This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Bethel, Alaska, former foster parent and daycare operator Peter Tony, 69, was arrested on June 13,2013 “for two counts of sexual abuse of a minor” involving  a 4-year-old  child.

“An investigation into the abuse uncovered “numerous” other alleged victims living in Alaska and elsewhere, dating back decades, according to the release.”

“Tony was arraigned on the two original charges in Bethel District Court on June 14 and has since been indicted by a Bethel Grand Jury for seven counts of alleged sexual abuse of a minor, occurring between September 2011 and August 2012.

Calls to the city police chief and others were unreturned, Monday.”

“Tony’s arrest came after nearly six months of investigation by Officer Amy Davis, the press release said. Tony and his wife previously worked as foster parents in Bethel, but witnesses told Davis that the couple had been forced out of the program after allegations of abuse surfaced. After the couple’s “rescission” from the program, Tony operated a day care facility out of his home.” [They were granted a license for daycare AFTER being accused of abuse as foster parents!?!]

“Daycare workers and foster parents are listed among professionals required by state law to immediately report reasonable cause to suspect that a child has suffered harm as a result of abuse or neglect to the nearest office of the state’s Department of Health and Social Services, Office of Children’s Services.

The position for the manager of children’s protective services for the Southwest region, headquarters in Bethel, is listed as “vacant” on the state’s website. The contact number listed there for the Southwest region is identical to the one for the Southeast region children’s protective services manager, Sharon Fleming. Fleming could not be reached.

Tony was a “very active” volunteer with Bethel Search and Rescue, said Mike Riley, a long-time member of the all-volunteer group. Riley described Tony as a “kind, caring person.

“He was always concerned about other people, gave a lot of people help who were in need, and I do believe he led a life in good regard,” Riley said.

Tony is being held in custody on $100,000 bail, and is scheduled to be arraigned in Bethel Superior Court on Tuesday.

The investigation is ongoing and anyone with information was encouraged to contact Officer Davis 907-543-3781.”

Bethel police: Former Alaska foster parent jailed in sex abuse investigation

[Alaska Dispatch 6/24/13 by Eli Martin and Laurel Andrews]

“BPD Officer Amy Davis began an investigation in January and spoke with family, witnesses, friends and potential victims.

“Tony and his wife had been foster parents in Bethel in the past and allegations caused the rescission of their participation in the program,” BPD wrote in a Monday news release describing what Davis’ investigation revealed. “Tony then opened a daycare facility in his home. The current investigation has identified numerous alleged victims, both in Bethel and outside of Alaska, which have occurred since the 1970’s.””
Bethel Man Arrested for Child Sexual Abuse

[KTUU 6/24/13 by Neil Torquiano]

REFORM Puzzle Pieces

Update: “A former long-time Bethel foster parent indicted this week on seven counts of child sexual abuse related to a girl whom his wife baby-sat admitted to police that he fondled and otherwise sexually assaulted an untold number of foster children, according to a document filed in Bethel Superior Court.

Authorities now are looking for additional victims.

Peter Tony, 69, and his late wife, Marilyn, served as state-licensed foster parents from 1984 to 1998, according to a sworn statement by Bethel officer Amy Davis. The state substantiated a complaint of sexual abuse in 1998, and they stopped serving as foster parents, the officer said. He wasn’t charged criminally in the 1998 case, however.

In a state and region that long has had among the nation’s worst rates of child sexual abuse, the case is getting extra attention because of Tony’s history as a foster parent.

On Wednesday, Christy Lawton, director of the state Office of Children’s Services, said the couple’s foster care paper file has been archived and it would take a week or longer to retrieve it. Without the record, she could confirm only that the Tonys had been foster parents years ago.

Marilyn Tony died earlier this month, authorities said.

The child in the new case is a 4-year-old Bethel girl whom Marilyn Tony baby-sat for about a year in the family’s home child care, ending in August 2012. The little girl called Tony “Baha.” A couple of months after she stopped going there, the little girl asked her grandmother “Why does Baha go like this?” She demonstrated how he molested her, the Bethel investigating officer said in her statement.

In a January interview at the Bethel child advocacy center, the child told Davis that Tony touched her everyday that his wife baby sat her, and that it happened when Marilyn was cooking lunch, the officer said.

Efforts to speak with the officer on Wednesday were unsuccessful. The investigation took months.

Early this month, the little girl’s mother wore a wire and confronted Tony about what the child had said.

He told the mother “he was so sorry, and that he didn’t mean to harm (the child) but it’s an addiction,” the police filing said.

At some point — she didn’t have an exact date — the couple stopped operating their home child care, Bethel District Attorney June Stein said. They weren’t licensed day-care providers, according to Marcey Bish, state child care program manager. In Alaska, people can provide day care for up to four children, not counting those related to them, without a license, Bish wrote in an email.

In an interview this month at the Bethel Police Department, Tony admitted fondling the child, the officer’s statement said. He also acknowledged sexually assaulting foster children, but didn’t know how many and said he couldn’t remember their names, Davis wrote.

“Peter said he is not sexually aroused by children and he doesn’t know why he sexually assaults children,” the officer wrote.

