My Experiences With The Alaska Department Of Probation: Part One

Part 2, part 3, part 4.
I have not told this part of my story about one component of the Department of Corrections, the Probation Department because when I had issues in the past the higher ups did something about them. I got the impression Director Donna White and the Chief Probation Officer for my region, Rebecca Brunger, really wanted to do their jobs in a professional way and they were working to stop the abuses. They seemed to be different than the prison system. They listened to me several times when I called with incidents with probation officers that left me traumatized and stopped some of the abuses. Perhaps they are doing their best to implement changes, but the abusive attitudes are so ingrained in the probation officers because of the system they have been working in for decades that abuses and violation of rights will never be curtailed. I got the feeling for a time which I now know is wrong that changes were being implemented.

I realize they are not responsible for the injustices from the court system or the abuse from the prison systems and their hands are tied about many things. I just never expected so much abuse over such a long period of time. Several times I had hope that things were going to change for those on probation and parole. That hope is now completely gone. I decided to tell this story about my experiences with the probation department after a recent incident. I have even said some nice things about them in the past and really do not want to do this, but I have no choice. I may also be retaliated against.

I have now been through so many traumatic incidents with them in the 2 years and five months I have been on probation that I would not feel good about myself if I did not speak up. It is my hope to bring to light how people are treated by the probation department so others know they too can have a voice about the abuse and violation of their rights. In Alaska people don’t seem to know what really goes on with the DOC/DOP which makes those who complain about the problems seem like they are lying. The more we tell the stories, the more people will realize they are true. It is also very important for the public to know what really happens to those on probation and parole, so they can understand how the DOC/DOP contribute to recidivism and exacerbate mental health problems. I was hoping to wait the seven more months of my probation before telling this whole story for fear of retaliation, but it just can’t wait. They have shown me they are not going to change.

My first Contact with the Probation Department was really no contact. A report was written about me as if the probation officer knew me. In Nome my practicing alcoholic public defender told me how thrilled she was that a particular probation officer would be writing my pre-sentencing report. I found that odd, there is only one probation officer in Nome as far as I know. I told this P.D. that under no circumstances did I want that woman writing my report as she is friends with some of the players at the hospital. I knew she would be manipulated by them and perhaps even slant the report on purpose as that was what was generally happening with anything connected to my case. I also knew how awful people were treated by the court system in Nome. The P.D. told me not to worry as this woman was pregnant and she would not be available during the period of time the report would be written. I then told her this probation officer would “bust her ass” to write the report for her friends. I called Quinlan Steiner and the deputy director of the criminal division to tell them I did not want this woman to write the report. She wrote it and the P.D.’s attitude when I complained was a shoulder shrug and an, “Oh, well.” Knowing her she may have asked her to be sure to write it. That P.O. put a lot of misinformation in the report and rated me with only a moderate chance of rehabilitation. If she had known me she would know there was nothing to rehabilitate, but she was caught up in the rumor mill and lies in Nome. She wrote the report without having one conversation with me, knowing anything about my background, and with much influence from the serial bullies at the hospital, I don‘t know how much she was influenced by the prosecutor. That report was presented in court to the judge to review before sentencing me, under great protest from me. My protesting about that and other violations of due process were ignored by all involved. The report was pretty much bullshit, but the truth does not matter in the justice system in Alaska, just the goals of those in power.

My second contact was right after I was released from Wildwood Correctional Facility when I thought I was going to stay there for 45 days and got released after two days. I had paid bills and only had $70. Release from prison in Alaska just means they push you out the door without a concern if you have food, a place to stay or health care if you need it. They don’t care about health care as they deny it in the prisons. I had no idea which way to even walk to town. Someone heard me say that as I walked out of the prison and a guy in truck came and told me. Gee, thanks.

