Sexual abuse, pornography nets 27-year sentence

PALMER — A Willow man was sentenced to 27 years in prison Friday after pleading no contest to two counts of sexually abusing a minor and one of distributing child pornography.

Mark Alan Dunder, 48, was arrested in October 2006. At the time he was working as a school bus driver for Laidlaw, a job he quit early in Alaska State Troopers’ investigative process.

According to an affidavit investigator Shannon Fore filed with the case, a 15-year-old girl came to troopers to say Dunder had molested and photographed her and two other 15-year-old girls nude at his Willow home in October 2006.

Assistant District Attorney Rachel Gernat said Monday that none of the evidence in the case against Dunder indicated he used his position as a bus driver to meet underage girls.

Gernat said changes in Alaska law since the abuse was alleged to have happened have modified sentencing ranges for sexual abuse of a minor. Only one of the abuse charges, to which Dunder eventually pled, fell under the newest, most strict sentencing standards. Gernat said she felt the way the plea agreement shook out was appropriate.

“The abuse that he had perpetrated on these three girls was so long-standing and extensive that we felt it deserved a sentence within the new sentencing range,” Gernat said.

In interviews with troopers, Dunder denied touching the girls and said that he saw nothing wrong with taking the photographs. He said the girls had asked him to delete them but he did not, according to the affidavit. Dunder told troopers his collection of child pornography was downloaded only from free Internet sites so he wouldn’t contribute financially to its production.

“Dunder stated 12-year-olds were about as young as he liked them,” Fore says in the affidavit.

A search of Dunder’s computer turned up photographs of the girls who came to talk to troopers. Dunder told Fore that he set up a tripod for the girls to photograph themselves and denied molesting them, according to the affidavit.

One of the girls, Dunder said, “talked him into taking photographs of her without her clothes on and that looking back he should have said no, but that they were very nice poses,” Fore wrote.

As to Dunder’s extensive collection of child pornography downloaded from the Internet, of 40,000 images troopers found spread among two computers, several CDs and Zip disks, Dunder told troopers he was fascinated that someone could do something like that, Fore says in the affidavit.

“Dunder stated that he only kept some of the more upsetting child porn showing children who were approximately 5 years old being raped because he wanted to remember how bad that type of thing was,” Fore wrote.

Dunder had initially been charged with three counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor, one each of second- and third-degree sexual abuse of a minor, three of exploiting a minor, three of possessing and one of distributing child pornography, two of indecently viewing or photographing a minor and one of indecent exposure.

In exchange for the 27-year sentence with nine years suspended, he pleaded no contest to one count each of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor, second-degree sexual abuse of a minor and distribution of child pornography.

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