Police: Former Bethel foster father admits molesting children in his care

[Anchorage Daily News 6/26/13 by Lisa Demer]

Update 2: “When 69-year-old Peter Tony was charged this week with sexually abusing a 4-year-old girl in the rural Alaska town of Bethel, investigators revealed they were looking into abuse allegations stretching back to the 1970s. One of those alleged victims from decades ago was Tony’s stepdaughter.

Kimberley Hahn Bruesch, 48, accuses Tony of sexually assaulting her and two sisters when they were kids. Her sisters never healed from the abuse, with both committing suicide as adults in the 1990s, according to Bruesch, who spoke with Alaska Dispatch this week.

“I hope that I can inspire at least one other person to come forward,” said Bruesch of why she chose to tell her story. “It’s very important to expose the failings in the system.”

Bethel Police say Tony has confessed to assaulting a 4-year-old and other children in his foster care over the years, but investigators have not said whether he has admitted to abusing his stepdaughters. He is being held in a Bethel jail on $100,000 bail. On Thursday, he was in the process of being assigned a public defender, with a pretrial court hearing scheduled for Aug. 15.

Bruesch says the abuse she and her sisters suffered years ago marked the start of a long series of assaults committed by Tony while he was a foster parent until the late 1990s. She claims she first reported Tony to foster care officials in 1982, but nothing ever happened.

Two years later, the state issued Tony and his wife a foster care license, which they held until 1998, when according to Bethel police they were removed from the program.

“It seems like a cover-up to me,” Bruesch says. State foster care workers “didn’t want their mistakes to be publicized.”

Christy Lawton, director of the Alaska Office of Children’s Services, rejects Bruesch’s allegations.

“That definitely would be way outside anything remotely acceptable, and I would be shocked to find that to be true,” Lawton says. It would have been a “matter of course” to refer reports of criminal behavior by a foster parent to law enforcement.

She will not comment on Tony’s past as a foster parent until she has access to the records of his case. The retrieval of those records was expedited Thursday as reporters asked for the documents to be released.

‘Could you never mention it again?’

Bruesch was born in 1965 in Virginia, thousands of miles from Bethel, the largest town in Western Alaska and a hub for the dozens of Yup’ik Eskimo villages that populate the region.

When she was a child, her mother Marilyn Tony began dating Peter Tony. He had grown up in the village of Marshall in the Bethel area, and the two first met in Anchorage when he was serving in the Navy. They, along with Bruesch, eventually moved to San Diego for his work and married when she was 5.

It was in San Diego at 1644 Guadalcanal Rd. — an address at a Naval facility — that Bruesch alleges her stepfather began to abuse her. The year was 1973. She was 8 years old. Tony was 29, she says.

At the time, Bruesch thought she was the only one in her family who had been molested, but she later heard from her two sisters that they, too, suffered Tony’s abuse. She believes Tony sexually abused her older sister, Robin, before he touched her. After her stepfather abused Bruesch, she thinks he then molested her younger sister, Teresa.

It took Bruesch until she was 15 to tell anyone about what happened to her. She first spoke to her mother about Tony’s assaults. By this time the family was living in Bethel, where they moved from San Diego in 1977.

Marilyn Tony was shocked by her daughter’s revelations, Bruesch recalls, and confronted her husband. Peter Tony denied the allegations at the time, Bruesch says. The household was left with her word against his, and soon afterward Bruesch dropped out of high school and left home “to get away from him,” she says, adding that her sisters did the same.

Asked whether her mother ever believed her allegations against her husband, Bruesch says, “It was a reality that sunk in very slowly for her.”

Bruesch thinks her mother was herself a victim of sexual abuse as a child, and that experience probably contributed to her difficulty in fully acknowledging her husband’s behavior.

In 1982, Bruesch claims she brought her allegations to the Alaska Division of Family and Youth Services, but nobody believed her. Bruesch says the social worker who interviewed her at the time was Mary S. Atchak (then Abruska). Atchak still lives in Bethel, but due to an illness she is unable to speak, her husband Peter Atchak said Thursday.

Bruesch maintains Marilyn Tony was a loving mother and foster parent. She was also devoted to her husband, and lived much of her life in denial of his suspected crimes.

When she became ill last summer, Bruesch returned to Bethel to help the Tonys sell their home.

Around this time, her stepfather’s past resurfaced after a long period of silence. Bruesch said her mother told her, “Kimberley, I know he sexually abused you. Can you never mention it again?”

On June 2, Marilyn Tony died after a long period of not feeling well and major heart surgery six months earlier.

Two days later, Peter Tony was served with a restraining order against approaching the 4-year old girl he allegedly abused. And on June 13, he was arrested.

‘Why didn’t someone connect the dots?’

Bruesch remained scarred by her childhood experiences for years, and her early adult life characterized some of the trademark responses to child sexual assault by victims, including an abusive relationship that lasted years.

Today, Bruesch lives in Ketchikan where she works as a tour guide in the Tongass National Forest. She has her own stable family life and regards herself as healed from the trauma of her childhood.

Her sisters never made it there. Bruesch’s older sister, Robin, took her own life in 1990. Teresa followed in 1998.