I ended up in a really awful women’s shelter for a while in Kenai. The building itself is nice, but the staff are very dysfunctional, add addicts, alcoholics and personality disorders to the mix…and it is a nightmare. There were several reports of narcotics and sedatives being stolen from the drug lock up cupboard there which made me even more uncomfortable. It was a prime chance for someone to blame me again for something I did not do. The probation officer said I could not have had access due to no access to the keys to the two locks. Even so it made me very anxious because I know how the DOL and law enforcement twist the truth with false information if they want to. The next place was a room in a run down hotel in Soldotna with a bar, prostitutes, people passed out in the halls, lots of noise, etc. The first probation officer was clearly not against me and mainly wanted to check to see if I had food when he visited me. When I left there I stayed at another hotel a month or two which was not a dump and was peaceful. There is way more to all of my housing stories which I should write about soon as well.

Then I decided to go to Homer to get started on the civil lawsuits. I got another probation officer who sees people in Homer and had all of the meetings in the court house. I looked over and saw the name of the judge who did not believe me when I told her I was falsely accused and would not allow me to get my cat and property to safety when I told her what would happen. It triggered my PTSD and I pointed at the name and said something about her being the morbidly obese judge who would not listen to the truth. The probation officer could have cared less that my PTSD was triggered or that it was traumatizing for me to have meetings there at the courthouse where a huge injustice had occurred. He only cared that I said the judge was morbidly obese and for some reason was upset about it. Unless she has lost weight she is. I have Aspergers, ok, I call it like it is and when he had a reaction I told him I was overweight myself and it really was not a put down so much as a description based on reality. I often described myself at the time as being moderately obese. This is also how nurses describe people. I once had a woman storm into the ICU angry because a cardiothoracic surgeon had written in her history and physical she had pendulous breasts. My response was that I also had pendulous breasts and so did several of my coworkers and patients in that unit right then. She looked stunned, turned and walked out. That doctor said he never heard from her again.

In Homer I carefully selected a place to rent due to huge problems in the past with slumlords there. I picked a brand new place thinking meth labs and parties would not be allowed. I was wrong. Yea, it was bad. I contacted two disability agencies and did as they said to complain. The response was that I was ejected from the place. I tried to file a case based on the landlord tenant act, but the court house was in transition and the law library was dismantled over a long period of time. Then it was change to just a computer. This made working on my civil suits impossible as well. No access to the courts in rural Alaska. That is how low income people are treated in Homer and much of Alaska. I was then suicidal for the second time since coming to Alaska. I kept thinking if I could just get back to America and out of this third world country I would be OK.

I also need to do a summary post of the crazy mental health care I have had in Alaska. After a few days I ended up in Anchorage at Providence Hospital. I was being transferred to the probation office in Anchorage and I hoped being in the city they might be more progressive. I was wrong. They were just more brutal.

I had no place to live and told them at the hospital I needed to go on line to look for a place to live. For some reason they lied to me and told me they had no WiFI, so I called some places that were in the paper with no results. My probation officer in the Kenai office told me the probation office in Anchorage had transitional housing so I called the woman who was my new probation officer. She told me very nastily that there was no transitional housing like I was just making it up. She said they had a halfway house that was just like being in jail and I would not be able to leave for the first thirty days. She clearly wanted to scare me out of that idea. I told her I just needed a place to stay while I searched for a place to live. Later I spoke with two men who told me their probation officers helped them find transitional housing.

I had two conversations with this woman on the phone while I was hospitalized for suicidal ideations, she was very ugly both times. She did not even know me, she is just abusive naturally. Her attitude was that I had no right to even ask questions and that I was lying about what the other P.O. had told me about the transitional housing, I was not. I did not know yet that essentially there is almost no low income housing in Anchorage and that landlords don’t rent to those with criminal records, no matter what the truth is about their situation. I also did not know that anyone who has no job to return to or a place to live when discharged from incarceration in Alaska is just let out into the street and the DOC nor any other state officials give a shit. I had also not found out that Alaska Housing Finance Corporation staff were going to lie to me about being able to get a voucher several times. If I had been turned down I could have appealed and most likely would have won.

I had to press a social worker at the hospital about housing and she finally gave me a list, the same list of non-available or untenable housing every agency in Anchorage had. She told me she did not recommend any except maybe one. I had already contacted that one and got vague information from the newspaper.

