A former mayor of the lower Yukon River community of Pilot Station has been sentenced to five years of probation after pleading guilty to felony election interference for violations of state election laws in 2022 and 2023.
According to the Alaska Office of Special Prosecutions, 68-year-old Arthur Heckman Sr. began serving as acting mayor of Pilot Station in 2022 following the death of former mayor Nicky Myers. After an October 2022 city council vote to elect an official mayor, Heckman Sr. directed Pilot Station City Clerk Ruthie Borromeo to place ballots in a locked filing cabinet and not count them. The next year, in October 2023, Heckman Sr. directed Borromeo to not hold municipal elections at all and continued to serve as acting mayor, according to the state.
Heckman Sr. was originally indicted in July 2024 on eight felony counts and eight misdemeanor counts related to the election violations. In November 2024, he pleaded guilty through a plea agreement to a single count of felony election interference.
On Tuesday, Bethel Superior Court Judge Nathaniel Peters sentenced Heckman Sr. to a suspended 12-month sentence, meaning that Heckman Sr. faces up to a year in prison if he violates his probation.
Borromeo, who remains in Pilot Station’s city clerk position, was also indicted alongside Heckman Sr. on eight felony counts for alleged violations of state election laws during the same time period.
On Thursday, the state added one misdemeanor count of second-degree tampering with public records to the list of charges against Borromeo. That’s after Borromeo’s attorney requested a change of plea that could lead to her receiving what is known as a suspended entry of judgment, a probationary sentence that can result in a charge ultimately being removed from a defendant’s record.
Borromeo’s next hearing is scheduled for March 25 in Bethel Superior Court.
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