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Iowa early News Headlines: Sunday, Feb. 9, 2020

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February 9th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 4:00 a.m. CST

CORALVILLE, Iowa (AP) — Iowa prison officials say a man serving more than 80 years in prison for twice trying to hire a hit man has died behind bars. Officials say 39-year-old Justin Lee Dewitt died Friday afternoon. Officials have not said how Dewitt died. Dewitt was sentenced in 2018 to 35 years in prison for a murder-for-hire scheme involving a business associate and that associate’s family. The next year, he was sentenced to 50 years for trying to organize from behind bars the killings of witnesses from his first case so they couldn’t testify against him. An autopsy has been ordered in his death.

ALGONA, Iowa (AP) — A violent Iowa convict who was on parole when he shot a bank employee to death during a botched robbery last year has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Mason City Globe Gazette reports that 36-year-old Valentino Williams, of Coralville, was sentenced Friday in Kossuth County District Court for the Dec. 4 shooting death of 43-year-old Jessica Weisharr outside Security State Bank in Lu Verne. Williams had pleaded guilty to felony murder. In exchange, prosecutors dropped an attempted robbery count, and Williams waived his right to appeal. Williams also was ordered to pay $150,000 restitution to Weishaar’s family.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Democratic Party is reviewing roughly 5 percent of the precincts in Monday’s Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses after issuing a deadline for campaigns to offer data demonstrating inconsistencies with the party’s results. In a statement Saturday, state party officials in their effort to clean up after Monday’s reporting breakdown said they were reviewing campaign data from 95 of the 1,765 precinct caucuses and would issue any corrections to the final results by Monday. The party asked the campaigns to submit evidence of inconsistencies in the final results of the caucuses.

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — A 57-year-old Burlington man has been sentenced to nearly nine years in federal prison for receiving and distributing child pornography. Federal prosecutors for the Southern District of Iowa say in a news release that Jeffrey Scott Walter was sentenced Tuesday to 104 months in prison after pleading guilty last year. There is no parole in the federal system. Prosecutors say the investigation into Walter began in September 2016, when federal agents determined Walter’s internet provider address was advertising child pornography files. A search warrant executed at Walters’ home in March 2018 found electronic devices containing multiple images and videos of child pornography.