A former assistant attorney general and her union organizer friend are facing criminal charges in an alleged 2010 scam to inflate the number of state employees interested in joining a union.
It's not the first time the pair have been named together in a charging document.
Last January, Anchorage police charged former state labor lawyer Erin Pohland, 32, and ex-union organizer Skye Rubadeau McRoberts, 31, with stealing more than $1,000 in shoes from a Fred Meyer store. Both later pleaded guilty.
The current charges accuse McRoberts of felony forgery and business record falsification and Pohland with misdemeanor official misconduct, all related to an effort by the state's largest union to organize University of Alaska employees.
The Alaska State Employees Association represents about 8,500 state and municipal workers in Alaska. In early 2010, McRoberts was part of a push to attract more -- upwards of 1,500 university employees -- to join the union, according to the charging document.
A union drive works like this: The union sends out "interest cards" to potential new members, in this case university employees not already represented by a union. When the cards come back, the union sends a petition to the Alaska Labor Relations Agency. And if the agency certifies that at least 30 percent of the employees returned the cards expressing interest in joining the union, the union can then ask all the employees to vote on whether they want to organize into a bargaining unit represented by the union.
The charges say McRoberts forged hundreds of the cards and illegally altered a petition, and that Pohland failed to recommend an investigation that would have discovered her friend's alleged misdeeds.
It was a data entry clerk for the ASEA named Jennifer Petersen that ultimately blew the whistle and tipped off authorities, according to the charging document.
Petersen told the Alaska State Troopers in August 2010 that she thought McRoberts might have forged interest cards earlier that year. That February, McRoberts had given Petersen a batch of cards with personal information -- including names, email addresses and phone numbers -- that Petersen was supposed to enter into a database, the charges say. McRoberts returned to Petersen's desk several times that day with smaller batches, eventually totaling about 400 cards, Petersen told the trooper investigators.
Many of the cards were filled out with the same purple ink and had similar handwriting, Petersen told the troopers. Petersen asked McRoberts about the cards the next day.
"McRoberts admitted to Petersen she had forged the cards, but she only did so to make the appearance of good numbers and that 'no one would really see the cards,' " the charges say.
Petersen was apparently unaware of the legal implications of McRoberts' admitted forgery and didn't immediately report the issue. And, at the time, Petersen was in a relationship with McRoberts' brother, she told the troopers.
Petersen gave the investigators a stack of 16 cards that seemed especially suspicious. None of the signatures on the cards matched the signatures on the employees' state-issued drivers licenses, the charges say. Later, the investigators contacted 14 employees whose names and signatures appeared on a different set of cards. Thirteen of them told the investigators they never filled out the cards, the charges say.
According to the charging document, McRoberts secretly owned a mailing business that profited greatly from the unions mail outs. The business, called Grizzly Mailing and Printing, sent ballots and newsletters from the union to its members. But McRoberts hid her ownership by first having her brother and husband listed on the business license and later convinced her nanny to sign on to the license, according to the charging document.
If enough university staff members expressed interest in joining the union, the union could start campaigning for their votes. Such a campaign meant more money for McRoberts' mailing business, the charges say. Between 2007 and 2010, the union paid Grizzly more than $120,000 for mailing services, according to the charges.
There were also forgery issues with a petition sent by the union to the Alaska Labor Relations Agency. Along with the faked cards, McRoberts is charged with changing dates and the number of employees in the proposed bargaining unit on the petition.
When agency staff began to question the legitimacy of the cards and the petition, the case landed on Erin Pohland's desk. What the agency and the Department of Law didn't know -- because Pohland didn't tell them -- was that she and McRoberts were good friends. They often discussed the union's efforts to get more members, and Pohland also helped in those efforts, according to the charging document.
"On three occasions in June 2010, ALRA staff showed Pohland the interest cards they believed to be forged," the charges say. "(The) staff specifically told Pohland they believed McRoberts may be involved in the forged interest cards."
But Pohland never referred the case to law enforcement, as she should have. Instead, she recommended throwing out some cards that were obviously pre-printed or had misspellings. Ultimately, with some reluctance, the agency notified the union they'd met the 30 percent interest requirement for a vote. But the union withdrew the petition before an election was held, the charges say.
In December 2010, employees at an Anchorage Fred Meyer store watched on surveillance cameras as Pohland and McRoberts cut electronic theft-prevention tags off shoes, replaced the empty shoe boxes and hide the shoes in shopping bags, according to an affidavit filed in a subsequent theft case. McRoberts ended up with all the shoes and was stopped by a loss prevention employee as she pushed her cart out the door without paying.
McRoberts wouldn't tell them her accomplice's name, but a detective later recognized Pohland from a surveillance photo, the affidavit says. Both McRoberts and Pohland pleaded guilty in that case, court records show. Both received sentences of suspended jail time and community service.
Acting Attorney General Richard Svobodny said the Department of Law has not changed policies regarding oversight of its employees in the wake of the shoe-theft incident and the new allegations against Pohland.
"When we hire people, we expect them to act honorably. Not only honorably, but legally. If they don't, depending on their conduct, we take the appropriate measures," Svobodny said.
Pohland resigned shortly after the theft charges, Svobodny said. It's unclear what became of McRoberts' job as a campaign manager with the Alaska State Employees Association.
The president of the Alaska State Employees Association, Valerie Kenny, declined to comment Friday and referred questions to the association's business manager, who was out of the country and unavailable.
UPDATE: Jim Duncan, former state senator and ASEA's business manager, called the Daily News late Friday to offer a comment on the allegations against McRoberts, his former employee.
McRoberts' behavior was "unfortunate," Duncan said.
"It surely does not, and should not, reflect on ASEA negatively or unions in general negatively," Duncan said. "This is not the type of activity I would condone."
McRoberts resigned from her position as statewide campaign manager in November 2010 for "personal reasons," Duncan said.
The union has since developed more stringent guidelines for the handling of interest cards, Duncan said. That includes having multiple people overseeing the process under which the cards are received and input, he said.
Duncan said he and other union staff were unaware of McRoberts' apparent ownership of Grizzly Mailing and Printing and that the union has clarified for its employees that, outside of their paychecks, they are not allowed to benefit financially from working for the union.
Reach Casey Grove at casey.grove@adn.com or 257-4589.
By CASEY GROVE
Anchorage Daily News