Walker don’t agree on much these days as they vie for the title of Governor of Alaska, but they finally agree on one thing: Mike Dunleavy is still leading the race for governor.
Begich put out a poll last week that said he is “number 2” with voters, after Dunleavy. Walker is “number 3.” The poll was paid for by the Alaska Correctional Officers Association, and conducted by Ivan Moore.
Now Walker has countered with a new poll by Patinkin Research out of Portland that says Walker, in fact , is “number 2” and Begich is “number 3”. Earlier this year, Patinkin said Walker was way ahead — with 40 percent of potential voters to Dunleavy’s 17 percent.
“Right now, they’re playing a game of chicken,” said a political strategist familiar with the races. “Begich and Walker each want the other to get out of the race. They can’t win in a three-way.”
Earlier this year, Gov. Walker’s campaign manager John-Henry Heckendorn told a reporter that he “likes a head-to-head match with Dunleavy.”
That was before Begich got in the race.
Begich, a high school graduate, is challenging Doctorate of Jurisprudence Walker for the “progressive vote,” and they’re both trying to get into each other’s heads with dueling polls, which they release with campaign donation solicitations.
Begich and Walker are both millionaires who could self-fund their races, but both are increasing their criticism of Dunleavy for having an independent expenditure group working on his behalf, something neither of the other candidates have. Dunleavy is, according to his financial filings, not in the same financial league as Begich and Walker, but he has a brother who has supported his campaign.
Like the Patinkin poll done for Walker earlier this year, the Begich camp released a wintertime poll showing he would beat Dunleavy, 53-42 in a two-way.
But here’s the rub: Begich and Walker have stopped talking two-way, and have begun to release only three-way polling results.
The poll numbers released by the Walker camp today said that with Begich in the mix, Dunleavy is still ahead, with 36 percent of the vote.
Heckendorn, who went on the state payroll as a top aide to Walker for a year before jumping out of state service to become his campaign manager, wrote a letter to the Walker base of supporters today intended to strengthen their spines in the final four weeks before primary voting begins. He said:
“At the end of June we concluded a baseline survey of 800 likely voters around the state. There is no question that we are in a dogfight. This most recent poll showed prospective Republican nominees Dunleavy/Meyer at 36%, Independents Walker/Mallott at 28%, and Democrats Begich/Call at 22%, with 15% of voters still undecided.
“Our poll differed from other recently publicized polls in that we polled likely 2018 voters, rather than the entire pool of registered voters, and because we tested the Lt. Governor candidates alongside the candidates for Governor, rather than limiting the question to only the candidates for Governor.
“A three-way race was always going to be complicated, our political system is not designed for general election races with more than two well-known, well-funded candidates. But we have a lot of reason for optimism:
“First, Alaskans are hungry for a credible fiscal plan. After spending more than $600,000 in outside dollars to deliver a message of unsustainable dividends and unspecified spending cuts, our leading opponent has mustered little more than one third of the electorate. Alaskans are hungry for a credible fiscal plan that establishes a viable longterm path to growth. We are the only team in this race that has presented such a plan and that has put in the work to move that plan forward. We have alredy closed 80% of the fiscal gap. Once we hit our fundraising goals, we are ready and excited to bring that message to Alaskans.
“Second, more engaged voters back Walker Mallott. We are the only team in this race with meaningful cross-party support. Polling shows that our opponents remain extremely limited to their partisan bases. Results have consistently demonstrated that more engaged voters with stronger voting track records are more likely to support Walker Mallott, across all party affiliations.
“Third, Alaskans want Independent leadership. The polling indicates that Alaskans, like Americans all over the country, are sick and tired of political posturing and partisan gridlock. There is an enormous appetite in America and in Alaska for leaders who are honest, authentic, and willing to prioritize the long-term future over short-term political points. We are the only team in this race with those priorities and that record. “
The message that voters are receiving from this Walker campaign donation might be different from the one Heckendorn intends.
Walker is worried going into this election.
The leading candidate, Dunleavy, already has locked up well over over a third of the vote, even according to Walker and Begich’s own skewed polling.
Walker is uncomfortable competing in a three-way, calling it “complicated.”
The incumbent governor, who is the most unpopular governor in America according to the Morning Consult poll, has barely over one quarter of the vote in his own Patinkin Research survey.
The last poll conducted by Dunleavy for Alaska showed Dunleavy is beating Walker, 47-41 percent in a head-to-head.
CONSTITUTION IS THE MEASURE FOR NEW JUDGE, NOT BEING A SWING VOTE
BY ANN BROWN GUEST CONTRIBUTOR
After considering Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s recent comments about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s replacement needing to be in the same mold as the retiring justice, I thought back to our mutual time at the at Willamette University Law School.
