A California woman who was involved in a mid-day gunfight outside an Anchorage mall on Jan. 27, and who ran from officers to evade capture, was released on her own recognizance, due to lenient standards set by Senate Bill 91.
Now she’s skipped her court date, which was this afternoon.
Jessica Malcolm is a 26-year-old, tatted-up felon who allegedly came to Anchorage to visit family. As a felon, she’s not allowed to own a gun. She had a Glock on her and a magazine with with 30 rounds of ammunition when police finally arrested her in late January.
Police said a group of people got into an altercation in the parking lot of the Shockwave Trampoline Parks at the Northway Mall.
“At some point during the altercation, the suspects used gunfire to address the issue they were having with each other. Several shots were fired damaging vehicles parked in the area. No one was injured. As officers with the Patrol Division responded to the scene, the suspects fled. Three of the suspects fled in an SUV and crashed near Rodeo Place. They got out and took off running towards Bragaw Street. Officers caught the suspects in a parking lot near the post office. They were taken into custody, arrested and transported to jail,” according to police.
Malcolm was charged with a Class C felony — felon in possession of a firearm.
But in Alaska, she had no prior criminal record. After her arrest, she was let out of jail on her own recognizance. The pre-trial risk assessment tool judged her to be a low-risk release.
How low did she score on the risk assessment?
On a scale of zero-10, she scored zero.
Why so low?
The tool only considers criminal history from Alaska, and Malcolm had just arrived from California two weeks prior to the shooting, in which no one was hurt.
Where is she now?
The judge issued a warrant for Malcolm’s arrest.
What’s the background on the catch-and-release part of SB 91?
Gov. Walker signed SB 91 into law in 2016, and it radically changed how justice is served in Alaska. Fewer people spend time incarcerated under its provisions.
The SB 91 automated bail system went into effect on Jan. 1, 2018. Conditions of release are done via a computer algorithm and the system added a huge new Department of Corrections Pre-Trial Enforcement Division, with 65 new armed state personnel assigned to it.
These officers conduct the pretrial risk assessments. The system is said to be “color blind,” and therefore racially neutral.
Typically, only those who score a 10 on the risk assessment are held in jail before trial, although a judge can take other conditions into account.
Two of the other defendants in the shootout have also been released. Tajean Grant-McKay is out after posting bail, even though he had a prior warrant for his arrest at the time of the shootout on Jan. 27. Ebon Moore also bonded out.
Update/clarification: Some defendants charged with low level or non-violent offenses, and who are assessed as low risk, are required to be released without having to pay money bail.
When a defendant is released without paying bail, a judge may impose “conditions of release” on the defendant.
In the case of Malcolm, the judge could have imposed an unsecured bond (a promise to pay money if she failed on release), and/or ordered her to be supervised by the pretrial enforcement division, and other conditions.
GOVERNOR DIGS IN, SAYS SENATE NEEDS TO VOTE NOMINEE UP OR DOWN
Gov. Bill Walker wrote a letter to Senate President Pete Kelly and Majority Leader Peter Micciche today, saying he has no intention of withdrawing the name of Randall Kowalke, who he has appointed to fill the seat vacated by Mike Dunleavy.
Kowalke’s appointment is controversial because both he and the governor have, in essence, thumbed their noses at the Alaska Republican Party, which did not recommend Kowalke for the conservative seat.
District Republicans met in January and, with 45 people participating and a total of more than 500 hours of work, forwarded three names to the governor: Tom Braund, Todd Smoldon, and Rep. George Rauscher. Kowalke’s name was far down the list in their selection process, although he has filed a letter of intent to run for the seat this year.
District E became vacant when Mike Dunleavy withdrew from the Senate to focus on his run for governor.
Walker’s move is not only a slap to the Republicans in the district, but has an election-year overtone, since he is being challenged by Dunleavy for governor. On Monday, Senate Republicans told the governor in a letter that he needed to go back to the district and get some more names.
