A 53-year-old former Haines resident, Brian Kurtzman, was convicted late last month on 11 counts of sexual abuse and sexual assault of a minor.
Kurtzman sexually abused a child he met while he was a raptor handler at Haines’ American Bald Eagle Foundation Raptor Center in 2013 and 2014. His conviction carries a minimum 32.5 and maximum 495 years in prison, according to the Alaska Department of Law. He is scheduled to be sentenced in September in Juneau Superior Court.
The now-adult survivor was interviewed but asked to remain anonymous for this story. She reported the abuse to Juneau police in 2022. During her testimony at the trial, she described years of grooming and abuse by Kurtzman, beginning when she was 12-years-old and continuing on for nearly a decade.
The two first met when the survivor was enrolled in the Bald Eagle Foundation’s junior raptor handler program, and Kurtzman was working at the foundation.
Kurtzman was fired from his position at the Bald Eagle Foundation in 2014, days after private communication between him and the survivor were made public on social media and the survivor’s father filed a police report, then foundation-director Cheryl McRoberts said in court testimony this year.
But Kurtzman and the survivor remained in contact, even after protective orders in 2014 and 2015 prohibited him from contacting the survivor, and Kurtzman moved to Juneau.
According to the survivor’s testimony during the two-week trial, community members saw indications of the abuse during the period of time covered by the convictions. She described “a lot of suspicion” following the social media post, including sports coaches not allowing her to travel to Juneau.
She also said while staying with family in Juneau in 2013, she met up with Kurtzman and Chilkat Bakery owner Miki Atkins, telling family she was only seeing Atkins. She said the three of them were briefly in Atkins’ hotel room together, before Atkins left and she was assaulted by Kurtzman in his hotel room.
The survivor also described frequently meeting with Kurtzman at a trailer on Fourth Avenue that he was renting from Atkins while living in Haines.
In testimony at the trial, Atkins denied ever traveling to Juneau with Kurtzman, and said she “didn’t remember” but “did not think” she ever rented her Fourth Avenue trailer to him. She also testified that she did not have significant knowledge of the extent of Kurtzman’s contact with the survivor, saying she had “heard people in town talking and [telling] me about that, but I didn’t see anything.”
When the Chilkat Valley News contacted Atkins this week she would not comment on Kurtzman or the conviction.
In testimony, McRoberts said she had confronted Kurtzman prior to the social media post, telling him it “wasn’t part of his job to be that close with a junior raptor handler,” but didn’t know the extent of their contact outside of Kurtzman’s work.
McRoberts this week also declined to comment, saying only in a written message that “justice had been served” and “495 years is what (Kurtzman) deserves.”
New Bald Eagle Foundation director Aaron Cleveland, who started the job after previous director Kathy Benner stepped down earlier this spring, said this week the foundation no longer has any youth programming. Cleveland said the foundation now has a policy of doing criminal background checks of new employees, which Benner said was not the case during her tenure. The background checks, along with a new human resources consultant, are part of an effort to “get the foundation to procedures that follow current standards,” Cleveland said.
While he said the changes were not spurred by the Kurtzman trial, he described the new policies as “following standards that are in place to prevent these kinds of things from happening.”
Both Cleveland and Benner said they were told little about Kurtzman’s employment and firing. Benner said she was told informally only midway through her time at the foundation. Cleveland said he was told about the criminal case against Kurtzman by an employee, but said he hadn’t heard about it as director prior to that, or in previous work as a consultant for the foundation.
“No one ever mentioned it when I was being hired,” Cleveland said. “I was pretty shocked when I heard.”
The foundation’s current board president Sue Chasen said she had only learned the details of Kurtzman’s firing this spring. Like Cleveland, she pointed to policy changes in recent months as a positive improvement for the organization.
suddenly has gifts from unknown sources.”
If adults have suspicions, they should immediately report to law enforcement and the state’s Office of Children’s Services, Olson said.
When considering reporting, adults should “listen to their gut instinct, even if they don’t have the facts – even if they just have a suspicion,” she said. Multiple reports from adults can be particularly important because perpetrators frequently make children feel like they’ll be “in trouble,” or that “blame them for what’s occurring,” to prevent the abuse from being reported, Olson said.
One obstacle to reporting is that grooming behavior, like Kurtzman’s, affects community members, not just victims, Olson said.
“It’s important to note that as long as a person is grooming a child, they’re also grooming other adults around the child that might be reporting to try to dissuade them from doing so, and to create a level of distrust of the child,” she said.
“A report is not an accusation, it’s a request for a professional service to be done, for professionals to follow up and figure out what the truth is,” said another advocate, Natalie Watson, violence prevention manager at Juneau-based advocacy organization AWARE.
According to court testimony from former Haines Police Chief Josh Dryden, police reported Kurtzman to the Office of Children’s Services in 2014 after they found the survivor at Kurtzman’s house. But no charges came of the report, and current chief Jimmy Yoakum said he could not make time this week to talk about police records related to the case or current Haines Police Department reporting procedures.
Investigating and prosecuting child sexual abuse cases can be difficult, Olson said, particularly if a child is afraid to speak to investigators. Olson emphasized prevention measures, like early education in schools and by trusted adults about body autonomy and boundaries.
Juneau-based advocacy organizations AWARE and the Juneau Child Advocacy Center, along with STAR Alaska, all offer free, confidential hotlines to assist survivors in seeking resources and reporting. While reports can be made confidentially, advocates are mandatory reporters, meaning they are legally required to report to law enforcement information about abuse of children under 18 years old if given the name of the child.
Advocates may explain options to survivors, offer support in contacting law enforcement, and offer emotional support and counseling resources.
“A lot of it is focusing on making sure a child can really incorporate that it was not their fault (the abuse) occurred, and they cannot hold themselves responsible for the criminal actions of an adult,” Olson said.
Juneau also has a Child Advocacy Center, which in addition to providing resources and information, partners with law enforcement and the Office of Children’s Services to interview children in instances of suspected abuse.
STAR Alaska 24-hour free confidential crisis line: (800) 478-8999
AWARE 24-hour care line: (800) 478-1090
Juneau Child Advocacy Center: 907-463-6100