As I recall, Sen. Murkowski was in the class behind me, so I imagine she was taught the same lessons in constitutional law and judicial review as I was.
The first thing we learned in these classes was that American courts have the power to strike down laws, statutes, and executive actions that are contrary to the U.S. Constitution. This principle was first established in the Court’s decision in Marbury v. Madison, issued in 1803.
In Marbury, the Court explained the boundaries among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. Review by the judiciary is one of the checks and balances in the separation of powers.The judiciary can be seen to swat down, so-to-speak, the executive and legislative branches of government when either exceeds its authority.
Since the Court has such supervisory power, it must only use that power to interpret narrowly actions by the executive and legislative branches by applying the words of the Constitution to the issue or issues before it in any given case. No case should be analyzed by the court with a predetermined outcome.
When Sen. Murkowski notes Justice Kennedy’s pivotal role on the court, because he often served as a swing vote between the court’s liberal and conservative justices, she seems to be veering close to stating that she wants a moderate outcome of cases before the Court. As we both learned at law school, the outcome of a case involving the Constitution or federal law is dictated by applying the Constitution to the facts of each case.
I remember Sen. Murkowski at law school. She had the reputation of being a serious student. Her stature as the senior senator from Alaska does not surprise me. In my view, she has been thoughtful and deliberate in her efforts to put issues, such as energy, oil and gas, land use, and natural resources, first, as these are important to all Alaskans. I have supported her because of her nimble understanding of these matters.
If I could speak to her now, I would suggest that, in her consideration of a new US Supreme Court Justice, she hearken back to our basic training in constitutional law. She should look for a justice who will narrowly apply the provisions of the Constitution to the facts of each case, with no predetermined outcome necessary.
Ann Brown, formerly of Fairbanks, currently lives in Anchorage. She is an experienced trial lawyer and was the managing partner of her firm’s branch office, concentrating her work on labor and employment law. Notably, she has done a significant amount of work for churches and representing free speech and First Amendment cases.
On Dec. 10, 1972, Jody Stambaugh was strangled and raped in her University of Alaska Fairbanks dorm room, where she had been sleeping. The attacked occurred just before 7 am on a Sunday.
The killer, Allen Walunga, had a history of sexual attacks, and had gained secret entrance into her room, where he watched her sleep for 10-30 minutes before destroying her life and those of the many who loved her.
Jody’s roommate, an Alaskan woman living in Southcentral (who must remain anonymous because she fears the murderer to this day), was also injured, after she entered the tiny dorm room and surprised Walunga, who lunged at her and began choking her.
The roommate’s screams brought resident assistant Cindy Hutchins running. The assailant fought her off and then ran. Another resident assistant, Michael Hoge, called the State Troopers to Moore Hall.
Walunga was located in his second-floor room, covered in scratches from the women who attempted to stop his attacks. Meanwhile, up on the 7th floor, medics began providing CPR to Jody, until they determined she was, in fact, dead. Her parents, well-known 6th Street Juneau residents Wayne and Barbara Stambaugh, now deceased, were flown to Fairbanks to take their daughter’s battered body home, where she is buried in Evergreen Cemetery.
Judge Gerald Van Hoomissen would later say that this was “probably the most vicious crime that I have had contact with.”
In June, 1973, Walunga was found guilty of rape, murder in the first degree and assault, and attempted murder.
Judge Van Hoomissen found that Walunga “was an extremely dangerous offender who presented a clear and present danger of killing another person if ever released from prison.”
Jody had been all of 18, a graduate of Juneau-Douglas High School who was musically and artistically inclined and who had been an exchange student in Norway. She was well-liked by her classmates in Juneau, and she and her brothers loved to ski at the rope tow on Douglas Island’s Dan Moller trail. She was studying home economics.
Her brothers, Gary and Irl, have spent the past 46 years vigilant in their quest to prevent the State of Alaska from granting the repeated pleas by Walunga that he be released. This honors what their parents asked them to do. The Stambaughs had sued the university for allowing a known sexual predator to be placed in a co-ed dorm, but the court ruled against them.
In 1980, he challenged his conviction, saying he had been incapable of effectively waiving his constitutional right to a jury trial on that count because of mental illness, and that the Superior Court erred in failing to inquire into Walunga’s capacity at the time it accepted his written waiver of jury trial, which he had provided with counsel.
As soon as he could, Walunga applied for numerous others hearings and parole, starting in 1987. He wanted his sentence commuted in 1989. He wanted a parole hearing in 1991, then withdrew it after testing the waters. He applied for parole in 1992, then asked for a parole hearing in 1997, and again in 2008.