Today’s salvo from the Governor’s Office was unyielding.
Gov. Walker wrote to Senate President Kelly and Majority Leader Micciche:
“I have received your letter regarding my recent appointment of Randall Kowalke to the vacant seat for Senate District E. The filling of a legislative vacancy is governed by Alaska Constitution, Article II, Section 4 and AS 15.40.3520. The process outlined by the statutes generally involves three steps: (1) legislative vacancy occurs; (2) Governor has 30 days to appoint someone from the House or Senate district who is from the same political party as the legislator that vacated the office and meets the qualifications set forth in the Alaska Constitution for election to legislative office; and (3) once the Governor has made an appointment, the appointee must be confirmed by a majority of members of the same political party from the legislative body for which the appointment was made. If the appointee fails to be confirmed, the Governor has an additional 10 days to appoint another person to the office, followed by another confirmation vote. Nowhere in statute or the Alaska Constitution does it require the Governor to select names from a list provided by a political party; instead, the selection of names from a list has been a tradition that is only outlined in the bylaws of the Alaska Democratic and Republican parties.
“While I appreciate your concern for the Republican party’s selection process, I am a non-partisan Governor and my decisions are not based on the wishes or demands of any one party. Rather, my appointment of Mr. Kowalke was based solely on my sincere desire to make the best decisions for all Alaskans, including the residents of Senate District E. Mr. Kowalke is a respected leader in his community and an elected member of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly with broad support. His extensive private and public service in a wide array of sectors, and longstanding volunteer civic service to state and community, demonstrates a commitment of service to the people of Alaska and an understanding of the issues confronting us. I received more positive input in support of Mr. Kowalke from the local elected officials and residents in the Matanuska-Susitna area than for all the other applicants combined. In fact, I was encouraged to appoint Mr. Kowalke from your own Senate Majority, recommendations which I took very seriously. [underscore is ours] Mr. Kowalke has the integrity, dedication, political acumen and work ethic necessary to be a productive member of the Senate Majority and the best person to represent District E in the State Senate.
“In closing, I have no intention of delaying the selection process by requesting additional names from the Republican party while my current appointment is still pending. Should the Senate Republicans choose to reject Mr. Kowalke’s appointment, I will forward another name for consideration pursuant to requirements in the Alaska Constitution and State law.
* * *
PARTY CHAIRMAN’S RESPONSE
Tuckerman Babcock, chairman of the Alaska Republican Party, urged Senate Republicans to respect local Republicans and vote the governor’s nominee down. He called the governor’s letter “arrogant.”
In a letter to the senators, Babcock wrote:
“The Governor’s arrogant response to your letter dated February 13, 2018 and his dismissal of decades of tradition involving the actual people who live and work in the respective legislative District, deserves a swift and unambiguous response. That is a vote not to confirm the Governor’s personal favorite for Republican Senator.
“The Alaska Republican Party is asking you to honor the nominations made by the local volunteers. They have more say and more at stake in who the new Republican Senator is from Senate District E than does the so-called “Independent” Governor. Legislative seats are filled by the voters of the district, legislative vacancies are not just another of the Governor’s cabinet appointments.
“It is surely the view of every tin pot dictator in history that they, and they alone, know what is best for all. It is rare to see such naked arrogance displayed in writing as evidenced in the Governor’s February 13 response to your conciliatory letter.
“I noticed the Governor attempted to implicate Republican Senators in his action to dispense with tradition and substitute his preference, and his preference alone, as to who should fill the Republican Senate vacancy from Seat E. I find it hard to believe that any Republican Senator would actually encourage the Governor to ignore the volunteers of the Alaska Republican Party.
“Perhaps it is time for the Legislature to consider removing the Governor from having any role in appointing Legislators. Nothing in the State Constitution requires the Governor to be involved.
“There is but one course in the face of the arrogance and hubris displayed by Governor Walker: Voting not to confirm his Republican Senate appointment until he appoints someone from a list provided by the local Republicans of Senate District E.
