News Briefs

PALMER — A pair of insurance companies teamed up this week to buy the local fire department some hose.

According to a press release from the city of Palmer, Alaska USA Insurance Brokers and Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company donated $8,295 to the Palmer Fire Department.

The money, the city said, will go to buy supply hose, which is the hose that runs to the fire engines from either a tanker truck or a fire hydrant.

“It’s often difficult for us to find the funds to keep up with changing equipment and safety standards,” Palmer Fire Chief John McNutt said in the press release. “We pride ourselves in providing the best service possible for our community, and this grant allows us to do so.”

Knipe to serve 25 years for sexually assault

PALMER — A Wasilla man convicted of sexually assaulting a 3-year-old girl was sentenced to serve 25 years in prison Thursday.

Michael Brandon Knipe, 23, was arrested in November of 2008.

At a hearing Thursday, his attorney, Krista Maciolek, moved to have her client sentenced by a three-judge panel rather than by Superior Court Judge Eric Smith. Maciolek’s reason was that it would be unjust for Knipe to serve the mandatory sentence for the crime and that the three-judge panel could give him a lesser sentence.

Smith rejected that motion, but said he did understand what Maciolek was trying to say; that Knipe had diminished cognitive abilities.

“The victim in this case was pretty brutalized,” Smith said, and Knipe, “has the capability to understand what he did and the wrongfulness of what he did.”

He said he worried about Knipe’s mental state, noting that Knipe expressed a degree of anger at the girl but also something else beyond anger.

“I appreciate that it is a very long time to go to jail,” Smith said, before handing Knipe the minimum sentence of 25 years. If Knipe re-offends after he is released, he could be liable to serve an additional five years.

Whisler rape trial delayed until January

PALMER — The trial for a man accused of multiple rapes has been pushed back two months.

Zebulon Whisler, 26, was arrested in January of last year after a woman told Alaska State Troopers he had forced her to have sex with him during a date to stargaze on Lazy Mountain. A month later, troopers accused him of sexually assaulting five additional victims as far back as March of 2003.

Thursday, attorneys in the case met to hash out the last of the motions filed leading up to a scheduled trial date of Nov. 1. That date was eventually pushed back to Jan. 24, 2011.

That last motion had come from Whisler’s attorney, Krista Maciolek, who was seeking to have the recording of a phone call between Whisler and that first woman’s mother thrown out.

The day Whisler was arrested where he worked, a woman said she saw him take the phone call that, as it turns out, troopers were recording. Maciolek said the woman testified the call came in at 9:30 p.m.

Maciolek’s contention was that since the warrant to tape the phone call — what lawyers refer to as a Glass warrant — was issued after 9:30, the troopers didn’t have permission to tape the call when they did.

Trooper Investigator Curtis Vik testified that his notes show he made that call at 10:05 p.m. He said he remembered waiting for Investigator Ramin Dunford to tell him the warrant had been issued. He said he followed the procedure he always does.

“I have applied for and executed dozens of Glass warrants,” Vik testified.

Prosecutor Rachel Gernat argued that Superior Court Judge Eric Smith should believe the troopers over the witness who watched Whisler take the call. She said she felt the witness wasn’t lying so much as mistaken whereas troopers check their watches periodically and make a point of noting the time in their logs.

“They’re both experienced investigators, they know they can’t make recorded phonecalls without a warrant,” she argued. “Why were they going to go through the trouble of applying for a warrant if they were going to call before it came back?”

Smith agreed with Gernat.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.