A 23-year-old man has been convicted of attacking a 19-year-old woman a little over 13-months ago, at a rest stop off Interstate 29 near Onawa. The Monona County Attorney’s Office says Mark Bitzan was accused of taking the woman into a stall in the women’s restroom, threatening her with a knife and sexually assaulting her. The crime occurred on Dec. 17th, 2010. A jury convicted Bitzan on Tuesday. His sentencing has not been scheduled yet. Bitzan was also convicted in 2006, of a sexual assault in Natrona County, Wyo.

Police in Council Bluffs are looking for a man who robbed a convenience store early this (Thursday) morning. Officials say at around 1:15-a.m., a man entered the Kwik Shop store at 3632 Avenue G, and confronted the clerk. The suspect produced a black handgun and demanded money before leaving the store on foot with an undetermined amount of cash. No injuries were reported.  The man was described as being in his early 20’s, about 5-feet 4-inches tall, and weighing about 150-pounds. He had hazel eyes, wore a gray hooded sweatshirt and baggy red sweatpants. He also wore a dark stocking cap, a face covering, and dark gloves. The incident remains under investigation by the Council Bluffs Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division.

A Council Bluffs man faces a 5-year prison term for his role in a burglary which occurred in Malvern last Summer.  According to the Omaha World Herald, 31-year-old Miguel Martinez was sentenced Tuesday in Mills County District Court to five-years in prison, for attempted burglary. Prosecutors say Martinez was one of three people convicted as a result of an investigation into the incident, during which he was the ringleader of the trio, and the one who breached a door when he was confronted by 66-year-old farmer Don Hopp during the August 17th incident. 19-year-old Patrick Hover, who prosecutors said was the “wheelman,”  and 33-year-old Yosvani Galindo, of Omaha, plead guilty to charges of 2nd degree burglary, and were given suspended prison sentences of 10 years each. Both were sentenced to two years of supervised probation.  Hover was ordered to reside at a Council Bluffs half-way house.

Prosecutors say the three men had been smoking methamphetamine in the countryside near Malvern when they hatched a plot to burglarize a nearby farmhouse. During the incident, Martinez was shot by Hopp, who said the shooting was an accident. He said he was outside his home after confronting the burglars when he fell, discharging the weapon.  In December, a grand jury decided not to indict him. In an interview Monday at his Council Bluffs home, Martinez, who has a wife and seven children, said he and the other two were only looking for a place to stay overnight. He told the paper, “I just thought it was an abandoned house.”

Both home sales and home prices held fairly steady in Iowa last year compared to 2010. That’s according to the latest report from the Iowa Association of Realtors. Association president Dale Gross, of Atlantic, says 2,430 homes were sold last month – 154 more than in December 2010. Gross said it marked the fifth consecutive month of increased home sales. In all 12 months of 2011, 31,089 homes were sold – just 135 more than 2010. The median sale price of an Iowa home in 2011 was $122,000, a one-point-two-percent (1.2%) decline from 2010. “There’s been an increase in the lower end of the housing sales numbers and that’s probably being driven by a lot of the foreclosed or distressed properties. They’re selling for much, much less,” Gross explained. Average prices in Iowa should increase as more of those distressed properties are taken off the market. Gross said he’s already seeing signs that prices will rise based on inventory. “This last month, we had 7.4 months (worth) of homes available to sell – based on the average monthly sales. That happens to be down from nine (months) a year ago,” Gross said. “So, that inventory is slacking off, which means there is a likelihood of higher prices in the future because inventory is dropping.”

(Pat Curtis/Radio Iowa)