Decades ago, a 17-year-old and her 27-year-old coach had a fling. The woman, now 47, came forward with the information to the Anchorage Daily News last week, telling of her tryst with the then-27-year-old Ed Sniffen, who was, until last week, Alaska’s Attorney General.
Others have corroborated the woman’s memory, saying they knew or had heard the events of 1991 when they were attending West High School and had traveled to New Orleans for a mock trial competition. Sniffen was their trial coach. The woman coming forward was their classmate.
Adults beware: There is no statute of limitations on the crime of an adult engaging in sexual activity with a 17-year-old, when the adult is a teacher, coach, counselor.
According to the governor’s press office, the State is launching an outside investigation into possible criminal misconduct by Sniffen, who had been acting Attorney General since Kevin Clarkson resigned in August, after it was revealed that he was being overly forward in text messages with another State employee.
The newspaper began asking questions about Sniffen on Monday, and Sniffen resigned on Wednesday. The press office said the resignation announcement delay was so the governor could name a replacement. The replacement is Treg Taylor, who is an attorney in the Department of Law’s civil division.
The scandal came to light during the week when Gov. Mike Dunleavy would have been preparing to deliver his State of the State Address, which he did on Thursday from Anchorage, in the middle of the unraveling of his choice for Attorney General.
This is a tricky story for the Anchorage Daily News to tell, since the newspaper has had a widely understood anti-Dunleavy reporting stance, and stories like this reinforce the bias the newspaper is known for. The reporter, Kyle Hopkins, is underwritten by ProPublica, a leftist news organization. But it’s also a story that cannot be ignored, as there is a possible victim who deserves justice.
According to Influence Watch, ProPublica is a left-leaning news organization, whose donors include George Soros, the Sandler Foundation, the Emerson Collective of Laurene Powell Jobs (Steve Jobs) Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Donald Sussman, and other left-leaning organizations, such as Solidarity Giving.
