A Juneau judge has issued a warrant for the arrest of Steve Kroschel, the longtime owner of a Mosquito Lake wildlife park, after Kroschel failed to appear at pre-trial hearings in his ongoing animal cruelty case.
Kroschel was charged in September with multiple counts of animal cruelty, including three Class C felonies, each carrying a penalty of up to $50,000 and five years in prison. The charges came after state troopers and Alaska Department of Fish and Game staff seized animals from his property, the Kroschel Films Wildlife Center, in June.
Complicating matters is the fact that Kroschel says he is currently in Russia, and unsure if he will return.
The arrest warrant, ordered by the case’s presiding judge Amy Mead, was issued to Alaska State Troopers on Dec. 22. However, should Kroschel return to the country and attend a pre-trial status hearing on Jan. 21, the warrant will be “quashed” and he won’t have to post bail, said Juneau public defender Eric Hedland, who has been assigned to represent Kroschel.
Said Hedland: “if he doesn’t come back he’s not going to have a trial.”
Kroschel said Tuesday he had initially planned to fly back to the United States for the Dec. 22 hearing and had purchased a non-refundable one-way ticket to Seattle. But just before traveling to the Yekaterinburg airport, Kroschel said, he was approached by Russian government officials who told him not to go.
“They told me, if you do go you will never be able to come back to Russia, ever,” Kroschel said. The group of officials Kroschel reported being in contact with include Maria Butina, who was arrested in Washington, D.C. in 2018 and plead guilty to serving as an unregistered Russian agent in the United States.
“I had to make a decision right there, and I was thinking, what am I going back to?” Kroschel said. “My whole life there has been destroyed. The park is a haunted husk of what it was. My son Garrett is what I cared about in that moment. But the Russians assured me Garrett can come to Russia anytime.”
Kroschel said he has not made a final decision on whether to return to the United States.