Teresa died on April 14, 1998. In her suicide note, she wrote: “I just told (my daughter) about what my Dad did to me. She’ll know now why I did what I did.”

“Even as an adult my father has found a way to destroy me,” she said later in the note.

When she died, Teresa left behind three young children; Robin left two.

The day after Teresa’s suicide, Bruesch says her mother told her that authorities removed all of the foster children from the Tonys’ home in Bethel. But this cannot be verified.

Regardless, what is known is the state revoked Peter Tony’s foster parent license in 1998 and a Bethel Police affidavit this month states that reports of abuse were “substantiated” at the time he lost his license 15 years ago, including a complaint from one alleged victim in 1997.

Tony, however, would never be charged with a crime — until now.

“Why didn’t someone connect the dots?” Bruesch says. “The ones who are supposed to protect children, when my sisters and I first reported it to them, why wasn’t it reported to police?””

Bethel sex abuse case: Stepdaughter tells of assaults, sisters’ suicides in 40-year saga

[Alaska Dispatch 6/27/13 by Eli Martin]

Update 3:

“When rain sweeps into this Western Alaska city of 6,000 along the Kuskokwim River, the gray sky seems to match the landscape. Thick, dark clouds drop big, heavy rain drops onto muddy gray roads, which parallel the equally gray, muddy river along which the town was built. Only the flat, boggy, green tundra stretching away forever in every direction disrupts the grayness.

On the edge of this tundra are sprawling clusters of neighborhoods that emerge out of nowhere. In one of those neighborhoods — so-named Tundra Ridge, though the subdivision rises only slightly over its surroundings — lies the former home of now-accused child sexual predator Peter Tony, 69, and his late wife, Marilyn.

The Tonys — Marilyn especially — were once admired members of the community. Marilyn often worked with special needs children.

“She took in kids no one else would take,” said longtime Bethel resident Susan Murphy. “Everybody really loved her.”

Many were still grieving Marilyn’s death on June 2 when the news hit that Peter had been arrested for sexually abusing a 4-year-old girl, along with speculation of how many more victims there might be given the couple’s long association with foster parenting and childcare. Accusations have since emerged that Peter sexually abused his stepdaughters in the 1970s.

Alaska’s other world

For decades, the Tonys made their life on the edge of civilization, though civilization is in this case a loose term. The largest city in Western Alaska, this regional hub is a long way from anywhere. It is 400 miles — by air, the only method of transportation other than a long walk — east to the big city of Anchorage. The in-between miles are sparsely populated.

The remoteness of the region has made the community a vital hub for the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, an area roughly the size of Oregon across which are scattered a mere 56 villages, none of them connected by roads. Peter Tony grew up in one of those villages. Marilyn came north from the Lower 48, a place a world away.

The former Tony home, a ranch-style structure, sits on a sandy lot, like all other homes in the neighborhood. Balanced on pilings, its foundation has to be adjusted every few years. Like other houses in the neighborhood, it is built on ever-shifting ground that is at the mercy of the freeze-thaw cycles of the tundra.

The Tonys don’t own the home anymore and haven’t for almost a year. But it was in this structure with the spruce-paneled walls weathered and water-stained that Peter is now alleged to have abused a 4-year-old girl and other children — crimes he has confessed, according to Bethel Police.

Since these charges against Tony were filed, his stepdaughter, Kimberley Hahn Bruesch, has come forward with her own allegations of abuse dating back to the 1970s.

The stories have left the community stunned and heartbroken.

‘This is sad’

Michael Isom, a protective services manager for the state Office of Children’s Services in Western Alaska, said the accusations against Peter have cast a shadow over almost everyone.

“My interactions with the community are that this is sad. A member of our community has committed a crime,” he says. “One of our most precious assets, which are children, has been at risk at the hands of Mr. Tony.

“Until the investigation gets fleshed out, we don’t know all the details. I’ve believe it’s in its infancy. (But) there is a somber feeling” in town.

Marilyn and Peter Tony were licensed to care for foster children for more than a decade, from 1984 to 1998. In 1998, one of those foster children accused Peter of sexual abuse. The accusation was “substantiated,” according to the investigator, but Peter was never charged with a crime. Why more didn’t happen then is among many unknowns.

After being dismissed as foster parents, the Tonys went on to run an unlicensed daycare in their home. The 4-year-old girl Peter allegedly abused was attending that daycare. Friends find the accusations hard to believe given Marilyn’s reputation in the community.

“She had the touch,” says friend Marilyn Laraux, who often saw Marilyn Tony at the town’s health clinic with the foster kids she took in. “I admired and respected her.”

“Shocked, saddened, betrayed’’ is how artist Drew Michael describes his feelings. “I thought they were on the good side of this,” he says. “It’s a sad situation for everyone. It keeps coming back to that feeling of betrayal.”

Michael, a respected Alaska Native artist who now resides in Anchorage, was between ages 1 and 2 when he was placed with the Tonys as a foster child. He was later adopted by a family in Eagle River. He, his brother and an adopted sister all lived with the Bethel family for a short period in the mid-1980s.

Michael and his siblings returned to the area numerous times over the years to visit with his foster family. Michael always thought of Peter as reasonable and caring. There was never any indication Peter might be committing crimes, Michael says.