“Earlier this week, the entire Mat-Su delegation wrote a letter to the governor supporting the local volunteers’ efforts and requesting he respect their wishes.”
A few days ago, spirits were running high in the education community because the Democrats in the House of Representatives had sold everyone on the idea that they had passed a bill (House Bill 287) that early funded K-12 education. Such an event does indeed represent forward progress on K-12 funding, but unfortunately, they didn’t.
After passage of HB 287, Rep. Scott Kawasaki was quoted in the Daily News Miner as saying:
“Basically, what the vote meant yesterday is that we were putting our money where our mouth is: funding education in its entirety.”
If by funding education in its entirety Scott means the bill made a 90 percent reduction — yes, 90 percent — in education funding and included zero money for the public education foundation formula, then unfortunately, he was correct.
Rep. Kawasaki wasn’t alone in his misplaced enthusiasm. The Democrat majority’s press release on HB 287, dated Feb. 7 and released immediately after passage, stated:
“Tonight, the Alaska House of Representatives passed legislation to early fund Alaska’s K-12 public education system … HB 287 appropriates $1.32 billion for K-12 public education, the same amount as proposed by Gov. (Bill) Walker, and includes $1.2 billion from the Constitutional Budget Reserve.”
As a longtime supporter of our K-12 education system and a fan of early education funding, I wish this were indeed true.
What the House Democrats actually passed was a bill with botched language that appropriates only 10 percent of what’s required to fund K-12 education.
In fact, the bill is completely void of any reference at all supporting $1.2 billion expenditure required for K-12 education, or, for that matter, any fund source for this critical expenditure.
In a further blunder, the bill that passed directs a small amount of money specifically to pupil transportation and to Mt. Edgecumbe School.
So, if your kids need a ride to a school in Sitka — the House Democrat Finance Committee has you covered. Where were our Interior representatives in this debacle? Asleep at the wheel?
This mess was created because the Democrats chose to fund education from the Constitutional Budget Reserve, which requires 30 votes in the House. If 30 affirmative votes are not cast, the language automatically is deleted from the bill because a funding source has not been identified.
“Backstop language” is then added to make sure something as important as this ultimately gets funded in some manner. All this language isn’t exactly rocket science, and there have been examples of it in practically every budget for decades. It should have been a no-brainer.
However, when the Republicans offered the amendment on the House floor to fix this glaring error and thereby assure a funding source for early education, the Democrats shot it down. As a result, the backstop wasn’t included and there is no funding for the education formula in the legislation that on Friday was transmitted to the Senate. Our Fairbanks Democrats joined in voting it down, led by Rep. Kawasaki and Rep. David Guttenberg, both of them Finance Committee members.
As a former co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, I’m aware of the wealth of information available to these folks from extremely competent professionals attached to the House and Senate Finance Committees. However, if you don’t or won’t listen to the pros who work for you, you get what you deserve.
There’s some explaining to be done. Our local representatives need to take their game up a notch. Our local representatives should have known better, and Fairbanks has every right to expect better.
We are a community that should be proud of producing seven Senate presidents, including the current one – Sen. Pete Kelly — and nine chairs of Senate Finance, a list that includes Sen. Kelly as well. Sen. Kelly is relevant to this discussion because the only hope of fixing this nonsense will be in the Senate with Sen. Kelly and his crew of competent professionals.
Hopefully the Senate will be able to use this somewhat useless appropriation bill to correct the House’s negligence and actually get this issue straightened out so that educators, parents and children can really rely on early funding for education, a goal sought by all supporters of Alaska’s outstanding K-12 system.
Gary Wilken has lived in Fairbanks for 62 years, and was a state senator for Fairbanks and Fort Wainwright from 1997 to 2009. He was a member of the Senate Finance Committee for eight years, co-chairing for four years.
UTILITY SALE COULD BE DECIDED BY ONE PERSON’S VOTE
The proposed $1 billion sale of Anchorage’s Municipal Light & Power to Chugach Electric Association will be before voters starting in mid-March, when the mail-in ballots are sent out.
