Anchorage Daily News

She may be the most academically accomplished woman ever to sit in the defendant's chair in Anchorage federal court.

Rachel Yould, a former Fulbright and Rhodes Scholar, and Oxford University Ph.D. candidate, took that seat Tuesday morning with her family behind her and pleaded not guilty to ten counts of defrauding on her student loans.

In a courtroom where her supporters outnumbered her accusers, the 37-year-old former Bartlett High graduate and 1996 Miss Anchorage, listened to Magistrate Judge Deborah Smith read the indictment. Yould, who lives in Japan, has come home to answer the charges -- a woman who's worked with Mother Teresa in India and advocated for AIDS victims, accused of a bunch of felonies.

Each count of fraud carries a maximum of 20 years in prison, although Yould is unlikely to get the maximum if convicted because of her lack of a criminal record.

Both sides agree the case against Yould is complicated. Is she a criminal, like prosecutors say? Or is she a victim who's being re-victimized, as her defenders say?

According to the indictment, from 2003 to 2006, Yould used a second identity to apply for subsidized student loans, even though she had reached her lifetime limit. She then used some of that money to start a business and boost her investment portfolio, it says.

But Yould's friends and family say she created the second identity with government approval to hide from a stalker.

She didn't know the money obtained under the second identity was illegal. In fact, she was told it was legal. She blames the Social Security Administration program that gave her the new identity.

The man she is running away from is her biological father, who she says abused her when she was a child and raped her as an adult in 1992 when she was 21 years old, according to court documents in a 2002 petition she filed for a long-term restraining order.

In was in that same year, after years of allegedly escalating obscene phone calls and intimidation, that Yould applied for and received the new Social Security number, with the full knowledge and consent of the government. She had already changed her legal name and been issued a new birth certificate. The new Social Security number was the last part of making it harder for her father to find her.

The question asked by Yould's supporters is: Would a woman with Yould's education go through so much trouble and risk to get a cheaper student loan?

Valerie Harris, a California-based advocate against domestic violence speaking on behalf of the Yould family, doesn't think so. Harris thinks Yould has gotten caught in a bizarre bureaucratic tangle.

Yould, who now teaches at a university in Japan, was repaying the loans when an investigation began several years ago. It is not clear what prompted the probe.

She defaulted four days before the indictment was handed down, Harris said in an interview after Tuesday's court proceeding.

Yould defaulted because her payments quadrupled to $13,000 a month after one loan company, Sallie Mae, suddenly put her on an accelerated payment plan she couldn't really afford but complied with for several years, according to Harris.

The state had cleared Yould of any wrongdoing in its investigation a couple of years earlier, according to Harris. The state would neither confirm nor deny this.

On Tuesday, federal prosecutors immediately attacked Yould's credibility by raising questions about whether she really needs a public defender. Prosecutor Retta-Rae Randall said Yould is hiding money and assets and is not eligible for a free lawyer.

Federal white collar crimes, especially financial ones, can be very expensive to defend.

Randall said Yould and her husband claimed a net worth of $1.7 million several years ago, and that both have reported significant incomes in recent years.

Harris said Yould and her husband, Brett Yould, have exhausted their assets paying the $13,000 a month for several years. They've taken out a second mortgage on their home, and both their parents have liquidated their retirement accounts, sold property and refinanced their homes, in efforts to continue meeting the increased payments required by Sallie Mae.

Smith, the judge, ordered Yould and prosecutors to come back Thursday with evidence.

Yould remains free, but Smith wants information supporting her assertion that she can't live at a fixed address while in Alaska because of fear of her father. Yould said she spends every night at a different location.

"I've never had someone not in custody where the court wouldn't know where the person is staying," Smith said.

Smith wants to know about what happened between Yould and her father and why Yould is still in fear of her life. She questioned if Yould really needs to hide. "She's had a very public career," Smith said. "If you Google her, she's right there."

Find Megan Holland online at adn.com/contact/mholland or call 257-4343.

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