HE’S BACK AND HE WANTS OUT
In the summer of 2018, Walunga is asking again for parole, and the public has a chance to weigh in with the Alaska Parole Board.
Jody’s brother, Irl Stambaugh, already has written to the Alaska Parole Board and asked them to decline the murderer’s request for freedom. But so many people who were in Alaska during the murder and subsequent trial are gone. Will anyone remember?
This Alaskan is not gone, however. This Alaskan remembers.
Jody’s was the first funeral I ever attended. I was barely out of high school myself; Jody was a classmate of mine, and her brother Gary and I sang in high school choir and the Northern Lights Presbyterian Church choir.
A third-generation Alaskan, raised in Ketchikan and Juneau, Jody was kind, calm, and considerate of others. She would likely be a grandmother today, if not for a savage predator who should never have been allowed access to the dorms at the University of Fairbanks.
WALUNGA HAD A HISTORY OF PREDATION
Allen Walunga was described in the 1970s as an antisocial person. From a well-known family in the St. Lawrence Island village of Gambell, he reportedly made people ill at ease.
Later, he was determined to be possibly mentally ill, possibly possessed by demons, possibly schizophrenic, and possibly sociopathic.
Walunga was already a known sexual predator and had already sexually assaulted several underage girls. Later, he admitted assaulting young boys, as well.
His family shipped him off to Mount Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, where he took a gasoline-soaked rag and held it to the mouth and nose of a female student until she passed out. He thought he had killed her.
After that incident, his family moved him to Fairbanks, where he continued in high school.
There, he was charged with pedophilia and child molestation, and he was given probation. His juvenile records were sealed, however, and he enrolled at the University of Alaska, where he was housed on the second floor of Moore Hall.
Jody lived on the seventh floor. Jody’s brother Gary was also attending the university; the two were close. Gary later became a fireman/EMT. Her older brother Irl was a police officer in Anchorage when his sister was murdered.
Moore Hall is the building on the left.
Then came the horrific attack that made headlines across the state: A beautiful UA coed was strangled and raped in her sleep on a Sunday morning.
The trial came and went and a judge imposed a life sentence on the murder with a concurrent 15 years for the assault on the roommate, with intent to kill count.
“At that time our family felt that justice had been done and Walunga would remain in jail for the remainder of his life. We continued with our lives and through time minimized our grief. Our father had a serious heart attack that I will always partially attribute to the grief and sorrow he lived with after our sister’s death,” the victim’s family wrote several years ago.
“Our father and mother have passed away, and our children have grown but we continue to attend hearings. As we promised our mother, we will continue to attend hearings. The other victim has raised a family, but continues to attend hearings fearing that Walunga will be released.”
During Walunga’s 1998 parole hearing, the board decided that letting him free was out of the question and that it would not ever again consider his application. But in 2005 a new parole board decided his case could again be heard and he applied for parole in 2008.
During that hearing, Walunga entered into the record a psychiatric report, but at the time the victim’s family was not allowed to see that report.
As a result of the 2008 hearing, an earlier evaluation came to light. It has been done by Dr. Martin Astrops of Tongass Community Counseling Center, who said Walunga had a high risk of again perpetrating sexual assaults on women and is a “sexually violent predator.”
Walunga, however, said he found God and said he would be no harm to others unless confronted with “his temptation to form adulterous friendships with abnormally large breasted women.”
It was an emotionally trying time for the Stambaugh brothers, but Walunga was successfully kept behind bars in 2008.
Walunga’s next parole hearing is schedule for the week of July 16, 2018 at Goose Creek Correctional Institution. At least one member of the Stambaugh family will attend.
On May 15, Walunga wrote to the parole board that “I am no longer the emotionally immature person I was, approximately 45 years ago. When I became a Christian, pastors and Christian volunteers to prison have helped me down through the years, to heal what led to my heinous crime. I will never commit murder again. I value human life and, throughout my imprisonment, have attempted to better the lives of fellow men.”
However, in 2015, he was evaluated to be a “high medium” risk on an assessment known as the Level of Service Inventory, with the risks identified as alcohol and drug problems, education, employment, emotional, and personal.
The Parole Board also takes comments from the public.
Now is the time for the community to speak. If you agree that Mr. Walunga should remain in prison, write to the parole board today.
The email address is [email protected], and make sure to send a copy of your letter to the Office of Victim’s Rights at[email protected]
Sample wording for your letter to the Parole Board — use your own words:
RE: 1972 Stambaugh rape and murder
Dear Alaska Parole Board;
I urge you to not release a murderer coming up for parole who is a danger to society. Please do not release Allen Walunga.