Most voters will mark their ballots without having thought through the questions, because the electrical grid is not their area of expertise.
What is the background of the proposed sale of ML&P to Chugach Electric?
Why is the city charter being changed so the $1 billion sale could pass by a single person’s vote?
How did Mark Begich, representing Chugach Electric, and Mayor Ethan Berkowitz put this sale together behind closed doors?
Does the IBEW stand to benefit?
BACKGROUND
In March 2017, the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation convened a working group to look at a possible merger of the two companies, something that had been discussed since the 1990s.
The group met in open session twice, and then in closed session to discuss findings and recommendations. It decided the 295,000 citizens in Anchorage would be better served with one electric company, rather than two.
The group pointed to economies of scale issues: A city like Anchorage is too small to support two separate utilities, and in a letter to Mayor Ethan Berkowitz the group expanded on that thought:
Capital costs are increasing for both power generation and maintaining the grid. These items are expensive and the two companies are making duplicate investments.
Operational costs are increasing; that could be reversed by merging the companies.
A merged company could take better advantage of opportunities in renewable energy, micro-grids, net-metering, and the ability to diversify fuel sources.
And, “the alignment of development strategieswith political and consumer priorities would provide more efficient future development of the Anchorage electric grid.”
By June, the Anchorage Assembly had passed a resolution urging the Municipality of Anchorage, ML&P, and Chugach to begin to develop the merger.
However, Chugach was not the only entity interested in ML&P; it’s just the only one we know about. The public doesn’t know what kind of interest was expressed by at least two other “bidders.”
But others would have trimmed the workforce, and the powerful IBEW, which controls Chugach, was having none of it. The merged entity must include no workforce layoffs, according to the deal.
On Dec. 21, Mayor Berkowitz announced he will put the sale of ML&P to Chugach onto the mail-inballot for the election that ends April 3. This is something he and former Mayor/Senator Mark Begich had been working on for months, although he did not bring up Begich’s involvement.
He told the Assembly that Chugach had proposed a “competitive” price for the purchase price of ML&P, had agreed that rates would not be raised as a result of this sale, and had assured the mayor there would be no layoffs.
If the sale of ML&P is approved by voters, the transaction will take place over the following 18 months and must be approved by both the Assembly and the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.
Chugach would pay $712 million, which includes $524 million of ML&P debt, $18 million for debt defeasance, and another $170 million in ML&P equity. There is an additional $170.3 million in annual acquisition payments.
Then, for the next 30 years, former ML&P customers would payments in lieu of taxes totaling $142 million, even though an electrical cooperative doesn’t have to pay property taxes.
MAJORITY PLUS ONE BALLOT QUESTION
The second part of the ballot question would lower the voter threshold for approving the sale. It would make it a simple majority vote, rather than the 60 percent that is normally required by city charter.
That means 50 percent plus one vote is needed, which all but guarantees passage.
Normally, such sales or acquisitions require 60 percent by the city charter, but that difference — lowering the voting threshold by close to 20 percent — is not revealed in the ballot explanation, nor is the reason for suddenly lowering the required “yes” votes to the 50+1 majority.
MARK BEGICH, SHADOW MAYOR OR CHUGACH DEALMAKER?
Mark Begich has a contract with Chugach to ensure the sale goes smoothly, and he’s been back and forth from Chugach to his old haunt at City Hall for months, helping put the finishing touches on the deal with Mayor Berkowitz.
How much Begich and his Northern Compass Group is being paid by Chugach ratepayers and the IBEW to grease the skids is unknown; presumably he will get a handsome cut.
But a confidential report obtained by the Anchorage Daily News shows that the $1 billion price tag established by Begich and Berkowitz is at the upper limits of what ML&P is believed to be worth.
Voters also won’t know what the ballot term “competitive price” means without being shown the other “bids” from interested parties. Is there another bid of higher value? How much money did Mayor Berkowitz and Mark Begich leave on the table?