He doesn’t remember much from his early years in the care of the Tonys, but expresses love for his foster family, specifically Marilyn.

“There was so much good intent” from her, Michael says. “Her work wasn’t in vain.

“Peter stole the beauty of it all.”

It’s unclear exactly how many foster children the Tonys had in their care over the years. The state Office of Children’s Services  is expediting its review of the Tony files. A spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Health and Human Services said Monday more information might be available later in the week.

Meanwhile, those in Bethel who knew the Tonys, already grieving over Marilyn’s death earlier this month at 69, are left to ponder what has happened and — if the charges against Peter are accurate — how many of the children among them might have been scarred.”

In Bethel, allegations of abuse taint once-respected couple

[Alaska Dispatch 7/1/13 by Suzanna Caldwell]

“Police in this Western Alaska town are investigating whether a former state social worker had a relationship with a man accused of sexually abusing children, creating a conflict of interest in response to reports in the early 1980s that he’d abused his stepdaughters.

The questions revolve around Mary Atchak, who worked for the then-Alaska Division of Family and Youth Services off and on from 1977 to 2004. As it turns out, Atchak, Peter Tony — the 69-year old man at the center of a widening sexual abuse scandal in Bethel — and his wife Marilyn Tony were all friends over the years. According to a former friend of Atchak’s, she and Peter Tony had previously dated.

Bethel’s police chief and the investigating officer in the case both confirmed Monday they are looking into a report that Atchak and Tony had some kind of relationship, and whether that presented a conflict for Atchak, a social worker whose job, in part, was to protect children.

“Based on the information we have received, there is a very strong possibility that a relationship occurred,” said Amy Davis, Bethel police’s investigating officer in the case. But, she added, “nothing is a fact.”

The police probe comes as Tony sits in a Bethel prison, charged with seven counts of abusing a 4-year-old girl between September 2011 and August 2012. Police suspect Tony abused other children over the years.

Tony’s stepdaughter, Kimberley Bruesch, 48, told Alaska Dispatch last week that he abused her and her two sisters in the 1970s. Both of her sisters later killed themselves, in large part, Bruesch says, because of unresolved trauma from the abuse. Teresa Richardson, Bruesch’s younger sister, cited her stepfather’s assaults in a note before she took her life in April 1998.

In September 1982, Bruesch said her mother, Marilyn Tony, brought her and Richardson to the state Division of Family and Youth Service (DFYS) in Bethel to report their allegations to Atchak.  At the time, Atchak was working for DFYS. She and Marilyn had also known each other since meeting in Anchorage around 1969-1970. Bruesch claimed she never heard back from Atchak.

“Nothing came of it, no one called. The police never got in touch,” she said. 

It is unclear whether the relationship between Atchak and the Tonys had any impact on Atchak’s review of the abuse claims. But what is certain is that nothing happened to Peter Tony at the time. 

Instead, in 1984 — two years after Bruesch came forward with her abuse allegations — the state approved a foster care license for the Tonys. The couple would go on to serve as foster parents to children in the Bethel area for the next 14 years.

The close set of relationships that apparently existed between the victims, their mother, a social worker and the alleged abuser exemplify the tight-knit roots of many who live in Western Alaska. However, the story of how they all came to know one another began in Anchorage.

All together in Anchorage 

Mary Atchak grew up in the village of Russian Mission, while Peter Tony was from Marshall, around 25 miles away on the Yukon River. Peter went on to serve in the Navy, and when he returned to Alaska, he and Mary were friends and carried on a relationship in Anchorage, according to a friend of Mary’s at the time who agreed to talk to Alaska Dispatch if the source’s name was not published.

In the early 1970s, when Mary and Peter were friends, he began dating Marilyn, who at the time was working at the Anchorage Community Action Agency, a nonprofit set up to fight poverty in Alaska’s largest city.

Jewel Jones, a former employee of the Anchorage Community Action Agency in the late 1960s and early 1970s, said she remembered Marilyn working at the agency, her meeting Peter Tony, and the two falling in love.

Despite Peter’s new relationship with Marilyn, Mary didn’t seem jealous. “They all three were friends,” according to Mary’s friend at the time, who also worked for the Anchorage Community Action Agency.

Marilyn and Peter were married Aug. 17, 1970, and moved to San Diego, where the Navy had transferred Peter. This is where Bruesch alleged she and her sisters were abused. In November 1977, the family moved to Bethel. In September of that same year, Mary was hired as a state social worker and assigned to Bethel.

Some details of Mary’s friend’s account were confirmed by other mutual friends and family, including from Bruesch, the stepdaughter. While growing up, she recalls hearing at home that “at one time” Mary had been Peter’s “girlfriend.”

But the relationship could not be confirmed directly with Marilyn, Peter or Mary. Marilyn died June 3, Peter is in jail, and Mary is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Repeated attempts to speak with Peter Atchak, Mary’s longtime husband and the recently retired head of Bethel Search and Rescue, were unsuccessful. At his home in Bethel, Atchak told reporters “please never come again,” before shutting his front door.

An objective investigator?

It is unclear whether Mary’s relationship with Marilyn and Peter influenced how she handled the allegation that he’d abused his stepdaughters.

