An appeals court reopens a McLaughlin Youth Center abuse conviction

The Alaska Court of Appeals has withdrawn its 2024 decision upholding the conviction of a former McLaughlin Youth Center officer for sexually abusing a teenage resident, and sent the case back to the trial court to examine whether the state withheld records the defense should have seen.

The conviction stands for now. But the appeals court has ordered the superior court to hold a hearing within 120 days on whether undisclosed child-welfare records were material to the defense, and whether withholding them requires a new trial.

A jury convicted Phillip Eugene Bigham of seven counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor, plus two escape-related counts, for abuse in 2015 while he supervised the girls' treatment unit at McLaughlin in Anchorage. The victim, identified in court records only as A.G., was a 16-year-old resident of that unit. The escape counts stemmed from his efforts to help her leave the facility.

The dispute is over the victim's Office of Children's Services file. Before trial, Bigham's attorney sought it, saying a defense investigation suggested a history of false abuse reports. The victim, through her own lawyer, opposed the request. The trial judge reviewed the file privately and released 16 redacted pages, which showed a 2012 report in which she accused her stepfather of abuse that police investigated but declined to charge, and a report of abuse by a staff member at a different treatment facility. Bigham's trial lawyer never put the stepfather allegation before the jury, and the judge separately barred questioning about staff allegations, a ruling Bigham doesn't challenge.

In 2024, the appeals court found the withheld material "marginal" and affirmed the conviction. Bigham asked for rehearing twice. The new opinion, issued Sept. 16, keeps most of that reasoning: the court still finds the sealed records largely cumulative, and the trial judge within his discretion to withhold them. What changed is narrow. Two further items in the file, brief references to the victim reporting abuse by a family member and family friends when she was 5 and 6, reported years later and never investigated, are now sent to the superior court to decide rather than dismissed.

The court added a pointed note: the trial judge gave no explanation for withholding those records, and the appeals court urged trial judges statewide to state their reasons for sealing decisions, even under seal, so they can be reviewed.

McLaughlin has a documented problem with staff abuse. The Juvenile Law Center has put its youth sexual victimization rate at 15 percent, slightly above the national rate for similar facilities and mostly by staff, though that research doesn't address Bigham's case specifically.

No hearing date appears in the record.