Alaska father gets 14 years for abuse

ANCHORAGE — Robert Hale, a self-styled mountain man who took his family far away from modern civilization to raise them by the Bible, was sentenced Tuesday to 14 years in prison for sexually assaulting a daughter.

Judge Donald Hopwood imposed the sentence after more than a dozen heart-wrenching victim-impact statements were delivered in court, including from his wife and many of their 16 children, who told horrific stories of physical and mental abuse.

Their message was clear: Send the 66-year-old Hale to jail for a long time because they feared what would happen if he were to be released.

Hopwood called it "one of the worst cases of domestic violence I've seen."

Hale spent much of Tuesday on the stand, denying charges of sexual and physical abuse made against him by his family members.

But Hopwood said he simply didn't believe Hale's denials, and the testimony of so many witnesses speaking consistently could be believed.

Hale received 10 years for sexual assault, and two years each for incest and coercion.

Hale insisted that he had a perfect spiritual understanding, his wife, Kurina Rose Hale, testified Monday.

"This is how he justified all his immoral activity," she said.

Hale was accused of persuading one child that, as a "special kind of daughter," she must have sex with him.

The sexual abuse culminated with an incident in the tiny community of McCarthy, about 275 miles east of Anchorage in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.

That's where Hale locked his daughter in a shed for three days and sexually assaulted and beat her so badly her face looked like a black-and-blue basketball, according to another daughter's testimony.

Two other daughters finally had enough and took a snowmobile to notify authorities.

Hale ran from law enforcement for two weeks before he was taken into custody.

Other children testified of prolonged beatings at the hands of the family patriarch.

Hale and his family first came to prominence in Alaska during a feud with the National Park Service. Family members used a bulldozer without permission to clear an abandoned mining road to get to their land within the 13.2-million-acre national park, the nation's largest.

National land-rights advocates rallied to their cause and stories featured their plight as a case of big government vs. simple, God-fearing, music-loving, live-off-the-land folks.