An Alaska lawmaker’s chief of staff was arrested in Juneau on Friday on federal charges of sex trafficking and child exploitation, enticement and coercion of a minor, and creating child sexual abuse material.
Craig Scott Valdez, 36, was chief of staff to state Sen. George Rauscher (R) since November, and had worked in Rauscher’s office since 2021.
He also served as the chair of the Anchorage Young Republicans since January 2025.
The arrested state senate staffer is the chair of the Anchorage Young Republicans—or was until the news broke yesterday. alaskabeacon.com/briefs/alask…
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw.bsky.social) February 21, 2026 at 6:08 AM
From the Alaska Beacon:
The charges are connected to an incident in October involving a 15-year-old girl he allegedly enticed to his Anchorage home through the social media app Snapchat, for “the purposes of sexually exploiting the child to celebrate his birthday,” according to court documents.
Documents say the girl’s sibling alerted their mother, who used a tracking app and drove to his home and intervened, and called the Anchorage Police Department.
Court documents say the mother “entered the residence, struck Valdez once in the face, and recovered the child who exhibited signs of extreme drug or alcohol intoxication and had difficulty walking and maintaining consciousness.” Police arrived, the documents say, but Valdez had fled the home.
The mother recovered the girl’s phone and took screenshots of the Snapchat messages, which she turned over to law enforcement, according to court documents. The girl reported she was introduced to Valdez through other children when she was 13 or 14 years old.
The lead photo above provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska. On the right is a screen cap of his SnapChat avatar.
This was apparently not the first time Valdez had exploited the girl. And authorities believe he may have victimized at least 11 others after reviewing Valdez’ Snapchat communications.
According to the FBI, their investigation found a “compulsive pattern of behavior bombarding children he finds on Snapchat with requests for sexually explicit images and even more concerning, causing and attempting to cause children to engage in commercial sex acts.”
If convicted, he faces between 15 years to life in prison.
Discover more from The Randy Report
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.