Based on interactions with Mary, Peter and Marilyn in Anchorage in the early 1970s, Mary’s friend from this time period said “it would have been difficult for Mary to have been an objective person” in investigating the abuse claims.

Susan Morgan, a spokeswoman at the Alaska Office of Children’s Services (today’s name for the Division of Family and Youth Services), said Tuesday that the agency is still pulling together and reviewing files related to the case. As a result, she couldn’t say whether the agency had any knowledge that Mary Atchak investigated or passed on the allegations to her supervisor, or if Bethel police were contacted at the time.

The Bethel Police Department does not have records dating back to the 1980s.

Mary Atchak left her position with the Division of Family and Youth in February 1983, five months after Bruesch remembered reporting to her that she had been abused by Peter Tony.

Atchak returned to the agency in October 1984. That same year, the state issued Peter and Marilyn Tony a foster care license.

Bruesch said it’s unfortunate that nothing came of her report to Atchak in 1982. It might have prevented her stepfather from allegedly abusing more children.

“He would have had access to far fewer children. He wouldn’t have been a foster parent,” she said. “I also think things would have worked out very differently for me and my sisters.””

Did conflict of interest hinder Bethel sex abuse investigation?

[Alaska Dispatch 7/2/13 by Eli Martin]

“The state Office of Children’s Services is reviewing its records of the Tony foster home and looking for any abuse reports from children placed there, said the agency’s director, Christy Lawton.

The agency has let Bethel police know the foster-care licensing file, which had been archived in Juneau, is available. Workers are still working to locate separate files for individual children, she said.

Lawton didn’t know whether her agency will attempt to find and contact the foster children, who likely would be adults now. But if any who were in the Tony foster home need counseling, they can contact OCS, she said.

She said child protection work has improved since the Tonys last were foster parents some 15 years ago. Sex-abuse investigations now are done by multi-disciplinary teams, for instance. She doubted the review would reveal the need for systemic change, and the workers involved back then are likely no longer with the agency.”

 

State OCS searches files for reports of abuse in Bethel case

[Anchorage Daily News 6/28/13 by Lisa Demer]

Update 3: “Officials at Alaska’s Office of Children’s Services are still reviewing old records to try to determine how allegations against a Bethel man accused of sexually abusing children may have been handled by the agency years earlier.

In a news release Wednesday, the agency said old records that may shed light on Peter Tony, 69, were handled differently decades ago and some may have been destroyed. Alaska Dispatch has requested access to the state’s foster care records for Tony and his late wife Marilyn.

Bethel police arrested Tony on June 13, charging him with seven counts of sexually abusing a 4-year-old girl in his late wife’s day care during 2011-2012. Police have indicated they are investigating claims of sex abuse against Tony dating back to the 1970s.

In addition to reviewing records related to the couple’s foster care, the Office of Children’s Services said agency officials are “searching for any record of prior allegations in an effort to identify any specific children who may have been victims and the action taken.”

Last week, Tony’s stepdaughter, Kimberley Bruesch, told Alaska Dispatch he abused her and her two sisters in the 1970s. She claims she and one of her sisters reported the abuse in 1982 to a state social worker named Mary Atchak, but that nothing ever came of it. Wednesday’s press release appeared to acknowledge Bruesch’s account by mentioning “recent information stemming from 1982.”

Peter and Marilyn Tony went on to be approved for a foster care permit in 1984, and police have received reports of abuse from former foster children in their care over the years.

On Tuesday, Alaska Dispatch reported that Atchak had a potential romantic relationship with Peter Tony, raising questions whether Atchak had a conflict of interest when she investigated his stepdaughters’ abuse claims in 1982.

The Office of Children’s Services’ news release revealed one new detail Wednesday: Marilyn and Peter Tony lost their foster care license in May 1998. Police reports had previously indicated the year, but not the month.

The month is noteworthy in that on May 7, 1998, the state’s child welfare agency received a report that a girl had allegedly been sexually abused by Peter Tony, according to a Bethel police affidavit released last week to the media. Police also said last week that allegations of abuse led to the Tonys losing their foster care license in 1998.

Just weeks before the couple lost their license — on April 14, 1998 — Peter Tony’s stepdaughter, Teresa, committed suicide. She left a note saying that the abuse she suffered as a child under Tony contributed to her decision to take her own life.

Susan Morgan, a spokeswoman for the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, which oversees the Office of Children’s Services, said in an email Wednesday that the agency expects to complete the review of records over the next 10 days, releasing them to the public on July 12.”

Review of records continues in Bethel sex abuse case

[Alaska Dispatch 7/3/13 by Eli Martin]

“Retention remains a crippling problem for the Alaska Office of Children’s Services, which sees nearly one-third of its staff leave in any given year, according to a report from the panel that oversees the organization.

A report from the Alaska Citizen Review Panel spotlights that issue. Its recommendations – unchanged from 2012, though updated to reflect new data – are federally mandated through the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act as well as Alaska statutes.

The Office of Children’s Services has faced scrutiny since reports of the alleged child sexual assault of a foster parent dating back to the 1970s were uncovered in the Bethel region. The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services has begun an expedited search of records involving the man in question, Peter Tony. On Wednesday, the department said it was still looking into the case and that some information – including a possible 1982 report – would be impossible to obtain.