I was discharged from the hospital having been there for a week due to being suicidal to the street and I knew nothing about Anchorage. The nasty P.O. insisted that I come and see her as soon as I was discharged. She refused to let me wait until the next day. I had to use the bus system which I did not know at all while dragging a suitcase and carrying a backpack. I am directionally impaired which is pretty common for Aspies. That adds a lot to the stress. We also don’t tolerate changes like the ones I was going through very well. I had to find Brother Francis Shelter that day, but the P.O. would not wait until the next day to see me. Why? Just to be a bullying ass. I had been suicidal because of all I had been through and the last straw was seeing the judges name, not being able to access a law library and then loosing housing again and now I was homeless again. Rather than be supportive or just treat me like a human being she did everything she could to harm me. She is the most dehumanizing P.O. I have come in contact with. Many of these people should not in any way have any contact with anyone with mental health issues of any kind, no way. They should just deal with their own mental health issues.

So, I arrived with my luggage to the Anchorage Probation Office and noticed a sign that said I could not bring my backpack, etc. in there. Nice sign since so many of the people who have to come in there are homeless. I filled out the form they make us fill out every time we go in there with the same damn information over and over, then waited and waited. They apparently aren’t real big on timed appointments there. I sat a long period of time while I was very worried as I knew nothing about Brother Francis and actually getting checked into the shelter that day. I was wondering how all the people who had jobs were supposed to keep their jobs when they had to wait there so long for an appointment.

Finally a woman called my name and I went up for the metal detector wanding and search they do every time I have gone into a probation office. I had all the luggage and she began going through it. I was not happy about that because I have no idea if her hands are clean and even if they are I don’t like it. I did not complain about it. At that time I was still having a lot of pain and had acetaminophen and ibuprofen in baggies that were easily accessible so I did not have to dig through everything to get to them if I had pain. She found the acetaminophen and began to ask me questions. “Is this prescription strength Tylenol”,…I told her it was just plain Tylenol. She then asked me that question several different ways. I kept telling her nothing was in the pill but acetaminophen and she could send it to a lab if she questioned it. I was thinking she must think they might be Vicodin because they were the shape of Vicodin, but then I realized that was not the case. Again she asked me if they were prescription strength Tylenol. Finally exasperated with being interrogated by a woman who had no idea what she was talking about with an attitude like I was some kind of an idiot in a very abusive way I said, “Look, there is no such thing as prescription strength Tylenol.” For a while I had been trying to figure out what she was getting at, then I realized she was not too bright. Who doesn’t know acetaminophen is an over the counter medication? I had made it clear to her it was just plain acetaminophen with no other medication. She then became very threatening and I was brought to the back. She told me they had to get some information from me. She asked me a few basic questions which I answered while crying. Then I asked her why they were asking me questions for basic information the DOP already had and got no answer. You see I was told to come down there just so they could be abusive to me, simple and plain.

Then I was told I could leave by this woman who was not my probation officer, she is a technician. I of course wanted to know why I had to come to the office if I was not even seeing the probation officer. Apparently this probation officer was listening and immediately appeared and became nasty just like on the phone. She threatened to send me back to jail right then because of my questions. I then told her that she could not send me to jail unless I violated a condition of my probation or committed a crime. Apparently at the DOP asking questions and making comments is considered a crime by many. A crime against their inflated egos. That would of course make me one of the biggest criminals in the history of Alaska in their minds due to my propensity for question asking and comment making. She then told me I had to come in for orientation the next day and then stay for a meeting with her. Oh, joy. When I told her I had already done orientation she told me their’s was different than in Kenai which is not true. It was done in a different way, but the content was the same, of course it is. They once again told me all the types of knives I could not have and I still have no idea what any of them even are.

