Former assistant attorney general Erin Pohland was convicted and sentenced this week in Anchorage on a misdemeanor official misconduct charge, related to an effort by the state's largest union to organize University of Alaska employees.
Trial evidence showed that in 2010, Pohland was a state attorney responsible for advising the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. In April of that year, the Labor Department became concerned about an interaction between the Alaska Labor Relations Agency, a state agency, and the Alaska State Employees Association, a union. Pohland was asked to provide legal advice to the state agency about the union filing documents believed to have been forged, according to District Attorney Clint Campion.
Pohland advised the Labor Relations Agency but failed to disclose her close friendship with Skye McRoberts, who was heading up an effort to increase union membership among UA employees.
Three times labor relations asked Pohland to investigate what it believed were forgeries, but she continually declined to take action and gave bad legal advice. Those actions served as the basis for the misdemeanor charge -- as a public servant, Pohland failed to perform her appointed duties. She was charged in February 2012.
Anchorage District Court Judge Jo-Ann Chung imposed a $5,000 fine and a suspended jail sentence against Pohland, who was convicted Tuesday after a five-day jury trial, Campion said.
The prosecutor said he's not aware of any other lawyers working for the Department of Law who have been convicted of crimes committed within their job functions. State attorneys have been convicted of driving under the influence, he said.
Pohland's case took more than three years to reach its conclusion because of a significant amount of pre-trial litigation and issues with witnesses, he said.
As for the union organization effort, it prevailed in June 2010 and would have forced a union election for more than 2,500 university employees. But that election never took place because Jennifer Petersen, who did data processing for the union, reported the forgeries to Alaska State Troopers.
Here's how the union drive worked: The union sent out "interest cards" to potential new members, in this case university employees who weren't already represented by a union. When the cards came back, the union sent a petition to the Alaska Labor Relations Agency. The agency certified that at least 30 percent of the employees returned the cards expressing interest in joining the union, and the union asked all the employees to vote on whether they wanted to organize into a bargaining unit represented by the union.
Many of the cards ASEA mailed were filled out with the same purple ink and had similar handwriting, Petersen told the troopers. McRoberts had admitted that she forged the cards but told Petersen to ignore them because "no one would really see the cards."
McRoberts was convicted of second-degree forgery in 2013. She paid more than $34,000 in restitution to the Department of Labor and the University of Alaska, said Campion.
Pohland and McRoberts had left their official positions before the forgery scandal unfolded. They were charged in January 2011 with stealing more than $1,000 in shoes from a Fred Meyer store. Both later pleaded guilty.
Pohland faced a sentence of up to one year in jail and a $10,000 fine for her most recent conviction. According to Campion, Judge Chung decided jail time was not warranted but believed Pohland had been convicted of a serious charge. Instead, Chung believed a suspended jail sentence was appropriate; it will leave Pohland with a permanent mark on her record.
Campion said he did not argue for jail time.
"My hope is that (Pohland's crimes) were an isolated period in her life," Campion said.