Charges reduced to robbery against Juneau man in roundabout protest case in Sitka
- Daily Sitka Sentinel
- Jan 15
- 5 min read
By Anna Laffley
Daily Sitka Sentinel
A Superior Court judge issued an order Wednesday dismissing two felony assault charges and maintaining a felony robbery charge against Pietr K. Dabaluz, a 19-year-old Juneau man involved in a fight during an Aug. 30, 2025, protest rally at the Sitka roundabout.
The incident involved Dabaluz and Sitka residents Marshall Albertson, 59, and Steve Lee, 49. After the fight, Albertson drove himself to the hospital, where he received treatment for a broken nose and concussion.
Dabaluz was arraigned on Aug. 31 and released on $1,500 bail. He was indicted by a Sitka grand jury Sept. 4 on one count of assault in the second degree, a class B felony; one count of assault in the third degree, a class C felony; and robbery in the second degree, a class B felony.
Superior Court Judge Amy Mead ruled on Wednesday that the state prosecution did not present sufficient evidence to support the Sitka grand jury's second-degree felony assault and third-degree felony assault indictments.
Dabaluz’s attorney, Andrew Miller, had filed an Oct. 12 motion to dismiss the three-count indictment, and on Oct. 23 Assistant District Attorney Catherine Rogers filed a six-page opposition to the motion to dismiss. On Oct. 24 Miller filed a two-page reply.
As of early November, the parties were scheduled to meet on Dec. 3 for a scheduling hearing, which was tied to a Jan. 2026 start date for Dabaluz's trial in Sitka.
That Dec. 3 hearing was postponed until 2 p.m. Wednesday, as parties in the case awaited Judge Mead’s decision on the motion to dismiss the indictment.
Mead's decision on Wednesday came in a 28-page ruling on the motion to dismiss the entire three-count indictment against Dabaluz.
Mead’s order describes how, before a Sitka grand jury returned a “true bill” on the two assault counts and one robbery count against Dabaluz, a state prosecutor “presented only one witness to the grand jury: Sitka Police Officer Richard Meunier.”
“Ofc. Meunier testified that he had been at the Sitka Police Department’s dispatch center helping out on August 30, 2025, when several 911 calls came in concerning an ongoing fight happening at the roundabout,” Mead wrote.
The officer told the grand jurors that, from the department’s security cameras, which are visible at the dispatch center, “he could see a physical altercation happening at the roundabout ... When the officer arrived on scene, the fight had already ended,” Mead wrote.
Meunier testified that, when he arrived, he saw Albertson bleeding from his nose and mouth; Meunier went to the hospital after the altercation, and spoke with Albertson’s doctor, who said that Albertson had a broken nose and a concussion.
Meunier also testified about what he had viewed on the police surveillance video, and in a second video recorded by a bystander, Mead wrote.
Judge Mead determined Wednesday that Meunier’s testimony about the contents of the videos is inadmissible, because the testimony “constituted improper lay person testimony.”
“The prosecutor did not establish or make any record that would explain why Ofc. Meunier was in a better position to understand or interpret the footage than the grand jurors were, or whether he had some specialized knowledge that would have assisted the jurors in viewing the video.”
Thus, Mead determined that the state did not present sufficient evidence to the grand jury to support the second and third-degree felony count indictments.
However, Mead found sufficient admissible testimony to support the second-degree robbery charge against Dabaluz. That charge is related to Dabaluz's actions after he took a flag of Israel from a flag stand during the altercation at the roundabout.
Mead wrote that the prosecution presented sufficient evidence showing that Dabaluz “used or threatened force against (Steve) Lee when Mr. Lee tried to take possession of the flag” and that Dabaluz “had a conscious objective of keeping the flag to discard it into Swan Lake because he was traveling towards the lake and immediately after his encounter with Mr. Lee he threw the flag towards the lake.”
Concluding her Wednesday order, Mead clarified that “in making these findings, the court is not making a factual determination" regarding any of Dabaluz's alleged conduct.
“In analyzing a motion to dismiss an indictment, the court is only required to consider whether the State presented sufficient evidence to the grand jury to support the indictment,” Mead wrote. “The court has found that the state did not present sufficient evidence on two counts.”
Wednesday’s hearing
Parties in the case participated in an audio teleconference at 2 p.m. Wednesday in the Sitka courthouse. The judge was in Juneau, and four Sitka community members were listening to the proceedings in a hearing room at the Sitka courthouse. The court clerk was the only official present.
Opening Wednesday’s hearing, Judge Mead apologized to the parties for taking more than two and a half months to file her decision on Dabaluz’s motion to dismiss the indictment.
“The decision-writing itself was delayed because of the snow,” Mead said. “No pun intended, but that snowballed into further delay because there were other issues that, of course, came up in front of court that took priority over drafting the decision.”
Dabaluz's attorney, Andrew Miller, said that he had spoken with Dabaluz about the decision, and that “we need more time to kind of digest that and figure out what we’re going to do.”
Dabaluz has “agreed that what we want to do is wait and come back in a month," Miller said.
Catherine Rogers, the state's attorney, said she would be willing to wait one month for the next status hearing in the case.
“I have not finished reading (the decision) myself, nor have I been able to discuss it with the victims in this case,” Rogers said, referring to both Albertson and Lee.
Mead then asked Lee and Albertson, who attended the hearing by teleconference, if either of them had any questions regarding the delay.
Albertson said that "obviously, I'd like to see it come to an end pretty soon and get to the final result."
“You know, it keeps getting drug out and drug out, and it seems to me like justice needs to happen at some point," Albertson said. "But you know, you're the judge, so whatever you decide, I'll abide by, obviously.”
Mead acknowledged that Albertson had yet to see her decision dismissing two of the three felony counts against Dabaluz.
Addressing both Albertson and Lee, the judge said Assistant District Attorney Rogers “is going to have to decide about how she wants to proceed, and I think she’ll need to talk to you both about that.”
She then asked Lee to speak to the timeline in the case. Lee said that he is concerned that the trial would conflict with his busy season at work, which is anticipated to begin with the return of cruise ships to Sitka in April.
Following some discussion with both parties, a status hearing was set for 8:30 a.m. on Feb. 3, looking in general to a trial in late March, in Sitka.
• This story originally appeared in the Daily Sitka Sentinel.