At the meeting after the exciting orientation she was a snarky smartass. She mainly turned up the radio on her desk really loud and be-bopped to the music and typed into her computer while I sat there wondering why the hell I was there and that she either needed some medication or was taking too much. Something was not right, this woman was underweight and acting weird. She asked me about the Salvation Army’s housing not too far away. She drove me there and the guy behind the desk wanted to talk with her in private in the back. It was like some kind of strange spy movie. When she came out she told me they were full which I knew was a lie as I was diligently searching for housing and had spoken to him already. As we left I asked her what that was about and why being full was a secret and she became very angry. I told her I was not stupid. She then said, “I don’t play that”, this was not the first time she had used gangster talk on me. I am in my 50s. When I asked her why she talked to me that way she said, “You should see the people I have to deal with.” Did I look like them, I asked. Now I realized she had a very negative opinion of the people she worked with and no skills of communication. I refused a ride from her preferring to walk a long distance rather than suffer any more of her abuse and BS.

Ok…time to call higher ups. I called the director of the DOP who directed me to call the supervisor of the office. The supervisor wanted to have a meeting with me and the P.O., but I just wanted to get a new one, the situation was not going to get better with her. I called Kenai and talked to a former P.O. who told me that abusive woman was his friend and she was a good P.O. I clearly told him there was something wrong with her and she was very mean. I had just gotten out of the hospital for PTSD with suicidal ideation and now I was sicker than before admission from severe abuse.

So, more phone calls. I had already not been listened to about the alcoholic public defender and other issues, I did not want to negotiate about this. So I called Director White again. Then we had a meeting in which I was given a sex offender P.O. temporarily. Great now I have to carry the sex offender P.O. card around in my wallet. Then they decided to give me to another P.O. Before I even saw this person I got the call about housing in Soldotna and left Anchorage. I was then back at the Kenai Adult Probation Office. I was glad to get away from the crazy DOP office in Anchorage. I was not all that thrilled about Soldotna, but I knew the manager of the apartments was a good person. I wanted to stay in Anchorage for many reasons including the law library.

End of part one.

AUDIE HOLLOWAY SAYS,"I DON’T HAVE AN EXCUSE. IT’S JUST THE WAY IT IS"…AND THEN THE ILLOGICAL EXCUSES START TO FLY.

First of all let me start out by saying there are some good Alaska State Troopers, I know of two who are ethical and there are some corrections officers at the prisons who do their jobs without harming the prisoners. Unfortunately the problem in both of these systems and at the Department of Law is the leadership, dishonesty, poor training, agendas other than the work at hand, and incompetence.

From the ADN:

Alaska State Troopers say they have mishandled the investigation into the beating death of prison inmate John Carlin III, the alleged co-conspirator with Mechele Linehan in the 1996 Kent Leppink murder. They have vowed to move forward with the case and file charges.

I think I can provide some insight into that. First of all they try to keep incidents in the prisons unreported and this means they are not dealt with. That is one of the reasons they disappear grievances and punish those who file them. Those who speak up about any kinds of problems end up in segregation with their privileges to communicate decreased. In my case a parole officer kept them from putting me in administrative segregation, recommending I go to open population, so they kept me in an orientation unit where they could harass me and limit my ability to communicate with the outside. The reasons they do this is the Department of Corrections has no respect whatsoever for the rights of prisoners. They have a lot of corrections officers who are abusive to inmates. They violate their own policies. This is all due to poor leadership.

This lack of investigation into the murder of Carlin was a cover up and the State Troopers were enlisted to assist them. Think about it, ethics would dictate filing charges and prosecuting the crime to a person who is actually dedicated to upholding the law. What happened? Did they need enough time to get to some of the witnesses, change the paperwork, or alter any videos? Better take a close look at the DOC if you really want to understand how this happened, but let's not forget the DOL. Were they contacted by the DOJ about not investigating this case?

When I was wrongfully imprisoned there were many things done to endanger me. They put me in a cell with a violent psychotic woman in the mental health unit. I told them it was a dangerous situation and they simply told me to shut up. Fortunately I had been a psychiatric nurse in the past and had some skills to deal with her. The staff was hoping she would harm me, that is why she was in my cell, and that is why they did not respond when they clearly heard her yelling while pounding the door and walls by kicking or hitting them with her fists. It also was not a coincidence that we were in the last cell on the end while the night nurse was not even in the unit. She stayed in the room across the hall where she would not hear me yelling for help, I assume she was sleeping. This woman who should have been a patient in a psychiatric hospital and not in a prison was attacking a hallucination that she was angry with, if she had turned her anger on me there is no telling what would have happened.

