Two Wasilla residents accused of more than 400 identity theft-related crimes

It’s the largest number of criminal charges filed in a single case within Alaska courts since modern record-keeping began

An Alaska State Trooper’s shoulder patch is seen on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024. (James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)

By James Brooks

Alaska Beacon

Two Wasilla residents have been accused of a record-setting number of felonies and misdemeanors in connection with an alleged identity-theft spree that affected 41 people in multiple states.

Alaska prosecutors filed 426 misdemeanor and felony charges on Saturday against Qalgilan Miller and 425 charges against Demi Rae McDonald, his alleged partner. 

According to records kept by the Alaska Court System, those combined charges represent the most filed against any one person in a single criminal case in Alaska since 2011, when modern recordkeeping began. The previous record was 372 charges in a case opened in 2013. 

Miller and McDonald have been assigned public defenders and are being held on more than $200,000 bond apiece. Preliminary hearings are scheduled for May 19 and May 20 at the Palmer courthouse.

According to a lengthy packet of charging documents filed this week, the case against Miller and McDonald began in October, when Troopers conducted a routine traffic stop in Wasilla and found their car contained “drug paraphernalia and a large quantity of stolen identification documents, forged checks, controlled substances, and other items linked to financial and identity crimes.”

The items within the car were seized for investigation, work that ultimately uncovered “41 confirmed victims across Alaska and other states.”

One of the alleged victims was former state Representative Eldon Mulder; others included people whose credit cards, passports, driver’s licenses, ID cards and checkbooks were stolen. In one case, a check given as a school graduation gift was stolen. 

According to the charging documents, Miller and McDonald remained free while the investigation took place. On Nov. 4, they were pulled over again during a different routine traffic stop, and their car was searched.

“During the search, multiple items belonging to other individuals were found … scattered throughout the vehicle. However, they were not connected to the cases at that time,” the document states. 

The case was investigated by the Troopers’ Crime Suppression Unit in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, a group that deals with investigations that are more complicated than a patrol officer’s work but which don’t rise to the level of a major crime to be handled by the Alaska Bureau of Investigation.

According to court documents, CSU officers spent weeks interviewing fraud victims, requesting security camera footage and linking documents from the October traffic stop with reported fraud cases in Anchorage, the Kenai Peninsula, the Mat-Su and elsewhere.

On April 16, troopers visited a home listed as the address for Miller and McDonald, but their housemates said they were no longer allowed to be at the house. Some mail left behind was linked with people whose identity documents had been previously stolen and reported to police.

Troopers tried tracing Miller and McDonald to a home in Eagle River and then a separate home in Anchorage after obtaining a warrant that allowed them to track the couple’s cellphones.

At the home in Anchorage, Troopers found another vehicle with more allegedly stolen mail and identity documents.

They continued tracing Miller and McDonald via cellphone and on May 2 traced the signal to an Anchorage park and a vehicle with a false Montana license plate.

When Troopers tried to pull the vehicle over, it sped away down city streets at more than 70 miles an hour, occasionally driving into oncoming traffic and onto trails. 

Police discontinued the chase because of the danger to pedestrians and later found the vehicle abandoned, but not before identifying Miller as the driver.

On May 8, they traced the pair to a Fred Meyer store in Anchorage and arrested them, allegedly as they were in the act of stealing items from the store.

Trooper Trenton Harris wrote in an affidavit submitted to the court that Miller and McDonald exhibited a “prolonged, deliberate, and escalating pattern of criminal conduct” despite “open investigations, outstanding warrants, and repeated opportunities to cease their behavior.”

“Their conduct was organized, intentional, and persistent, and their actions present an ongoing threat to the public, financial institutions, and the integrity of victims’ identities,” he wrote.

• James Brooks Cascade is a longtime Alaska reporter who lives in Juneau. He previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.