They’ll have to trust Mayor Berkowitz, Mark Begich, and the left-dominant Assembly, which has seen at least some of the documents, but is under a confidentiality agreement to not discuss them.
UNION APPROVED
The IBEW, already influential in politics in Alaska, has an interest in the deal going through. Chugach Electric is a cooperative whose board is highly influenced by union politics.
The highest paid employees in the muni are IBEW workers, and they’ve received a promise of no layoffs, even as the proponents of the deal promise economies of scale. A journeyman meterman in Anchorage can expect more than $50 an hour in wages, and at least that much in benefits. All of that will be preserved under the IBEW-approved deal.
Alaska Senate President Pete Kelly today said the governor and House Majority’s income tax proposal is not needed.
“With oil prices and production, we’re within grasp of a balanced budget. That doesn’t mean we don’t have to have a fiscal plan. We’re going to move forward with a fiscal plan. But I think the talk of taxing Alaskans — we would hope they would put that in the garbage can over on the House side. The point is that is not part of the Senate’s plan going forward.
“We do need to have a structured draw from the Earnings Reserve. And that’s going to be one of the Senate’s priorities, is making sure there are structured rules for getting into that ERA.
“We have the money to close the gap in very few years. So we need to change our rhetoric, that $26 rhetoric,” he said, referring to the $26 price that Alaska North Slope crude oil bottom out at in 2015.
“That was what began this discussion. People who were a little freaked out at the time because oil was so low, maybe they were right to be concerned or even panicking a little bit,” he said.
“But the Senate didn’t panic. We have measuredly moved forward on putting a rational method in place to make sure we can balance our budget.”
The governor has offered an income tax that would only pay for deferred maintenance capital projects and has offered an operating budget that is larger than last year’s.
KOWALKE DISCUSSION AHEAD
On a separate topic, Kelly said the Senate Republicans had not yet met to discuss Gov. Bill Walker’s nomination of Randall Kowalke to fill the spot vacated by Mike Dunleavy, who represented District E before restarting his campaign for governor in late December.
Kelly said he had no issue with Kowalke but felt the people of the district were not listened to by the governor.
“Our biggest concern — the people of the Mat-Su treated properly in the advancing of Mr. Kowalke’s name. That’s going to be our point of discussion,” he said.
In January, about 45 Mat-Su Republicans spent hours voting on the applicants for Senate Seat E, and forwarded three names to the governor, which he ignored.
District political activists have told Must Read Alaska that they thought Walker had essentially given them the middle finger by not respecting their process.
Senate Republicans have the authority to approve or deny the governor’s appointment.
A videographer who calls him/herself “Reformed Snowflake” has released a second YouTube video poking fun at Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, who has “nothing to report” week after week in the Anchorage Assembly meetings.
The video is a fast-paced string of Assembly meeting clips starting in early January, 2016, and also star Assembly Chair Dick Traini and his successor Elvi Gray-Jackson.
Neither of them could coax a report from the mayor.
The first stealth video ribbing the mayor popped up on YouTube last week, and can be found at this link:
DISTRICT 37’s TOP DEMOCRAT GETTING TOO MUCH HELP FROM HIS AIDE?
“Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other,” said the character Slim, in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.
Some in the Alaska Democratic Party are scared of House District 37 candidate William Weatherby (Dillingham, King Salmon, Naknek, the Aleutians, King Cove), and they joined a Facebook page last month to trash Weatherby’s reputation.
It got ugly. There were threats of physical violence against Weatherby, and he was called vile names. Must Read Alaska has a half dozen screenshots to back up this claim.
It looked like a vendetta account, but since Weatherby had filed a letter of intent to run against Speaker Bryce Edgmon, a Democrat from Dillingham, he is somewhat of a political target. “No to William Weatherby District 37” had distinct political overtones, especially when leading Democrats from all over the state suddenly joined the group in January.
