TEEN ACCEPTS DEAL: TESTIFY AGAINST DAD

The Des Moines Youth, Arrested in a Meth Raid, Avoids a 25-year Sentence.

Prosecutors told Abraham Boettger this week that he could go free: All the
17-year-old has to do is turn on his father.

Boettger was caught red-handed last month helping his father when police
launched a methamphetamine lab raid. The day he was charged, prosecutors
asked a judge to allow them to try the Des Moines youth in adult court. The
most severe penalty Boettger would have faced was 25 years in a state prison.

"My brother was scared to death," said Gabe Boettger, 19. "I think it kind
of screws up the right to a fair trial when someone will say just about
anything" to avoid an adult prison.

The charge against Boettger, believed to be the first Polk County youth
accused of conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine, prompted an outcry
from relatives who considered it too severe.

On Tuesday, a Polk County judge accepted a plea agreement to give the boy a
way out: Testify in the cases against the adults accused of running the meth
operation and receive probation, with no jail time.

Judy Christiansen said her son took the deal, but it came at a price to the
family. Abe and Gabe are worried about their father, who is in drug
treatment. Galen Boettger, who declined to comment Tuesday, also faces up to
25 years if convicted of making the drug. His trial has not been scheduled.

Christiansen was grateful her son will avoid prison. Nonetheless, she said,
her son had been used as a pawn in Polk County Attorney John Sarcone's case
against her ex-husband.

"I feel absolutely that (Abe) should have been tried on the merit of the
evidence against him," and not on his willingness to testify, said
Christiansen. "It's going to be hard on Abe."

In exchange for Boettger's guilty plea Monday in juvenile court, Sarcone's
office dropped the bid to try him as an adult. However, the county attorney
could still try to move Boettger into the adult system if his testimony is
false or insufficient.

Sarcone insisted he was not using the boy.

"Nobody forced him to do anything," Sarcone said Tuesday. "I think it's a
fair resolution for him."

Juvenile authorities say Boettger got what he needed: supervised probation
and court-ordered drug treatment.

"We feel pretty good about how this worked out," said Ed Nahas, a juvenile
court spokesman. "Whatever motivated him is working."

Public defenders question whether it was necessary for prosecutors to urge
the boy to testify.

"The basic question that I can see is: What will that testimony add in light
of other evidence?" said George Arvidson, chief of the juvenile arm of the
county public defender's office.

Family members have contended from the beginning that the boy should have
been given leniency. Boettger, who had a clean record, had carried bags of
meth-making materials to a car on orders from his father.

Although prosecutors often reduce charges for adults who give testimony in
drug crimes, the practice is rarely used with juveniles.

Kathryn Miller, executive director of the Youth Law Center in Des Moines,
said that while the law often protects the confidentiality of information
exchanged with spouses, doctors, ministers and lawyers, no such rules apply
to parents and offspring.

"I don't know if that should be or not," she said. "It's certainly creates
an unpleasant situation."