The Creston Police Department is investigating the theft of two riding mowers from a local business. Agrivision, in Creston, reported to authorities a 2004 and 2015 John Deere riding mower were taken from the business at 710 E. Taylor Street, sometime between Noon April 8th and 2:30-p.m. on April 20th. The loss was estimated at $10,029.
Defense attorneys for a Pottawattamie County man who was found guilty late last March on four counts of third-degree sexual abuse, have filed a motion for an acquittal or new trial. 47-year old John Osborn was found guilty by Fourth District Court Judge Richard Davidson on March 26th, with regard to sexual conduct with a 14-year-old girl last summer. The Daily NonPareil reports Davidson will make a ruling on the motion for a new trial, on May 8th. Depending on the decision, sentencing in the case is also scheduled during that hearing.
Judge Davidson found that the state had proved Osborn and the girl engaged in sex acts on the night of July 16 into July 17, 2014. At trial it was revealed that Osborn and the girl had exchanged text messages and phone calls sexual in nature prior to the July night in question. Both the state and defense used a computer program to retrieve the messages, as Osborn and the girl had deleted the messages on their phones.
The 14-year-old testified that the sexual encounter occurred sometime that night in around 11 p.m. to midnight, while Osborn’s daughter slept in the family’s living room. In his verdict, Davidson said a “window of opportunity” for the acts opened from 11:05 to 11:35 p.m. At trial, Osborn told the court he went to bed at 11 p.m. and didn’t get up until the next morning. Osborn’s daughter testified that she was awake throughout the night until about 3 a.m.
In his motion, defense lawyers said new evidence had come to light. Text messages from Osborn’s daughter to a friend on the night in question were presented at trial, but Judge Davidson noted there was a window of time where the daughter could’ve fallen asleep. The attorney for Osborn noted that the daughter got a new iPhone on July 21st and the family thought all messages had transferred over. After the verdict against Osborn, the family used the computer program to check if any messages were missing and found additional messages from the daughter to the friend on the night of July 16th. The messages were sent numerous times from 10:47-p.m. through 11:31-p.m. , proving, according to the attorney, that the daughter could not have been asleep during the time frame in question.
The motion also questions the testimony of the 14-year-old girl, saying her timeline of events “varies throughout her testimony.” In the state’s resistance to the motion, Assistant Pottawattamie County Attorney Shelly Sedlak noted the prosecution “does not have to prove a specific time for the sex acts in any case.”
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