Daniel Doty, currently an Anchorage municipal prosecutor, will move to town and take the reigns from current ADA Pamela Dale by June 1.
KDLG: The state Department of Law has named the attorney who will take over at the Dillingham Assistant District Attorney's office.
Dan Doty, who currently works as an assistant municipal prosecutor in Anchorage, will transition with Pamela Dale this spring and move to Dillingham by June 1.
Rep. Bryce Edgmon called it a good outcome to a priority he and others have been working on for the past two years.
“I certainly had my doubts as to whether we could get it into the budget, number one, and number two whether we could actually get it staffed in Dillingham," said Edgmon. "Now I’m told that a gentleman has been hired, and has accepted the position, and there will be a new DA permanently situated in Dillingham.”
It was announced at the beginning of 2015 that the Dillingham DA’s office would close to save the state an estimated $300,000. One of the two attorneys was laid off that summer, and the other attorney resigned at the end of 2015. Legislators like Edgmon and Senator Lyman Hoffman fought to keep the office open, but the attorney assigned to the Dillingham court stayed in Anchorage for the past year.
Edgmon said he heard from many in the community that they wanted the office open and a prosecutor living in town.
"The overriding message was that there’s just simply no substitute for having local presence in the community, region, area,” Edgmon said, citing the “significant” importance of developing a local knowledge and understanding.
Pamela Dale has been the prosecutor assigned to Dillingham court cases. She is expected to transition the caseload to Doty beginning in April.
Before working in Anchorage, Doty served as an assistant district attorney in Bethel from 2013 to 2015.
dave@kdlg.org or 907-842-5281