Longstanding family feud in Alaska embroils Palin

For the past several years, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, has been embroiled in a bitter family feud that has drawn in the State Police, the attorney general, the governor's office, and the state Legislature.

A bipartisan state legislative panel has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate whether Palin improperly brought the family fight into the governor's office. The investigation is focusing on whether she and her aides pressured and ultimately fired the public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan, for not removing Palin's former brother-in-law from the State Police force.

Palin has said she did not pressure Monegan or fire him for not taking action against her former brother-in-law. A spokesman for Senator John McCain's campaign who asked not to be identified because the matter is under investigation, said Palin's actions were intended to alert Monegan to potential threats to her family from her sister's former husband, Mike Wooten.

Interviews with principals involved in the dispute and a review of court documents and police internal affairs reports reveal that Palin has been deeply involved in alerting state officials to her family's personal turmoil.

The trouble between Wooten and the governor's sister, who have several children, broke into the open in January 2005. That month, Wooten attended a trooper-sponsored event in Idaho with a married woman, according to an e-mail Palin later wrote to the chief of the State Police.

A month later, when Palin's sister, who uses her previous married name of Molly McCann, confronted Wooten, he threatened to kill her father, Palin alleged in the e-mail, saying she overhead the threat on a speakerphone.

"Wooten's words were, 'I will kill him. He'll eat a [expletive] lead bullet, I'll shoot him,' if our father got the attorney to help Molly," Palin said. "I heard this death threat, my 16-year-old son heard it (Track Palin), Molly heard it, as did their small children. Wooten spoke with his trooper gun on his hip in an extremely intimidating fashion, leaving no doubt he is serious about taking someone's life who disagrees with him."

There is no record of police charging Wooten for the alleged threat. Through his lawyer, Wooten declined to comment for this article.

On the day that McCann filed for divorce - April 11, 2005 - Palin's father, Chuck Heath, a retired teacher then in his late 60s, called State Police to file a complaint about Wooten. He handed the phone to McCann, who told State Police that her husband had threatened her father's life, shot a "cow moose" without a license, Tasered his 10-year-old stepson, and drank beer while driving his police vehicle home.

A month later, Palin, then chairing the state oil and gas commission, was interviewed by a State Police investigator. She told him about the threat over the speakerphone. Fearful for the lives of her sister and her father, Palin said she drove to her sister's house and watched the argument through a window. She could see Wooten "waving his arms," she told investigators. She said she thought, "He is gonna blow it." She left for a meeting without calling police.

On Aug. 10, 2005, Palin sent an angry, three-page e-mail to Colonel Julia Grimes, head of the State Police.

"My concern is that the public's faith in the trooper will continue to diminish as more residents express concerns regarding the apparent lack of action towards a trooper whom is described by many as 'a ticking time bomb' and a 'loose cannon.' "

Palin noted, "Wooten is my brother-in-law, but this information is forwarded to you objectively," and asked Grimes to treat the information objectively.

Keeping Wooten on the police force, Palin wrote, "would lead a rational person to believe there is a problem inside the organization."

She characterized Wooten as a hard-drinking bully who held himself above the law and threatened her family.

"Wooten was counseled by my husband to join Molly in acting civilly and with maturity during their divorce - for the sake of the nine kids they and Wooten's girlfriend have between them all - and who are adversely affected by their circumstances. Wooten evidently took umbrage with the advice and that day told Molly she'd better 'put a leash on your sister' or he'd 'bring Sarah Palin down.' "

Palin added: "I feel strongly that Wooten is a loose cannon. He's a ticking time bomb, as others describe him, and I am afraid his actions do not merely reflect poorly on the state, but his actions may cause someone terrible harm.

"Is it acceptable for an Alaska State Trooper to use his badge and power in these aforementioned ways?"

She concluded, "Our faith is waning."

The divorce went to trial in the fall of 2005 while the State Police internal investigation was pending. Anchorage Superior Court Judge John Suddock reviewed the complaints filed by Palin and her family.

At trial on Oct. 27, 2005, the judge expressed puzzlement about why the family was trying to get Wooten fired, since depriving the trooper of a job would harm his ability to pay family support to Palin's sister.

"It appears for the world that Ms. McCann and her family have decided to take off for the guy's livelihood - that the bitterness of whatever who did what to whom has overridden good judgment," Suddock said in an audio recording from the trial heard on TV station KTUU's website.