A former Ketchikan church elder who is already serving a lengthy state prison sentence for sexual abuse of a minor has now been indicted by a federal grand jury on separate child exploitation charges, according to the US Department of Justice.
Dwight “Chris” John, 74, former church leader Clover Pass Community Church, was indicted this week in federal court on one count of sexual exploitation of children outside the United States and one count of possession of child sexual abuse material. The federal case is one of three recently charged in Alaska under Operation Relentless Justice, a nationwide enforcement effort targeting child sexual abuse offenders.
The federal charges are separate from crimes for which John was already convicted in Alaska state court.
According to federal court documents, between March and November 2019, John allegedly induced a minor outside the United States to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual depictions. Prosecutors allege John intended to and did transport those depictions back to the United States.
The indictment further alleges that from Nov. 1, 2019, through May 16, 2024, John knowingly possessed child sexual abuse material while in Alaska. The material allegedly involved a prepubescent child and a minor under the age of 12.
John is scheduled to make an initial appearance before a U.S. magistrate judge at a later date. If convicted on both federal counts, he faces up to 50 years in federal prison. A federal district judge would determine any sentence after considering sentencing guidelines and statutory factors.
John was previously sentenced in Alaska Superior Court on Dec. 21, 2023, after pleading guilty to a consolidated charge of sexual abuse of a minor in the second degree.
Superior Court Judge Katherine Lybrand sentenced John to 50 years, with 30 years suspended and 20 years to serve. He is currently housed at Goose Creek Correctional Center with a release date of 2036, when he will be about 85 years old. The conviction stemmed from conduct alleged to have occurred between April 2017 and April 2022. At the time of state sentencing, John was 72 years old.
As part of his plea agreement with the State of Alaska, John admitted that his conduct was among the most serious contemplated under the statute and that he had engaged in similar and repeated behavior with the same victim. Prosecutors emphasized that the harm was compounded by John’s position of trust as both a family member and a church leader.
During the sentencing hearing, the victim’s father told the court that the abuse caused lasting harm to the victim and tore apart their family, ultimately forcing them to leave Alaska to rebuild their lives elsewhere.
In imposing the sentence, Judge Lybrand said the victim showed courage in coming forward and noted that the lengthy sentence was designed to protect the community, given John’s age and the strict probation conditions that would apply if he were ever released.
The federal charges were announced Friday by US Attorney Michael J. Heyman for the District of Alaska and Brandon Waddle, acting special agent in charge of the FBI Anchorage Field Office.
Operation Relentless Justice is a coordinated, two-week nationwide crackdown involving all 56 FBI field offices, the Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, and US Attorneys’ offices across the country. According to the DOJ, the operation resulted in the identification of more than 205 child victims and the arrests of more than 293 child sexual abuse offenders.
The FBI Anchorage Field Office’s Juneau Resident Agency is investigating John’s federal case with assistance from the Ketchikan Police Department as part of the FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force. Authorities are asking anyone with information related to John’s alleged conduct to contact the FBI Anchorage Field Office at (907) 276-4441 or submit tips anonymously at tips.fbi.gov.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Reed and Trial Attorney Rachel L. Rothberg of the Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section are prosecuting the federal case.
3 thoughts on “Ketchikan ex-elder, already in prison, now indicted for sexual exploitation of a child – and more”
I know that new believers when they first start out going to a church it can be good for them to adopt a new life discipline especially for those coming out of lives of addictions and crime while getting a few tidbits each Sunday from God’s Word.
But! I think the Church who don’t meet in buildings are not to be meeting in church buildings. There are so much idolatry and lifting up people up on pedestals in those buildings. When I go into churches I get more exhausted than exhilarated because of all the idols. Everybody learned something about being in a church or presuming someone in leadership trustworthy because of their title. Scripture say to look at the fruit coming from someone and you’ll know who they are. But then you also have to know God’s other Words and have a relationship with God because some deceivers are really good at making their bitterness or bitter fruit look like the real thing. The man likely dropped signs. Every predator drops hints or red flags before attacking. I never met a predator who did not but you got to know what those red flags are.
That’s why I think we really aren’t supposed to be building churches for collective gathering because they are too easy to hide sins in them.
The First Church. They didn’t have churches to meet in. They met anywhere like what many Christians are doing today meeting in cafes, homes, parks, restaurants.
That 70 year old man will learn more about God during his time in prison than all the years he served at his church while being away from the idols of church building
That poor family
I hope for them on their new place they get to know God too
Because there is a good chance their Ketchikan church was more about collecting money and looking good on the outside as a place for gathering and doing good works; Than it was about saving souls and teaching God’s Word to his people
You want to see when a church building likely becomes a real Church?
It’ll be when All staff have to work a second job because all tithes do not go into paying for employment.
Every one who either attends or does not attend a church but think themselves a Christian, they should all read Jesus Followers by Rachel-Ruth Lotz- and Anne Graham Lotz. focus on when they get to the part Rachel’s dad’s Dad a pastor of NY back in the 1920s, 30s, 40s,50s, he worked without collecting a salary from those churches plus volunteering at a homeless mission on fridays plus held McDonald’s bible studies and passed out tracts with dollar bills because he knew people been a little more receptive to see a dollar enclosed all Awhile he worked a secular job to provide for his wife and four boys, if he could do all that for God without collecting a dollar from his congregations. Then! Any pastor or church employee in Alaska can do that!
The unbelievers are watching the greater church community and they are mocking. But they are ignorant because to be unaware the same sexual addiction sins hiding within hearts of church-going members is a problem in the hearts of men and women of the world.
A big stumbling block for churches as always been money and caring more about increasing the membership so to increase financial offering to where it gets pastors today who care more about themselves and future than what they are supposed to be working in a church for. That’s to get the Word of God in the short time they have to live to do it.