Rural Alaska

Bethel gets a new DA — its third in less than 3 years

BETHEL — The busy Bethel courthouse is getting its third district attorney in less than three years.

Steve Wallace, a police officer turned prosecutor, was announced by the state Department of Law on Tuesday as the new Bethel district attorney. Alaska Attorney General Jahna Lindemuth appointed him effective July 10.

Wallace follows Mike Gray in the job. Gray, who had formerly been district attorney in Kodiak and Fairbanks, retired from the Bethel post in June after about two years there. He was newly retired and on a motorcycle trip to a family gathering in Montana when he was killed June 11 in a crash in Canada's Yukon territory.

Gray replaced June Stein.

Wallace started out as a Kodiak police officer in 1982 and also worked as an officer in Barrow and Wainwright before becoming an attorney. He served as an assistant district attorney in Palmer, Bethel and Anchorage before becoming DA in Kodiak and now Bethel.

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"Throughout his career he has been active in the communities he has served and sets a tone where the dignity and rights of every person are respected without exception," Deputy Attorney General Rob Henderson said in a statement.

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The appointment comes as the department is still coming to terms with Gray's death.

"He retired with our good wishes for a full life in retirement and we are heartbroken at the news of his untimely passing," the written statement on Wallace's appointment said of Gray. "Our thoughts are with his family in this difficult time."

Lisa Demer

Lisa Demer was a longtime reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Dispatch News. Among her many assignments, she spent three years based in Bethel as the newspaper's western Alaska correspondent. She left the ADN in 2018.

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