Video voyeur sentenced

PALMER -- The sentencing of a 44-year-old Houston man who admitted to secretly video-taping teen-aged girls while they were showering and changing clothes in his house has raised questions about Alaska's sex offender registration law.

Timothy F. Christoffersen, also known as "T-Bone", was sentenced March 24 by Superior Court Judge Eric Smith to serve five years of a 15-year sentence with the remaining 10 suspended.

Christoffersen entered a not guilty plea on three counts of indecent viewing, a class C felony, but Smith ruled that the sex offender registry law is too narrowly written for the judge to order Christoffersen onto the registry.

"It looks to me from reading the way the statute's written that the particular crime that Mr. Christoffersen has pled to is not one of the ones that I can require registration," Smith said. "... since they were really careful in the legislature as to what should and shouldn't be the subject of registration. I can't -- I don't have the discretion either."

Smith did find that he could require Christoffersen to attend a sex offender treatment program, because the statute governing that requirement was less narrowly defined.

Assistant District Attorney Robert Collins, who argued the case for the state, told Smith that he sent an e-mail memo to the Department of Law asking for a review of the statute. Collins also requested a sex offender registration as a condition of probation for Christoffersen once he is released.

"I think that the court could require it as a condition of probation, so that once he's out of custody and on probation he could be required to register," Collins told Smith.

In order to sentence Christoffersen to five years for each of the three counts, Smith was required to find Christoffersen a "worst offender." Smith did so, but would not place Christoffersen on the registry as any part of the sentence.

Collins read a statement from one of the juvenile victims into the record. The juveniles are identified only by their initials in court documents in order to protect their identity.

"To lose trust, is to lose security, which is exactly what Timothy Christoffersen put my friends, my family and me through. T-Bone, Tim Christoffersen, was a close and trusted friend, one who was a father figure not only to me, but to my siblings as well." the statement said in part.

In the original charging documents against Christoffersen, Alaska Sate Troopers wrote that investigators seized numerous video tapes of girls changing clothes and showering at his home. One girl was recorded 12 times without her knowledge, according to troopers.

Christoffersen was well known around Houston and had run for city council on at least two occasions. Council member Ruth Blanchard said that in the months prior to his arrest Christoffersen had been asking young girls to pose in swimsuits for a calendar he had said he was publishing.

"I questioned what that calendar was all about," Blanchard said.

There were parties at Christoffersen's home on Frog Lake in Houston. Troopers got involved after one juvenile reported being drunk at Christoffersen's home and fending off a sexual advance. Christoffersen was never charged with sexual assault or sexual abuse of a minor.

Blanchard said there were suspicions in the neighborhood, but until some parents went into Christoffersen's home and found the video tapes, people had mixed feelings.

"If you suspect something without proof, that's a terrible thing to put someone through," Blanchard said.

Once the video cameras were found in the bathroom, there were uneasy feelings for anyone who had ever accepted an invitation to attend a barbecue or go swimming at the lake-front house.

"He's probably got my butt on tape, if he had cameras everywhere like people say," Blanchard said. "I was down there. I used the bathroom."