Two recommendations offered by the panel on Wednesday focus on staff retention and look closer at issues in Alaska’s western region office, based in the hub community of Bethel with field offices in the Yukon-Kuskokwim villages of St. Marys and Aniak.

According to the report, the staff turnover has average 34.6 percent a year since 2004. While it notes that the rate has fluctuated, it has held steady the last few years, well above OCS’s target turnover rate of 20 percent.

“Such a high turnover rate is severely detrimental,” the 2013 report notes. Last year’s annual report came to the same conclusion, though it offered stronger language in the hope of triggering changes within the organization.”

Alaska Office of Children’s Services under scrutiny in wake of Bethel sex-abuse allegations

[Alaska Dispatch 7/3/13 by Suzanna Caldwell]

“She says it wasn’t debilitating, at least at the time. Tony would climb into her bed and fondle her.

“I kind of imagined maybe this is what Daddy’s do with their little girls,” Bruesch says. “It wasn’t violent, there weren’t threats involved or anything. And it made me uncomfortable and I tried to squirm away and pretend I was asleep and get between the mattress and the wall but it was not particular traumatic at the time.”

The stress manifested itself in other ways. She started having nervous behaviors. She clawed and picked at her skin until it bled.

For Bruesch, the statute of limitations has run out to press charges but she says she doesn’t want anyone else to suffer the same way.

“I started pursuing this case in earnest,” Bruesch says. “Trying to figure out how I could get someone in authority to care enough to look over the records and connect the dots.”

Through her own investigation, she’s discovering that there could be other victims. A former foster child accused Tony of abuse leading to the revocation of his foster care license in 1998. Later, Bruesch’s mother, Marilyn Tony, ran a daycare out of her home. Bruesch has reached out to those parents and connected to the 4-year-old’s family who is now pressing charges.

For Bruesch though, help didn’t come for years. She never told anyone about the abuse until she was 15. Her mom, Marilyn Tony, confronted her step dad but he denied it. Her mother suggested the three talk about it together which Breusch refused to do. The same year, she moved out of the house to live with her boyfriend. She was married by 17.

At that same time, Bruesch’s younger sister came forward, accusing Tony of abuse. Their mom took both teenagers to the Division of Family and Youth Services where they were interviewed by a social worker, Mary Atchak, (formerly Mary Abruska). Nothing happened, there was no follow up, and Bruesch just pushed it all aside again.

“It also left me feeling that the abuse I reported must not be very serious,” Bruesch says. “You know, I wasn’t actually raped.”

Reports have recently surfaced in other media that the social worker had been romantically involved with Peter Tony but they have not been confirmed.

Bruesch was also silenced for years by the unexpected response from her husband.

“He was very angry with me for reporting the abuse,” Bruesch says, “so much so that he punched a hole in the living room wall.”

That relationship lasted for 18 years during which time Bruesch was estranged from her family.

Meanwhile, the Tony sisters were dealing with the aftermath of their abuse. Both Robin and Teresa committed suicide as adults.

The extent of her sisters’ abuse only became clear to Bruesch this past year when she found Teresa’s suicide note. It told of the abuse and asked for justice. With the support from her brother Doug Tony, Bruesch has been going after that.

“I’m wanting to come public with my story because I’m really hoping that more victims will be able to come forward,” Bruesch says. “More victims of Peter Tony, in particular, in this case and just more victims of this crime in general.”

Bruesch says she feels totally healed. She’s come to terms with Tony’s abuse and her sisters’ suicides.

“I have forgiven him, I don’t hate him,” Bruesch says. “I think it would have been wonderful if he could have been exposed years earlier and gotten help for his problem.”

She doesn’t know how many victims there could be. Bethel police say they could go back to the 1970s. What Bruesch says she does know is that the time has come for the heavy burden of shame to be lifted off their shoulders and carried by their abuser.”

Peter Tony’s Stepdaughter Speaks Out About Abuse

[Alaska Public Media 7/9/13 by Angela Denning-Barnes]

Update 4:“Prosecutors in Bethel have filed additional charges against a child sexual abuse suspect at the heart of an investigation reaching back 40 years, alleging the abuse of a minor dating back to 1998.

Peter Tony, 69, was arraigned in court Tuesday on three class B charges of molesting a 12-year-old girl in his foster care between January and May 1998. The alleged assaults took place between January 1 and May 8, 1998, and the victim first reported the abuse in May of that year.

Tony was indicted on July 11 on three counts of sexual abuse of a minor, all of which are class B felonies.

The latest charges, added to the seven charges Tony is already facing for child sexual abuse, come after police said in June that Tony was being investigated for crimes dating back to the 1970s. He has been in jail in Bethel since his arrest on June 13 after a six-month investigation. His public defender has withdrawn due to an unspecified conflict of counsel, and he does not currently have a lawyer.

The first seven charges all relate to the alleged abuse of a 4-year-old girl in his late wife’s daycare facility between September 2011-August 2012. This brings the total number of victims police have charged Tony with abusing to two.

