Anchorage Daily News

A week of testimony about a drug and sex-trafficking ring that operated out of an affluent Oceanview neighborhood is threatening to spill over to Monday as prosecutors and defense attorneys pile on the detail in an effort to sway a federal court judge's sentencing decision.

Parents whose kids had sex or did drugs at the home of Josef Boehm over a period of two years are expected to stand up in a federal courtroom and add their stories to those that have already been told on the witness stand, starting perhaps as soon as this afternoon, lawyers said.

The statements will complete a case that has made headlines since December 2003 and has at the very least illustrated how crack can destroy a rich business owner and runaway teenagers alike.

The story is a tragedy of broken lives peppered with bizarre allegations of drug-addled behavior, like the drag queen who came to the house to do the girls' hair and nails, and repeatedly made an extra $100 by stealing Boehm's cell phone and selling it back to him.

Boehm, the 61-year-old president of the Alaska Industrial Hardware chain, faces up to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to distributing crack to people under age 21 and conspiring to commit child sex trafficking. His plea deal includes paying $1.2 million to his teenage victims for rehabilitation and education.

Boehm's team of veteran defense attorneys has worked for the last week to convince U.S. District Judge John Sedwick that Boehm was not a leader in the ring and therefore should not be put in jail, but on probation and into rehab.

The team paid medical experts more than $100,000 to testify that in their professional opinions, Boehm's long-term cocaine abuse -- he first started using in the 1970s -- has damaged his brain and made him incapable of being an organizer in a ring that involved more than a dozen juveniles between the ages of 13 and 19.

Bambi Tyree, 24, a former lover of Boehm's, has admitted setting up drug deals and recruiting young girls to Boehm's home. She was arrested along with Boehm and two others in 2003 and is testifying for the feds in the hope of getting a lighter sentence.

Discrediting her has been a major goal of the defense team. Among their ammunition are allegations by a defense doctor that she is a sociopath who controlled Boehm.

In one exchange, defense attorney Rex Butler asked Tyree about Boehm's odd behavior.

"Do you think it's strange he thought there were three Bambis?" Butler said.

"I think a lot of things people do when they're high on crack are strange," she said, unfazed.

Another time he asked: "You could do what you wanted at Joe's house, couldn't you?"

"That's a pretty broad statement, sir," she said, maintaining the composure that characterized her two days on the stand.

Butler did get Tyree to admit that when she first went to Boehm's house to smoke crack she was told to claim she was 16 if anyone asked. She was actually 13. She also testified that there weren't a lot of young girls at his house until she moved in after she turned 18.

Butler also accused her of being a liar.

Earlier this week, for example, Tyree testified that she once stole $25,000 in cash from a boyfriend who had passed out in a flower bed with the money sitting on his chest. She said she was mad at the guy for lying to her but then later felt bad and gave the cash to a drug dealer named "Wookie" to give back to the boyfriend. Butler said Tyree's story about that incident changed. A disputed FBI report says she originally said she took the money to Vegas to pay off a heroin debt.

Prosecutors say that despite Boehm's crack addiction, he was in charge of what went on at his home and was able to conduct business deals. They played a recorded conversation in court Thursday of Boehm calling his former business partner in TGI Friday's, Bruce Burnett, from jail, demanding information related to his defense and apparently having no trouble being in charge.

Interviews with police this week and testimony throughout the sentencing hearing suggest people who did business with Boehm surely knew some of what was going on but did nothing.

Tyree in her testimony described partying at local hotels, including one on Old Seward Highway, whose owners were "good friends" of Boehm's and promised to warn him if they saw any sign of trouble.

She also described going to Alaska Industrial Hardware with and without Boehm to pick up cash when he needed it for drugs.

Police detective Steven Boltz said Anchorage police and FBI investigators conducted more than 120 interviews to build their case.

Clearly others were involved in the ring at some level, Detective Kevin Vandegriff said. "It doesn't happen in a vacuum."

However, police said they do not anticipate any further arrests in the case.

Daily News reporter Tataboline Brant can be reached at tbrant@adn.com or 257-4321.

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