"We are trying to find out why we dropped the ball on it," said Col. Audie Holloway, head of the troopers. "It's unacceptable that this thing has taken this long."



Carlin, 51, was killed at the state's Spring Creek Correctional Center in October 2008. Troopers have released little information other than to say another inmate or multiple inmates attacked him and that he died from some sort of blunt-force trauma. It was the third severe beating to Carlin since he arrived at the Seward prison just months before to begin his 99-year sentence for murdering Leppink.
 
 Are we supposed to buy the dumb guy routine that Holloway just now noticed the ball was dropped on this case. Does the state of Alaska want a leader who has no clue why they do what they do in charge of the state troopers? Of course, the truth is he knows exactly why they dropped the ball. Dropping the ball is SOP at the Alaska State Troopers. This was the third beating of John Carlin. Considering what I know about how corrupt prisons operate, it is entirely possible one or more corrections officers were paid off to allow him to be beaten by simply looking the other way, and they may have thought it was funny. If that is the case we will never be allowed to have that information. The DOC staff knew full well he was in danger and did nothing to protect him. What did Carlin know that someone wanted him dead? One thing that is immensely clear is corrections officers not taking action to prevent someone from being beaten to the point of ignoring his requests for protection and allowing him to be beaten three times is a sign of severe problems at the DOC.

To protect him would have been simple, they love to put people in segregation in the prison system, why not segregate a guy whose life was in danger. They certainly tried to put me in segregation due to my writing multiple grievances about lack of health care and complaining about being blocked from going to the law library. They also love to transfer people. They moved me to four different jails and prisons to torture me, each time telling me I was going to Nome for a hearing. I guess they just do the opposite of what the inmate needs as another harming tactic.

Troopers investigate crimes committed in prison. For one and a half years troopers have been saying that Carlin's death is an ongoing investigation and that evidence such as lab results was still being processed.

Give us all a break. There was NO ongoing investigation. They were trying to figure out how to present the case with false evidence to cover the DOC’s ass. The DOJ needs to step in and find out what is going on here, just like they have done in other places such as New Orleans. One of the tactics employed by the DOL is to drag cases out for many reasons, one of them is to give themselves time to construct a fantasy story they think the public will buy into.

I had two men accuse me of a crime I did not do, the state troopers found no evidence I did it, yet a warrant was issued for my arrest out of Nome(I was in Homer). The truth is it was done for retaliation and to cover crimes they had committed. The DOL was thrilled due to being pissed off at me for demanding due process. The DOL is the agency whose primary purpose under Sarah Palin was to protect her from the consequences of her illegal and corrupt behavior. The main state trooper in that case is an honest law enforcement officer, but his supervisors and many coworkers are unethical(Anchor Point). I had already contacted the state troopers about several crimes they did not investigate, including theft, vandalism, methamphetamines, underage girls drinking and sleeping with adult males, insurance fraud, threats to myself, child endangerment, my wallet being stolen, and much more. They simply refused to do their jobs with a great deal of excusifying all the way up the chain of command. They told me I was not allowed to file a police report twice, stating they decide if one is filed or not. I had one lie to me and state that giving false information to law enforcement is not illegal. His supervisor called me a liar when I told him about it and I told him to listen to the phone recording of it. They refused to charge the man who stole my property and harmed my cat with any crimes. I had a court order to go get what was left of my property where it was stolen and a state trooper not only blocked me from getting it, but threatened to arrest me when I complained that what he was doing was wrong. Audie Holloway is well aware of all of this and did nothing, but ignore me. Oh, I guess his statement today shows that is one of his best skills, but he isn't sure why he does it, "that is just the way it is". This is law enforcement in Alaska. This is law enforcement on the Kenai Peninsula, they see their job as only responding to business owner’s complaints and ignoring citizen complaints They always side with business owners, even when they are clearly wrong.