Tony and his wife, Marilyn, were stripped of their foster care license in May 1998, according to a press release last week from the Department of Health and Human Services. The daycare facility they subsequently opened was not licensed by the state.

Police have indicated they suspect Tony could have abused many other children, and according to an affidavit by Bethel police’s investigating officer, Amy Davis, Tony has admitted to police that he does not remember how many children he abused in his daycare facility.

Kimberley Bruesch, Tony’s stepdaughter, has alleged that he abused her and her two sisters — both of whom later committed suicide — in the 1970s. She claimed to have reported her abuse to a Division of Family and Youth Services social worker in 1982, two years before the Tonys were approved for a foster care permit.

Dianna St. Vincent, an Office of Children’s Services employee who appeared as a witness for Tony’s latest indictment, said Tuesday she was not authorized to speak on the matter. OCS spokeswoman Naomi Harris could not comment on the abuse allegations, citing the pending records release. She could not say whether the 1998 abuse claim led to the termination of the Tonys’ foster care license.

Davis’ affidavit, which accompanied the initial charges against Tony in June, indicated that the victim in the new, 1998 charges lodged a complaint against him — contained in Office of Children’s Services records — on May 7 of that year. That complaint was found to be “substantiated,” though no charges were filed at the time.

June Stein, district attorney in Bethel, said she could not comment for now on why Tony was not charged with a crime after allegations of abuse were made against him in 1998, or if these allegations were directly linked to the revocation of his foster care license.

The Office of Children’s Services remains in the process of reviewing its records on the Tonys’ period as licensed foster parents. Alaska Dispatch has requested the release of this information under the freedom of information act.

“Right now (the district attorney’s office) is interested in seeing him prosecuted, not why it didn’t happen earlier,” Stein said.”

New sex abuse charges filed against former Bethel foster parent

[Alaska Dispatch 7/16/13 by Eli Martin, Suzanna Caldwell]

Update 5: “Now newly released foster care records show that child welfare officials had reason to believe Peter Tony himself posed a threat to the children long before he was charged with criminal sexual assault.

Records show history of allegations in Bethel child abuse case

[Anchorage Daily News 7/25/13 by Lisa Demer]

Update 6: “Bethel police are continuing to look for additional victims of former foster parent Peter Tony, now jailed on multiple charges in two child sexual abuse cases, one involving a child entrusted to his care by the state.

Bethel Police Chief Larry Elarton said his agency is pursuing justice for all victims.

Bethel police are looking for more victims in foster care investigation

[Anchorage Daily News 7/31/13 by Lisa Demer]

Update 7: “A judge has rejected a gag order request against the Alaska Office of Children’s Services in regards to a Bethel man accused of molesting children left in his care.

Superior Court Judge Douglas Blankenship denied a request from an attorney for Peter Tony asking that the agency be barred from releasing any additional documents or statements related to his time as foster parent from 1984 to 1998.

In the order denying the request, Blankenship wrote that the court cannot justify prior restraint on the First Amendment right of the press to obtain information under Alaska public disclosure laws. Tony had requested a blanket order for the agency from disclosing any documents and statements related to Tony, his late wife Marilyn and any children the couple may have supervised in their time as foster parents.

In early August, Tony’s attorney, Mark Osterman, argued that OCS’s release of the files infringed on Tony’s right to a fair trial. The original filing notes that the “defendant believes that OCS knew or should have known that law enforcement action was underway” and should have prevented disclosure to the media.

The latest order disagrees, saying that while a defendant’s constitutional right to a fair trial could in rare circumstances demand withholding of public records, “those circumstances are not present here.”

Blankenship wrote that it appears the office understands its duty for disclosure and confidentiality, and that the agency, which oversees Alaska’s foster care program, has not “breached its obligations.”

Tony, 69, was charged in June with multiple charges of molesting a 4-year-old girl in his unlicensed day care. Weeks later, he was additionally charged with sexually abusing a foster child in his care in 1998.

In July, through a Freedom of Information Act request, Alaska Dispatch requested access to the Tonys’ foster care file. In response, OCS released hundreds of pages of documents related to the couple’s 15 years as foster parents. Some records were withheld and names redacted, citing confidentiality laws.

The files showed at least five allegations of abuse against Peter Tony, though only one in 1998 was substantiated. No charges in that case were filed until 2013.

Department of Health and Social Services Spokeswoman Susan Morgan had no direct comment on the ruling, but said OCS is still working with Bethel police to assist in the ongoing investigation against Tony.”

Alaska judge denies gag order request in Bethel sex abuse case

[Alaska Dispatch 8/20/13 by Suzanna Caldwell]

Update 8:“Almost nine months after being charged with 10 counts of sexual abuse that rocked the small Southwest community of Bethel, Peter Tony has pleaded guilty.

Tony, 70, appeared in Bethel Court Monday to change his plea. Under the terms of a plea deal, the 10 original counts were consolidated down to three of sexual abuse of a minor in the second degree. Under the deal, Tony pleaded guilty to two counts for incidents that occurred between 2011 and 2012 and one for abuse that occurred in 1998. Under state statutes, Tony could serve between five and 99 years for the 2011 counts and between one and 10 years for the assaults in 1998.

