Christian School Teacher In Alaska Charged With Sexual Abuse Of Minor

CBS KTVA11 Alaska - May 19, 2009

Police have arrested and are charging a local Christian school-teacher with 14 felony counts of sexual abuse of a minor. The number of counts happens to be the exact age of the boy he's accused of abusing.



According to charging documents, twenty-five year old Jenson Seifert "confided" in the 14-year-old victim that he struggled with alcohol abuse, had an ongoing struggle with lust, and struggled with "stuff" which the victim believed meant pornography. When questioned by police Seifert said quote, "I just want to do what's right. I just want to help fix what I did wrong."

Police say 25-year old Jenson Seifert is a 7th and 8th grade teacher at Birchwood Christian School, a basketball coach, and a mentor for church youth activities. Both his Facebook and Myspace profiles show he wears his religion on his sleeve.

Sergeant Cindi Stanton with the Anchorage Police Department explained, "I got the phone call from another police officer saying he was at in route a church and a pastor had called saying a family had come to him to let him know that one of the youth ministers, one of the teachers, had sexually assaulted their son."

"Society recognizes that there are certain people that we need to be able to trust, teachers, policeman, doctors, lawyers, those kinds of folks, pastors. Those kind of people we need to be able to trust and so the law recognizes that that special relationship and that trust relationship and a person violates that when they commit sexual abuse of a minor then it moves it up one degree in terms of severity," said Anchorage Police Lieutenant Dave Parker.

The victim is a fourteen-year-old boy.

Lt. Parker with APD added, "Sexual abuse of a minor is one of the most destructive kinds of crimes that we see committed. You've taken advantage of a relationship with a child. You're hurting a child, and the long term affects are very, very pronounced."

According to charging documents, the sexual abuse happened during an overnight youth trip to Alyeska. However, it turns out there were many other incidents, starting in August and continued until the boy told his mom.

Lt. Parker explained, "Typically in sexual abuse of a minor case we see children delay their reporting and one of the reasons is because people who commit that kind of crime often groom the children or prepare the children for them to take advantage of them."

And when here in Alaska we rank first in sexual abuse in children in the nation, police say this is another example of just how careful parents should be.

Lt. Parker explained what he said is a horrendous statistic, "That means there are a lot of other abusers out there. We find that the typical abuser if not stopped will abuse over 100 children in a lifetime."

Jenson Seifert is being held in the Anchorage jail with bail set at one hundred thousand dollars and a court approved third party custodian.

One of the concerns police have in a case like this is the possibility there might be other victims, and if there are other victims out there or if parents suspect their children might have been victimized the Anchorage Police encourages you to call them at 786-8900.

This article was found at:

http://www.ktva.com/ci_12396123