A Palmer sentencing marks another case from Alaska's cybertip pipeline

A Palmer man will register as a sex offender for life after pleading guilty to possessing child sexual abuse material, the latest conviction from an Alaska task force that traces such cases through national cybertips.

Jason Hafley, 48, was sentenced to a little over a year in jail, the Alaska Department of Public Safety said Monday. His case began in November 2020, when the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children flagged that a user had uploaded illegal material online. Investigators with Task Force Dawnbreaker identified the account holder as Hafley — already a registered sex offender from Kentucky — and arrested him in August 2021.

That national-tip-to-Alaska-arrest pipeline is behind a run of recent state prosecutions. This month, Caleb Jametski, 32, of Metlakatla, was sentenced in Ketchikan to seven years with four suspended for distributing such material, in a case that also opened with a report to the same national center. Because distribution is a more serious charge than possession, the two sentences aren't directly comparable.

The center's CyberTipline has taken in more than 149 million reports of suspected child exploitation since it began.