The posts contained immature, terroristic threats like this one made in a private message to Weatherby:
The originator of the page appeared to be a “John Riddle,” a fake identity. Riddle posted provocative comments about Weatherby, and made accusations that were not just childish, but false, like this:
The fake John Riddle account was reported to Facebook, which dutifully deleted it, but the “No to William Weatherby District 37” page remained and was replete with comments about Weatherby, who had run against Edgmon in 2016 and is a Libertarian-leaning type of Republican with letter of intent to run against Bryce Edgmon in 2018.
Weatherby, who is active on social media, noticed the group needed a new “Administrator” after Riddle was blocked by Facebook, so he stepped into the fray to protect his reputation. He took over the page, infuriating the founder of the group. Weatherby has let the group stand, but he’s now policing the comments, and he’s changed other aspects of the page, including the banner.
William Weatherby
ENTER BRYCE EDGMON SENIOR STAFF
Meanwhile, in early January Rep. Bryce Edgmon’s top legislative aide, Amory Lelake, had been behind the scenes adding dozens names to what could only be described as a hate or terroristic group at that point.
Amory Lelake / Mark Begich / Social Media
While once very few people knew about the group, suddenly dozens of members of “No to William Weatherby District 37” were in, and they were some of the most powerful people in Alaska: Elected legislators in the Democrat-controlled House Majority, for whom Lelake is the top staffer on the staffer food chain, union officials, and media members.
Few of the members of the group were even from the Bristol Bay district — it was all being stoked from Juneau, late in the night on Jan. 4. It was a one-woman social media jihad on a man who had decided to run for office against the woman’s boss.
Lelake added the names of Reps. Ivy Spohnholz, Adam Wool, Harriet Drummond, Les Gara, Matt Claman, and Vince Beltrami, to name a few. She added other Democrat-friendlies, too, including several legislative staffers, her mother, as well as Alaska Dispatch News political reporter Nat Herz.
Must Read Alaska took some screen shots of all the work that Lelake had done to build up the social media war on Weatherby.
A sampling of her handiwork is shown here, with names readers will recognize:
Presumably they gave all their permission to join a Facebook tribe whose sole purpose seemed to be politically driven by Democrat legislators, staffers, and Alaska’s top union officials.
Is this the Alaska Democrat Party’s war on the working class?
Have any of the members of the group ever met the handyman and school bus driver named William Weatherby?
House Concurrent Resolution 2 was being heard in House State Affairs Committee on Feb. 7. It’s a resolution that says the governor should do more to stop horrible things from happening to children. Who doesn’t agree with that?
Rep. Geran Tarr presented her bill to the committee, saying that adverse childhood experiences (ACES) are a health crisis involving abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction. She spoke to the high cost of these experiences — obesity, higher drug abuse, higher Medicaid costs, higher suicide.
Rep. Geran Tarr, file photo
Tarr also talked touchingly about her own adverse childhood and the trauma experienced by her brother, who eventually committed suicide. It’s what motivates her to protect children.
It all seemed to be going well, and resolutions like this are rather routine. After all, no one can force the governor to stop everyone from beating and raping children. There is no fiscal note and no deliverables required.
HAPPY FAMILIES ARE ALL ALIKE
But then Rep. DeLena Johnson asked a reasonable question. She wondered aloud how far government should go to ensure a happy childhood.
That’s a question that reveals philosophical differences between Republicans and Democrats: Everyone wants children to have happy childhoods, but who defines what a good home is, and what the role of government is in such happiness.
Johnson was simply asking Rep. Tarr if she had any discomfort about the State becoming an Orwellian Big Brother inside families, or engaging in social engineering by deciding what constitutes a good childhood.
It was the same thing pondered by author Leo Tolstoy, who wrote in Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Who is the arbiter of when a family is just too dysfunctional? It’s the question of the ages for policy makers.
