Joe.My.God. LGBT News
Via press release from the Alaska State Troopers:
On Wednesday, May 24, 2023, the Alaska State Troopers received a report of sexual abuse of a minor. Investigation revealed that Dwight Chris John, age 71 of Ketchikan, sexually assaulted a minor at different times, over a period of seven years.
The sexual assaults occurred in Ketchikan and Prince of Wales Island. John was arrested by Alaska State Troopers on June 6, 2023, and remanded to Ketchikan Correctional Center.
He is charged with six counts of Sexual Abuse of a Minor in the 1st Degree, seven counts of Sexual Abuse of a Minor 2nd Degree, Sexual Abuse of a Minor 3rd Degree, and three counts of Incest. The Investigation is ongoing.
The Ketchikan Daily News reports:
Dwight Chris John appeared in Ketchikan District Court on Wednesday afternoon for a first felony appearance. During the hearing, Ketchikan District Court Judge Kristian Pickrell set John’s bail at a $250,000 cash performance bond, and a $500,000 appearance bond with a 10% cash requirement.
According to a trooper affidavit filed with the court, John was interviewed by troopers at his Ketchikan home late Tuesday evening.
During the interview, John allegedly corroborated “nearly all” of the statements that the victim had made during a forensic interview, and the statements that John had made to another individual during a recorded conversation, according to the trooper’s affidavit.
The Roys Report reports:
John, who served on the governing board of a Christian & Missionary Alliance church in Alaska and is linked to the Chi Alpha sex abuse scandal, has been charged with 17 counts of child sex abuse.
The church where John served, Clover Pass Community Church in Ketchikan, is the same church where Daniel Savala ministered as an itinerant youth leader from 1995 to 1997 and abused multiple children. Savala was convicted of child sex abuse in 2012.
Despite this past, Savala went on to serve as a mentor and teacher for several Texas chapters of Chi Alpha Campus Ministries. On June 2, 2023, Savala was arrested in Texas and charged with continuous sexual abuse of a child under age 14, a first-degree felony in Texas.
Alaska Public Radio reports:
The victim, now a teenager, told their father that John had been sexually abusing them since the age of about nine. The father reported this to Alaska State Troopers. The father told troopers that the most recent incident had been during this past Thanksgiving holiday. In a forensic interview, the child told investigators that the abuse would often happen when John would read a bedtime story to the child, or was otherwise alone with them.
John corroborated “nearly all” of the claims during an interview with investigators. He said that the abuse began when the child was five or six. John also said that he did it because the victim wanted him to, and “it was all for” the child, and “it wasn’t for me.” During a phone call between John and the child’s father — monitored by law enforcement — John “corroborated all of the events” that the child alleged, according to the documents.
Alaska State Troopers say Dwight Chris John allegedly sexually abused a young family member when he visited the child’s community on Prince of Wales Island, or when the child came to visit him in Ketchikan.https://t.co/8nb0RZLpRq
— KRBD FM (@KRBDRadio) June 8, 2023