Politics

Moose Foundation founder hit with elections fines

JUNEAU -- The Alaska Public Offices Commission's staff can't find Robert "Moose" Henrichs, but the Alaska Moose Foundation for which he's best known for can't always find him either.

The Moose Foundation is going through an organizational change, but the commission that regulates candidates and campaigns has a more mundane reason for trying to find Henrichs.

APOC says Henrichs owes it $1,120.

The bill comes from another of Henrichs' pursuits. In 2014, the Cordova resident ran for state Senate as a Democrat against popular Republican incumbent Gary Stevens of Kodiak.

In the final days of the campaign, Henrichs made a couple of $950 contributions to his campaign, during a time when such contributions must be publicly reported within 24 hours.

Instead, he didn't report them until Feb. 11., which the commission in a staff report noted was 112 days late.

And then began a long series of attempts by APOC to communicate with Henrichs, but with only spotty success. Several certified letters went unclaimed and emails went unacknowledged, but they were able to reach him by phone at least once.

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The fine for noncompliance with the campaign finance laws might have been what got his attention. But the $56,000 maximum fine, at Henrichs' request, was substantially reduced.

That's something that happens frequently when the commission judges violations to be either accidental or inconsequential to the public. The contributions didn't appear to swing the election, as Stevens out-polled Henrichs by about 3 to 1.

But since the commission's June action to reduce the fine to the current amount, the difficulty in communicating with Henrichs resumed.

On Sept. 16, the commission will consider a request from executive director Paul Dauphinais to turn the collection effort over to the Alaska attorney general and let his lawyers attempt to collect the fine.

"Once it goes to the attorney general, they deal with it and we're out of it," Dauphinais said.

APOC has again attempted to notify Henrichs of the meeting with uncertain success.

The Alaska Dispatch News attempted to contact Henrichs by phone and email and through messages left at the Eyak Tribal Council, of which Henrichs is the president, with no success.

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