Tarr had a response:
“No, I don’t think that it is social engineering. I don’t think that people or that children should have to be beaten. Or sexually abused. I just disagree. I think children are innocent. They have no ability or choice in the situations that they are brought into and I think it’s a responsibility. For me its a moral issue more than anything else, a responsibility to care for all children until such time as that it’s not necessary.”
She concluded her response. Chairman Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins wanted to move along to the “net neutrality” bill. He wasn’t liking where this was going. Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux covered her face with her hands. Even Rep. Adam Wool looked surprised.
But Rep. Johnson was not done. She put her hand up.
“I would rather not get into it,” said Kreiss-Tomkins, weakly.
Over his objections, Johnson blurted out for the record that in spite of what Tarr had just insinuated, Rep. Johnson was not in favor of beating children or abusing them.
“I want to fly the flag that we’re not for abusing children,” Johnson said. “And that if we don’t have the resolution, that we are? I felt like that was what was just being said. And I want to make sure that it was clearly stated that it was not my intent.”
Johnson had made the classic rookie mistake of falling down the rabbit hole with Geran Tarr. Rep. Ivy Spohnholz had made a similar mistake last year regarding the “Wear Blue for Child Abuse Awareness Month” email she had sent to legislators, and she got an earful from Tarr about it. You just don’t go there with her; it’s her signature topic and Spohnholz could just go get her own signature topic.
And that’s Must Read Alaska’s random committee hearing of the week.
Fifty Shades of Grey, the 2011 sensational novel, titillated millions of readers and prompted some to experiment with sadomasochistic eroticism. For those who practice it regularly, it’s known as the BDSM (bondage domination sadomasochism) lifestyle.
Since it’s Valentine’s Day week, the 50 Shades industry is not going to let the opportunity pass by without milking it for some revenue.
Novelist E. L. James found success with her first novel, and she turned it into a trilogy, with Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades Freed. Anastasia Steele is the female protagonist and business magnate, Christian Grey, is the male who introduces her to erotic dominance and torture.
The 50 Shades enterprise has since hit the big screen as hard or soft porn, depending on your tastes. For some, it’s a Valentine’s Day date night “must see.”
Author James could not have envisioned the BDSM she glamorizes leading to allegations and the resignation of an Alaska legislator.
Nor might she imagine that choking sex play would result in deaths on a high school prom night in Texas, or in a homeless camp in Alaska’s biggest city. The risqué world she writes about is at once salacious, sanitized, and successful.
IF SHE DIES
Artist’s rendering of Jeffrey McCracken.
May 11, 2016 was a typical Anchorage morning, about 50 degrees with clouds burning off and the promise of warm weather to come.
Students were at their desks nearby and runners and bikers were on the trails of the city; meanwhile, down in Juneau, the Legislature was in session, having extended past 90 days.
The House Rules Committee was meeting at the Bill Ray Center. Taxes on oil explorers was the topic. Everything was normal.
But in a homeless camp near a Mountain View elementary school in Anchorage, Jeffrey McCracken, then 37, had been doing drugs and had strangled his lover, a mother of six, as an aspect of sexual gratification. He was now trying to figure out how to cover his tracks.
Later, his court-appointed attorney would attempt to explain it as BDSM sex that went awry. He said McCracken wasn’t thinking about killing the woman he was with; he was “just f**ing.”
Hers was a drug-fueled death, and perhaps she was too high to know the candle of her life was being extinguished. One of her last acts in her 48 years was to release her bladder while McCracken got off.
SEX IN THE ROUGH
McCracken and his victim had been using meth and having “rough sex.”
For 45 minutes, according to his story, he used one hand to squeeze her throat, and when that hand tired, he’d switch to his other hand. By the time he was done, she was bleeding from her ears and was unresponsive.
Well, that was his second story. His first one is that he woke up and went to a gas station and she was unresponsive when he returned, so he called 911.
But that account was never going to hold up. The forensics were against him, and four months later he changed his plea.
A grand jury indicted McCracken for manslaughter, although the prosecutor had also wanted second-degree murder — extreme indifference.
