(Atlantic, Iowa) – Cass County Veteran’s Affairs Administrator Mitch Holmes, Wednesday, provided the Board of Supervisors with his Quarterly Report. Holmes said there were six claims for emergency assistance during the past quarter, totaling more than $1,942, including one indigent burial ($1,500), which accounts for most of the cost.

The auto repairs ($141) were with regard to a veteran’s camper which broke down in the Hy-Vee parking lot. The amount paid also included a place for the veteran to stay while his vehicle was being repaired. Since those types of situations don’t fit the department’s policies, they sought- out and received donations to help with the costs of repairs.

With regard to Federal VA Benefits, Mitch Holmes said…

“So for the quarter,” he said, “We helped 126 individual veterans. Had 129 office visits and 11 home visits.” Home contacts and written correspondence were included as part of the Cass County VA Office services, as well. Year-to-date data, he said, show there were three indigent burials ($4,500 total)…the highest they’ve had in the past couple of years, Holmes said. They made two rent payments ($1,250 total), covered grocery costs for two other clients ($198 total) and made eight trips to the VA hospital ($312 value).

So far over the past year, Holmes said they’ve helped 374 individual veterans, made 396 office visits and 39 home visits, 673 telephone calls, and had 810 pieces of correspondence, including faxes and e-mails. The VA Office brings-in $440,000 per month in Federal benefits for Veterans in the County to receive.

(Sac City, Iowa) – A man from Sac County was sentenced July 20th to 10-years in prison, for the sexual exploitation of a teen. KCAU-TV reports the sentence for 42-year-old Nick Pierce, of Odebolt, was part of an Alford plea to the charge of sexual exploitation of a minor, a class C felony. An Alford plea is one in which is a plea entered for defendants not admitting guilt but pleading guilty as part of a plea bargain.

According to court documents, Pierce sent sexual photos to a 16-year-old boy on April 8. He also asked the teen to send pictures back to Pierce, offering to send money for them. In addition to his prison sentence, Piers must pay a fine of $1,370, and is required to be listed on the Iowa Sex Offender Registry for the rest of his life.

(Sioux City, Iowa) – A man from northwest Iowa’s Woodbury County was sentenced to federal prison, Friday, for Possession of Child Pornography. 46-year-old Joshua Pedersen, from Moville, Iowa, was sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was also fined a total of $5,000.  Pedersen must also serve a 5-year term of supervised released following the prison term.  There is no parole in the federal system.

The U-S Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa said evidence in the case established that between November 2018, and December 2019, Pedersen used Internet-based, peer-to-peer (P2P) networks “Kik” and “Skout” to knowingly receive and distribute child pornography.  Pedersen also admitted he distributed child pornography to a minor to persuade the minor to create and send him child pornography.  Pedersen has a prior conviction for Dissemination and Exhibition of Obscene Materials to Minors, and multiple convictions for Failure to Register as a Sex Offender.

Th case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.  Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.

For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. And, for more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.” The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kraig R. Hamit.

DES MOINES, Iowa — Older Iowans in four communities will soon lose their assisted living apartments. KCCI says according to Care Initiatives, assisted living facilities in Lamoni, Odebolt, Panora and Dunlap are converting to independent living apartments, meaning residents who cannot live on their own will need to find a new place to live.

Care Initiatives says it’s working to find new accommodations for those people. The changes will take effect in 90 days.

Care will still run assisted living facilities in Avoca and Correctionville.

DES MOINES– Gov. Kim Reynolds, Friday, announced her appointment of Ashley Beisch as a district associate judge in Judicial Election District 2B. Beisch, of Boone, Iowa, currently serves as assistant county attorney at the Webster County Attorney’s Office. She received both her undergraduate degree and law degree from Drake University Law School.

Beisch fills a vacancy created by the retirement of District Associate Judge James Malloy.

Judicial Election District 2B includes Boone, Calhoun, Carroll, Greene, Hamilton, Hardin, Humboldt, Marshall, Pocahontas, Sac, Story, Webster, and Wright counties

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa – A man from Page County was sentenced to prison Thursday, for Possession with the Intent to Distribute a controlled substance. The U-S Attorney’s Office says 49-year-old Michael Leo Pickens, of Shambaugh, was sentenced to 60 months (5-years) in prison, following his plea of guilty to the charge. Pickens must serve a four-year term of supervised release following the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.

According to public court documents, from June 2022 to July 2022, the Iowa Department of Narcotics Enforcement (DNE) completed several controlled buys of methamphetamine with Michael Leo Pickens. In August 2022, a search warrant was executed by DNE on Pickens’ residence in Shambaugh. Agents recovered approximately 26 grams of methamphetamine and a scale from the residence.

United States Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa made the announcement. The Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement investigated the case.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Joni Ernst says it is just a matter of time before the U-S-S Sioux City and the other littoral combat ships in its class are decommissioned. Ernst, a Republican from Red Oak, serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee and says the Navy will mothball the ships.

“The Navy knew this was going to happen. The Navy did not want the littoral combat ship they did not want to build them yet they went ahead they didn’t have a need for them,” Ernst says. The littoral combat ships were supposed to be smaller and faster and serve as anti-submarine and mine ships. But they proved to have several issues and were expensive to maintain. Senator Ernst is not happy the Navy allowed the people of Sioux City to spend thousands of dollars to help fund the commissioning of their namesake ship.

“They put the community of cities through this. Gosh, the citizens there the donors, everybody put all of this money up and the pride and heritage that goes with the city of Sioux City,” she says. “And we dedicated all of that towards the ship and then Navy knew full well that they would not be able to use the ship in the future.” The U-S-S Sioux City was commissioned at Annapolis, Maryland on November 17th of 2018. Ernst says a lot of money has been wasted on these ships.

USS Sioux City (US Navy photo)

“Because how many billions of dollars taxpayer spent on the actual ships, the millions and millions of dollars that were raised to commission the respective cities?,” Ernst says. “It seemed like a big fraud scheme to me. I am so upset about it and the good people that were just taken in by this.”

There was some discussion the Department of Homeland Security might want the ships for drug interdiction missions, but Ernst says nobody wants them. “The best we can hope, and believe me you know we have been wrangling all these different lines of effort who could use these ships?,” she says. “In all honesty we’re not seeing any takers out there because of the problems with the ships.”

Ernst says the ships cost 50 million dollars a year to maintain, and some of the 13 ships in the class have develop cracks in their hulls. The Senator says the Navy has not set an official date to decommission the Sioux City yet. She says it could be a couple of weeks all the way to a couple of years before that happens.