The stars of the reality TV show \u201cAlaskan Bush People\u201d admitted to lying about their Alaska residency and absences from the state on their Permanent Fund Dividend applications from 2010 through 2013.<\/p>\n
During a change of plea hearing in Juneau Superior Court late Wednesday afternoon, 62-year-old Billy Brown \u2014 the patriarch of the Brown family featured on the Discovery Channel show \u2014 and his son, 31-year-old Joshua Brown, both pleaded guilty to reduced, misdemeanor counts of unsworn falsification in the second degree. Members of the Brown family were indicted by a Juneau grand jury for PFD fraud last year.<\/p>\n
The Browns participated in the hearing by phone from Seattle. Their attorneys and the prosecutor went over a proposed plea deal for Judge Philip Pallenberg, who has yet to accept the deal. Wednesday\u2019s hearing was cut short and is scheduled to continue this afternoon.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlaskan Bush People\u201d follows Billy Brown, his wife Amora and their seven grown children living in the Alaskan wilderness, saying they were \u201cborn and raised wild.\u201d A description of the show online says the family is \u201cso far removed from civilization that they often go six to nine months of the year without seeing an outsider. They\u2019ve developed their own accent and dialect, refer to themselves as a \u2018wolf pack,\u2019 and at night, all nine sleep together in a one-room cabin.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fall 2014, a Juneau grand jury charged six of the family members \u2014 Billy, 52-year-old Amora, Joshua, 28-year-old Solomon, 25-year-old Gabriel and 23-year-old Noah \u2014 with multiple felonies for unsworn falsification and theft in connection to PFD fraud.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General Lisa Kelley, with the state of Alaska\u2019s Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, told Judge Pallenberg that Billy Brown applied for PFDs for himself and his minor children in 2010-2013 when he wasn\u2019t eligible. Most Alaskans who live in the state for the full calendar year are eligible for a PFD check, which is a cut of the state\u2019s oil revenue money.<\/p>\n
Kelley said Billy Brown had left the state in October 2009 and did not return until August 2012.<\/p>\n
\u201cContrary to what was stated on his application for the PFD, he did not in fact have a principle place of abode on Mossman Island between the years of 2009 and 2013,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She said both Billy and Joshua Brown also lied about not being absent from the state for more than 180 days on their applications for 2011-2013.<\/p>\n
Both Billy and Joshua Brown pleaded guilty to one consolidated count of second-degree unsworn falsification, a class \u2018A\u2019 misdemeanor that can be punishable by up to a year in prison and a $10,000 fine.<\/p>\n
A plea deal in place calls for the Browns to pay back all the PFD money that they and their children received for those years, totaling $7,956. A representative from the Permanent Fund Division collected four of those checks on Wednesday in the courtroom. The other two are due within a week. The family will never again be allowed to apply for a PFD.<\/p>\n
For Billy and Joshua Brown, the deal would require they receive a 6-month suspended jail sentence and serve two years on unsupervised probation. They would each have to complete 40 hours of unpaid community service that cannot be filmed.<\/p>\n
The other family members\u2019 cases would be dismissed, should each of them complete 40 hours of community service.<\/p>\n
Judge Pallenberg noted that PFD fraud is a \u201cserious matter\u201d and he will consider whether or not to impose jail time. He noted he has in the past for felony convictions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s theft from every resident in the state of Alaska,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The hearing will reconvene 3:30 p.m. today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The stars of the reality TV show \u201cAlaskan Bush People\u201d admitted to lying about their Alaska residency and absences from the state on their Permanent Fund Dividend applications from 2010 through 2013. During a change of plea hearing in Juneau Superior Court late Wednesday afternoon, 62-year-old Billy Brown \u2014 the patriarch of the Brown family […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":430,"featured_media":8847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-8846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/430"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8846"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}