McCracken pleaded guilty in September before going to trial, and last week was sentenced to serve nine years, with three suspended. He is no longer homeless, and possibly no longer on drugs in his cell at Goose Creek Correctional Institution.
With time already served, he could be released on parole as soon as the summer of 2020.
KIDS, DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME, OR ANYWHERE
The week before McCracken squeezed the life out of his homeless tent-mate, a 20-year-old Texas man was sentenced to 25 years for choking to death his 17-year-old prom date in a Houston hotel room. The charge for her death was aggravated assault but the sentence much more severe than McCracken’s.
The death had taken place two years earlier, when the two teens were overnighting at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, where the prom had taken place.
Eddie Herrera’s mom had booked the room in advance and provided the drugs and booze. A cool mom, she wanted Eddie and his date, Jackie Gomez, to have a good time.
Herrera said Gomez’ death was due to rough sex, and that she had asked for him to squeeze her neck.
After he woke up, he “discovered” her dead, called his mother, and the two waited for two hours before finally calling the police, the prosecutor said. The mother came over to the hotel room. She put Gomez’s corpse back into her sparkly prom dress.
And then mom and son tried to figure out a story that would make sense.
There was just too much explaining to do, what with the mom’s involvement in buying the whiskey and the 15 opioid pills. Later, during the interrogation phase, Herrera admitted he had choked her and that due to the drugs, he couldn’t get an erection.
“I put my hands on her neck and squeezed,” Eddie Herrera told investigators, but only after they showed him the autopsy results. Gomez had deep hemorrhaging on her throat. Pathologists found she had hydrocodone and alcohol in her system.
Herrera is now serving 20 years of hard time, with 18 years to go.
LAWMAKER GOT LUCKY
Social media has been unkind to Zach Fansler, shown on the right on Facebook.
The law on consensual bondage and rough sex is 50 shades of ambiguous. Some people, like the kid in Texas, will spend more of his life behind bars than he did as a free man. Others, like McCracken, could be counted in the 2020 census as living in some Anchorage halfway house and wearing an ankle monitor.
And still others are lucky the rough sex didn’t get out of hand. Take Zach Fansler, the representative for District 38. He’s now just fighting to keep his licensure as a lawyer after what happened in January.
Fansler, who today is serving his last day as a legislator, was accused by a Juneau woman of slapping her so hard that her eardrum burst.
It all went down at Fanser’s hotel room on Jan. 13, after a night of drinking at the Alaskan Bar in downtown Juneau in mid-January. Texts between the two of them afterward make it unclear as to whether the rough sex play was consensual. He asked her out to dinner. She said no, her face still hurt.
Fansler’s text to her later said,
“I will keep my distance and be respectful tonight and whenever. You’re right about my drinking and the kink. I’m embarrassed and ashamed of myself. Please please please let me know if there is anything I can do. I’m sorry.”
Whether Fansler can or will be actually be charged with battery or domestic violence is in question because of the text the woman sent back to him, saying it wasn’t the slapping was the problem:
“I want to make it clear that being slapped was not the problem. I like that. You were too drunk and you weren’t listening to me. That’s why it was upsetting.”
“I certainly at no point in that evening was asked for my consent or gave my consent,” she told Juneau Empire reporter James Brooks later.
Fansler, who first stood his ground to keep his seat that he had won from Democrat Bob Herron (with the indispensable help of Anchorage Democrats, Gov. Walker’s surrogate Robin Brena, and AFL-CIO boss Vince Beltrami) had to resign his office. He had lost all credibility, even amongst his Democrat peers who had lauded him last year as a fresh new face for the party.
Today, he’s still Rep. Fansler. His resignation takes effect on Monday, a month after the alleged incident took place in a worn-out hotel room in Juneau.
His is yet another cautionary tale of how things can go wrong, very wrong, while practicing “the lifestyle,” especially when combined with alcohol and drugs.
In his case, the broken eardrum of his partner might have been Fansler’s wake-up call.
