Crime & Courts

Goose Creek Correctional Center prisoner dies, corrections department says

A man died while incarcerated at the state’s largest prison Monday, the Alaska Department of Corrections said in a statement.

Foul play was not suspected in the death of 72-year-old Lawrence Kobuk, the department said. He died at Goose Creek Correctional Center in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. Details were not available about what caused Kobuk’s death, but the corrections department said it was not related to COVID-19.

Kobuk received a 99-year sentence in 2011 after he was convicted by a jury on charges of second-degree sexual assault and selling alcohol without a license in a dry community. He was from St. Michael, a small community in Western Alaska.

Kobuk is the third person to die in custody this year. In 2020, 14 people died while incarcerated in Alaska, including five people who contracted COVID-19.

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