Holloway confirmed that troopers have been waiting on DNA evidence in the case. He explained that because of the backlog in DNA sampling at the crime lab, troopers and district attorneys constantly prioritize what gets processed. "For some reason we didn't do that as well in this case, or as well as we should have," he said. "Whether we didn't put enough emphasis on it to the D.A., or the D.A. didn't put enough emphasis on it to the lab."



He said he was trying to find out where the miscommunication occurred.


"I don't have an excuse. It's just the way it is," he said.

It’s the excuse that isn’t an excuse. It’s all about lack of emphasis, “for some reason we didn‘t do that as well in this case“. I have a theory you might want to look into Holloway, you didn’t want to do your job and investigate this case just like you have done in other cases. I think Alaskan’s are owed an explanation as to why the state troopers are not doing their job in cases like this murder or my case. Audie Holloway called me a liar when I tried to get them to investigate my case and he hung up on me. That is a pattern that is common I found out among Alaska state officials when confronted with the truth.

Holloway said the case was not deliberately shoved aside because the victim was a convicted murderer -- a sentiment expressed by some of Carlin's supporters.

He is choosing the incompetence excuse, another typical tactic to hide misconduct in Alaskan state agencies.

"That's not the case," the colonel said. "But certainly the fact that the suspects are in jail does have some play to it, because we have people who are not in jail who should be in jail."

Yes, the fact that he was in jail did have some play. They treat inmates as if they do not matter. Their health concerns and threats against them are ignored. They consider inmates to be less than human. This is why there are so many human rights violations in the prisons in Alaska. Stating this happened because others who should be in jail are not in jail is just an attempt to come up with some kind of explanation when it is clear they simply did not investigate this case because they had some agenda not to.

"But that shouldn't play that much into it," he said.


Carlin's son, John Carlin IV, is suing the state Department of Corrections over the death. "I'm anxiously awaiting justice. I desperately want to finally find out what happened to my father," he said Monday.

I doubt he will ever find out the whole truth.


The younger Carlin filed the civil lawsuit in February. No trial date has been set. He is seeking at least $500,000 in damages.


"Due to the repeated nature of the assaults and Carlin's pleas for help, the officers and/or employees and/or agents of defendants knew or should have known of the danger to Carlin's personal safety," the lawsuit says.

Three correctional officers are named as defendants in the lawsuit: John Cox, Andrew Houser and Jody Letter. Probation officer Clifton Simons is also a [sic] named. But their roles in what happened are not clear in the court filings. Efforts to reach them and their lawyers were unsuccessful.

Why are these people who ignored requests of a man whose life was threatened and allowed him to be murdered still working in the prison system? Why…because this behavior is how they normally conduct business. If they fired everyone who participated in unethical behavior there would only be a few officers left.

The lawsuit says Carlin tried to seek help from prison officials. He asked to be separated from the attackers or moved to another prison, it says.


One prisoner who claims responsibility for the first attack, Donald Joseph, has said that he beat Carlin to teach him a lesson about respecting Natives. Carlin had turned a TV channel while several Native inmates were watching, Joseph said.

It would be interesting to know about any exchanges between Joseph and corrections officers.

The Department of Corrections would not comment because of the ongoing litigation, a spokesman said.


Both Carlin and Linehan said they didn't kill Leppink. Prosecutors say Linehan coaxed Carlin to shoot Leppink so she could collect on the victim's life insurance policy. The Alaska Court of Appeals tossed out Linehan's conviction this year because some evidence was improperly presented to jurors, but prosecutors plan to try her again.

The Alaska Supreme Court is considering whether to invalidate Carlin's guilty verdict because he's dead and his appeal was pending when he died.


State prosecutors want it upheld. They have a strong incentive. If it is overturned, they may not be able to use their theory that Linehan persuaded Carlin to do the shooting.

Not only that, but this case may be set to expose the DOL system of railroading defendants into prison with lies. What did Carlin know? What does Commissioner of Public Safety Joseph A. Masters have to say about this? He has been almost invisible.