A Sitka Grand Jury indicted a woman for assault and reckless driving in September after she seriously injured a pedestrian with her car in June.
Sitka Police said shortly before 8 a.m. on June 5, they received a 911 call reporting that a pickup truck had struck a pedestrian on the bike path near the post office on Sawmill Creek Road. Police and emergency medical responders arrived on the scene and found the driver behind a wheel, and the victim down an embankment. The victim survived, but was medevaced to Anchorage with serious injuries.
A Sitka Grand jury on September 21 indicted the driver, 45-year-old Beth Ann Lang, on three felony counts of assault for causing serious physical injury to another person, and one count of reckless driving, a misdemeanor. Lang was arraigned on the charges and a trial is set for mid-November.
The grand jury also indicted 54-year-old Izaak Needham for one count of misconduct involving a controlled substance, and one count of promoting contraband, both Class C felonies. According to police records, a police officer followed Needham to Ace Hardware with knowledge that Needham was driving without a license. Police allege that Needham approached the police officer, dumped a bag of blue pills believed to be fentanyl on the ground, and attempted to crush them. He was subsequently arrested, and police found a packet of white powder hidden in his waistband, which they also allege to be fentanyl powder. A trial date in Needham’s case has not been set yet.
The same grand jury, on September 21, indicted 39-year-old Juvencio Garcia on three counts of assault, and it indicted 46-year-old Cipriano Guerrero on one felony DUI and one felony refusal to submit to a chemical test. Limited details are available in the court filings for these cases.
A week earlier on September 14, the Sitka Grand Jury indicted 33-year-old Glen Roland Jones for allegedly stealing a generator from a food truck in downtown Sitka. Jones was identified by police using security footage from a bank. After he was arrested, police confiscated his phone where they allegedly found photos of the stolen generator along with text messages looking to sell it. Since the generator was valued over $750 dollars, the theft was considered a class C Felony. Trials for all three cases are tentatively scheduled in November.
