ProPublica: “Acting Alaska Attorney General Ed Sniffen’s abrupt resignation was announced Friday as the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica were preparing an article about allegations of sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl three decades ago. Nikki Dougherty White, now 47, recently contacted the news organizations with a detailed account of how she and Sniffen began a sexual relationship in 1991 while she was a student at West Anchorage High School. At the time, he was a 27-year-old attorney with a local law firm and a coach of her school’s mock trial competition team. The sexual relationship began during a trip to New Orleans for a national competition when she was 17, and it continued for about two years back in Anchorage, she said.”

“One of White’s former teammates said White confided in her about the sexual encounter with Sniffen while the team was still in New Orleans. A second former teammate said he learned of the sexual encounter around the same time, possibly on the plane ride home. A third teammate remembered hearing that something inappropriate had happened between Sniffen and White upon the team’s return to Anchorage. Under an Alaska law enacted in 1990, months before Sniffen and White traveled to New Orleans for the national mock trial competition, it was illegal for an adult to have sex with a 16- or 17-year-old whom he or she was teaching, counseling or coaching. (In many other instances, the age of consent in Alaska is 16.) Sniffen is the second Alaska attorney general to step down within the past six months amid a Daily News and ProPublica investigation into their interactions with women. Former Attorney General Kevin Clarkson quit in August, hours after the newsrooms revealed he had sent hundreds of unwanted text messages to a junior colleague.”