While no other charges are pending, Tony also pleaded guilty to two aggravators, admitting to engaging in similar conduct with the same or similar victims. Because of those aggravators, the judge can choose to sentence him above the presumptive or “normal” sentencing, which is usually less than the maximum.

In the hour-long hearing, Tony spoke softly and said little, calmly answering Judge Douglas Blankenship’s questions and at times conferring with his attorney, Mark Osterman, over conditions of his plea.

Tony was arrested in Bethel June 13 after a six-month investigation by local police. He was indicted on 10 counts of sexual abuse of a minor in the first and second degree last summer, stemming from two separate charges. This first was the abuse of a 4-year-old child left in the unlicensed day care, which Tony and his wife, Marilyn, operated out of their Bethel home between September 2011 and August 2012. Charges again were filed against him over incidents between January and May of 1998 in which Tony abused a 12-year-old foster child left in the Tonys’ care.

The Tonys were well-known in the rural hub community of about 6,000 for their willingness to take in some of the neediest foster children. They first applied for a foster care license in 1984 and abruptly lost it in May 1998. An Alaska Dispatch public records request found that the Alaska Department of Family and Youth Services, now known as the Office of Children’s Services, found the license was revoked after an investigation “substantiated” the claims of the 12-year-old girl, though no charges were filed until 15 years later. It’s unclear how many children the Tonys cared for during that time.

Peter Tony’s stepdaughter, Kimberley Hahn Bruesch, also documented abuses Tony inflicted upon her and her two sisters, both of whom committed suicide years after the assaults occurred. Bruesch said she first reported the assaults to foster care officials in the early 1980s, but they were never acted on.

Bruesch’s claims fall outside Alaska’s statute of limitations for sexual abuse charges.

Reached Monday, Bruesch said she was happy for the family of the little girl who originally came forward, but noted she didn’t have strong feelings on the matter for herself, since she always knew he was guilty.

“For me, it’s immaterial whether or not he’s convicted or how long he serves,” she said. “I’m just glad he was exposed, and I hope any of his other victims find some validation and some healing.”

Tony’s sentencing is scheduled for June 24 in Bethel.”

Former Bethel foster parent Peter Tony pleads guilty to sexual abuse[Alaska Dispatch 2/24/14 by Suzanna Calwell]

Update 8: “A Fairbanks judge on Tuesday sentenced Peter Tony, a former foster parent in the Southwest Alaska community of Bethel, to 66 years in prison for sexually abusing children.

 

“You will be in jail for the rest of your life,” Superior Court Judge Douglas Blankenship told the 70-year-old defendant.

Blankenship said Tony preyed on vulnerable children entrusted to his care for nearly 40 years.

 

Tony admitted to molesting his stepdaughters, two of whom later committed suicide, an unknown number of foster children in his care and a young girl his wife was babysitting, according to a court transcript of the hearing. The abuse happened between 1973 and 2012, the transcript said.

 

One of Tony’s victims, former stepdaughter Kimberley Bruesch, was in the courtroom. Bruesch has spoken publicly about the effect of Tony’s abuse on her and her sisters.

 

The judge found there was “likely a connection between (Tony’s molestation) and (the sisters) taking their own lives.”

 

The sentencing came five months after Tony pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual abuse of a minor. The charges were linked to molestation of a 4-year-old girl in 2011 and a 12-year-old foster child in 1998, the only instances of abuse prosecutors said they had enough evidence to charge.

 

Tony’s case has attracted widespread attention in part because some of the abuse happened while he was a state-licensed foster parent in a region where child sex abuse is epidemic.

 

Bethel district attorney June Stein has said her office prosecutes more than 200 cases of sexual abuse of a minor each year.

 

From 1984 to 1998, Tony and his wife, Marilyn, took in seriously needy foster children, including teenagers who still needed help learning to clean themselves, children with fetal alcohol syndrome and kids who had already cycled through dozens of foster homes.

 

After the couple’s foster care license was abruptly revoked in 1998 due to what is described in state records as a “substantiated” report of sexual abuse, they began operating an informal, unlicensed daycare.

 

Tony was arrested 15 years later on sex abuse charges.

 

In court Tuesday, Tony made a statement in which he talked about his “blackout” drinking days and said he had “no guidance” growing up, according to an audio recording of the hearing from Bethel public radio station KYUK.

 

When asked whether he had anything to say to his victims, Tony apologized.

 

“I am sorry those things happened,” Tony said.

 

The father of another victim was also present in the courtroom Tuesday, with the same victim’s mother listening in by phone. The sister of a third victim listened by phone, too.

Blankenship said he had considered factors, including the possibility of rehabilitation, in sentencing Tony.

 

He concluded that Tony should not be eligible for discretionary parole because of a “lack of likelihood for rehabilitation.”

 

The 82-year sentence, with 16 suspended, handed down by the judge means there is no chance Tony will live long enough to be released on mandatory parole.

 

“He will be long dead before he was eligible,” Stein said. “Perhaps a sentence of this magnitude will deter other people.””

Former Bethel foster parent Peter Tony sentenced to 66 years for child sex abuse[Anchorage Daily News 7/22/14 by Michelle Theirault Boots]