A Houston man who allegedly kept firefighters from doing their jobs in the wake of last year's massive Sockeye Fire will no longer face charges in the matter, as prosecutors focus on a child pornography case against him.
The Palmer district attorney's office said Monday it was dropping a charge of disorderly conduct against 50-year-old Scott Leitner in the Sockeye Fire case. Leitner still faces three counts of distributing and two counts of possessing child pornography, in a separate case announced in December.
Last June, firefighters were trying to extinguish hot spots in the forest from the Sockeye Fire, which burned close to 8,000 acres in the Willow area and destroyed 55 structures. According to Alaska State Troopers, Leitner was cited after he twice barred firefighters from crossing his property near Mile 74 of the Parks Highway, "causing a disturbance and disrupting their ability to fight fires in the area."
Assistant District Attorney Krista Anderson said Monday the decision to drop the fire-related charges was a product of the disorderly-conduct count being only a misdemeanor, as well as an assessment of whether it was cost-effective to prosecute in the face of budget cuts affecting the state Department of Law.
"Unfortunately (a misdemeanor charge) doesn't really address when you're impeding people in their course of work to the level Mr. Leitner was," Anderson said. "We also are sensitive to the budget cuts and what cases we take to trial."
While the maximum jail time Leitner faced in the Sockeye case was 10 days, Anderson said she was hoping for more from the child pornography prosecution.
"He's going to have to face the music in the felony matter," Anderson said.
Alaska Dispatch News reporter Zaz Hollander contributed information to this story.