Allen still under investigation for alleged sex crimes

The sex probe stems back to 1999, when Allen allegedly hired a prostitute in Spenard. The alleged victim, who we've identified by her middle name, Marie, agreed to be interviewed by us in mid-August. After she spoke to us, the 24-year-old woman reported her past relationship with Allen to Anchorage police.

Marie told Alaska Dispatch that Allen was her main client from 1999 to 2001, when she was a prostitute between the ages of 15 and 17. Marie claimed Allen paid her more than $20,000 in cash and gifts, including flying her to Alaska for sex when she was briefly living in Seattle. She alleged that two other teenage girls also participated in sex with her and Allen. The age of consent in Alaska is 16. There is no statute of limitations for sex crimes involving children.

"He didn't want anybody knowing that we were seeing each other," Marie told us in August. "He made me promise not to tell anybody because I was too young."

Because the alleged prostitution crossed state lines when Marie was residing in Seattle, it is possible the FBI may be involved in the investigation. On Tuesday, FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez said he could neither confirm nor deny if the agency was assisting police in the probe -- a standard response to such a media question.

On Monday, Bob Bundy, Allen's attorney, said Allen denies any wrongdoing, just as he did last fall.

Here's an excerpt from the story we wrote in September describing Marie's alleged relationship with Allen:

In 1999, the year before Allen dispatched a crew of VECO employees to work on Ted Stevens' house, Marie claims Allen began hiring her for sex. Marie sat down for an interview in August at a pizza parlor in South Anchorage, describing her childhood and how she ended up as a prostitute when she was still in her teens. She's lived most of her life in Anchorage, but her mother's side of the family hails from Good News Bay, a Yupik Eskimo village in western Alaska. Marie said her childhood was marred with hard times; an absent father and a mother who didn't pay much attention to her.

In 1999, she left her mom's home to live with a boyfriend. She said she soon took to the streets of Spenard, an Anchorage neighborhood, working as a prostitute. Her  boyfriend acted as her pimp. She was 15, and based on photographs she provided of herself at the time, she looked it.

One night, near the corner of Spenard Road and 32^nd Avenue, a white Land Rover pulled up alongside her. "I remember he rolled his window down and asked me if I wanted a ride. I jumped in," Marie said. "He asked me if I was a cop. I said ‘no.'" She claims this was the beginning of a two-and a-half-year sexual relationship with Allen, who at the time was in his early 60s.

Marie, a hotel housekeeper, says she never intended to tell Anchorage police about Allen until this summer, when a co-worker told her she should report him to authorities. Ken Gage, a maintenance man at the same hotel and a former private criminal investigator trying to get back into the business, helped her because, "She's a good kid, a hard worker, and people like Bill Allen piss me off." Marie said she is considering filing a civil suit against Allen. Her attorney, Ken Roosa of Anchorage, declined comment.

Soon after they met in 1999, Marie alleges Allen became her main client, spending "more money on me than anyone else." The sex happened at Allen's home, a Midtown storage lot where he kept a camper, and in hotels, including the Anchorage Hilton in downtown, according to her account. Over time, she learned that Allen owned VECO Corp. "He told me he was the founder of VECO," she said.

In mid-2000, Marie moved to the Seattle area with her boyfriend, but she continued to see Allen. He paid for her to fly up to Anchorage, putting her up at the Hilton. "Every trip I came up here (Anchorage) on, I charged him $2,000," she said, "and on top of that, he would give me spending money." Marie also says Allen wired her money to a Western Union service in Everett, a city north of Seattle.  Around that time, she turned 16, the age of consent.