It only takes a minute, but your voice matters to the safety of our entire community.
(Editor’s note: Thanks to the Stambaugh family for their help with this story.)
Gov. Bill Walker’s experiment in universal health care coverage is expanding, and costing the State more each year. With the fiscal year 2018 ending on June 30, and a $100 million supplemental budget item needed to keep the program going, it was time to take a hard look at where Walker is leading. Some fast facts:
Gov. Walker announced in July of 2015 that he would accept Obamacare Medicaid expansion in Alaska.
Three years later, more than 30 percent of Alaskans — 219,734 — are enrolled in Medicaid, the federal- and state-funded program that pays for health care for Alaskans earning up to 138 percent of the federally established poverty level.
Of the babies born in Alaska this year, 50 percent will have their prenatal, birth, and postnatal care covered by Medicaid.
The total unduplicated “Medicaid expansion” enrollee population has grown to 49,719. These are able-bodied adults of working age, without children or disabled dependents, who are up to 138 percent of the federally established poverty level.
Some Medicaid expansion enrollees are Alaskans being released from prisons. As the incarcerated are shown the exit, the State enrolls them in Medicaid as part of a plan for re-entry into society.
The total number of enrollees — regular and expansion — is 21 percent higher than what Gov. Walker projected it would be in 2015, when he signed Obamacare Medicaid expansion into law by executive order.
Three years ago, he announced that 20,000 people would sign up for Medicaid expansion the first year. The Lewin Group, advising the Department of Health and Social Services, projected the total expansion enrollment would be 41,000.
“Medicaid expansion would reduce state spending by $6.6 million in the first year, and save over $100 million in state general funds in the first six years. Every day that we fail to act, Alaska loses out on $400,000. With a nearly $3 billion budget deficit, it would be foolish for us to pass up that kind of boost to Alaska’s economy.” – Gov. Bill Walker, July 2015
COSTS BALLOON
Foolish indeed. But those promised savings have not materialized.
In fact, the governor was off by $100 million in his Medicaid estimates for the fiscal year that ended on June 30.
To save the program from collapse this past fiscal year, the Legislature approved $73 million of the $100 million that Walker requested as a supplemental patch; the federal government came up with $27 million. The Medicaid program made it through June.
But although it survived, Medicaid cost the State of Alaska (including federal dollars) $2.34 billion this past year, once the supplemental funds are added. That’s $10,649 per enrollee, or about what it would cost to buy each of them a bronze plan in the Obamacare private health insurance exchange.
This was the second time the Legislature has kept the Obamacare program from collapsing. The first time was in 2016, when the Senate realized that with the departure of all but one health insurance company, it would have to jump in and save the individual insurance market from imploding.
The problem then was that Alaska lacks enough healthy people buying insurance on the individual market created by the Affordable Care Act to offset the high cost of chronically sick Alaskans.
The Alaska Senate passed a high-risk reinsurance subsidy that covers the sickest people. Some 500 individual Alaskans account for $53 million or more in health care costs that are now paid for by the State. This allows the rest of the 18,000 Alaskans who buy their insurance from Premera Blue Cross to have insurance.
Premera is still the only insurer offering coverage in Alaska’s individual market. The number of people enrolling in the individual market dropped 4 percent year over year, from 19,145.
BY THE NUMBERS
Prior to Gov. Bill Walker’s Medicaid expansion, 163,505 Alaskans were enrolled in the Medicaid health care program — many of them poor families with children.
Today, out of the total of 219,734 Alaskans enrolled, only 7,000 are “regular” enrollees of the very poor. The other nearly 50,000 are the expansion population of the able-bodied adults without children.
Juneau defense attorney Julie Willoughby found that out the hard way. After applying for a seat on the Juneau Superior Court, Willoughby received glowing reviews from her fellow lawyers around the state. She went through a rigorous scoring process. Lawyers around Alaska were allowed to weigh in on the quality of her work and the content of her character.
She was the highest scoring attorney to apply for the Juneau Superior Court seat being vacated by Justice Louis Menendez.
By all accounts, she is an outstanding criminal defense attorney.
Gov. Bill Walker offered her the job: It would be Superior Court Judge Julie Willoughby.
But then a member of Walker’s staff showed him a legal brief associated with Ty Grussendorf. Walker quickly rescinded his offer, before it was even announced.
TY GRUSSENDORF
Grussendorf is standing trial this fall for seven counts of sexual abuse of a minor — six of them were first-degree assaults. Willoughby is no longer his lawyer, but she was when she filed a memorandum with the court that Walker says he was shocked by.
The governor’s chief of staff, Scott Kendall, said that the arguments Willoughby had made in defense of her client portrayed a victim as a 12-year-old girl and a man engaged in a “mutually satisfying sexual adventure,” in which Willoughby argued the girl had not been harmed.
Instead, according to Willoughby, the girl had “solicited” the sexual assaults.
Kendall provided a statement to the Juneau Empire: “Each of these statements is disturbing individually. Collectively, these arguments shocked the conscience of Governor Walker and his advisors. The governor understands that criminal defense attorneys must be zealous advocates. In fact, he has previously appointed defense attorneys to judgeships, including to the Alaska Supreme Court. However, an attorney can be zealous without attacking a child victim and misstating statutory rape laws.”
The case was high profile because the perpetrator was the son of a legislative aide, and the case became fodder for the media. It was a political case at one point. Ty Grussendorf was the grandson of former Rep. Ben Grussendorf, and the son of legislative aide Tim Grussendorf.
Tim was legislative staffer to Sen. Lyman Hoffman, and reporter Austin Baird alleged that Tim worked to change state law in a way that could have helped his son’s defense.
The Grussendorf case is so politically charged that it even impacted Rep. Cathy Munoz’s re-election, after she raised questions. Rep. Justin Parish beat her in November, 2016; he later was forced to not run for reelection due to his unwelcome advances toward a woman.
WAS WILLOUGHBY CORRECT IN HER ARGUMENT?
The governor got caught not doing his homework, and not thinking through what the actual argument was before the court.
It is a constitutional argument at its core. Willoughby was not arguing the facts, but about whether our system is so harsh in a “one-size-fits-all” punishment for sexual offenses, that we’re condemning sexually active 18-year-olds to life in prison.
In writing in support of dismissing the case on constitutional grounds, Willoughby was seeking to reform the law itself that could bite any sexually precocious 18-year-old boy or girl in the legal butt:
“The constitutional arguments in this case – due process, cruel and unusual punishment, equal protection and the goals of criminal administration – are all interconnected. This motion challenges the rigidity of a system designed to punish sexual predators. It is patently unfair to apply these charges and the resultant mandatory sentences and restrictions to high school students on an unfortunate but consensual sexual adventure. There is no humane reason to sentence Mr. Grussendorf to a slow death in the Alaska prison system. And there is no rational reason why the community would want to spend millions of dollars needlessly incarcerating him. The system is broken. Only by declaring the charging and sentencing structure for sex offenders unconstitutional may the system be brought to rationality.”
Willoughby’s memorandum detailed the encounters — blow jobs and all — which started when the victim contacted Grussendorf via a social media site called “Kix,” which minors are prohibited from using, according to the company’s rules. A few sexual encounters later, the girl broke off the relationship after being bullied by friends at school.
Normally, Willoughby said, such arguments relating to sentencing would happen after conviction. But in this case, she wanted to address it before trial because a guilty verdict would lead to death in prison for Ty Grussendorf, something that she argued was excessive punishment. That would force the young man into a plea bargain, and pressure him to admitting to things he may not be guilty of, in order to avoid life — and death — in prison.
Willoughby was arguing that locking a young man up for a sexual encounter he had at 18 with a 12 year old and throwing away the key until he was 76 or dead is not justice.
The entire legal argument is posted here. Caution, salacious material ahead:
That Willoughby, who teaches constitutional law, didn’t see that as a barricade to her judicial appointment, and that no other lawyer in the dozens who responded to the judicial survey saw this argument as an issue, indicates that someone close to the governor was going to dig something up on Willoughby to ensure that Amy Mead was offered the judgeship.
That’s exactly what happened. Only Gov. Bill Walker saw it as a problem, because it could be an election year scandal for him.
The cautionary note here is that now any defense attorney that makes a constitutional argument in defense of an admittedly guilty defendant could have their legal brief used against them if they ever apply for a judgeship.
WHAT WOULD AMY MEAD HAVE DONE?
Mead, who is the nominee to be sworn in as a Superior Court judge, may have only ranked in the middle of the pack of applicants, but her career has never put her in a position of defending an almost indefensible client, other than the City and Borough of Juneau. She has never had a case like Ty Grussendorf to defend. The public doesn’t know how she views constitutional questions.
This turn of events could put a chill on applicants, and limit judgeships to those with only corporate or municipal law experience and little to no criminal defense, trial experience, or constitutional scholarship.
Grussendorf’s trial is scheduled for Juneau Superior Court on Oct. 22, with Judge Phillip Pallenberg presiding.
