(Radio Iowa) — Iowans are warned to think before they click if they see a familiar celebrity like Oprah or Ellen on a pop-up ad, pitching products for skin care, losing weight or boosting memory. Jim Hegarty, C-E-O of the Better Business Bureau in Omaha-Council Bluffs, says many of those ads are scams and they’re rigged to rope you in. “People don’t read the fine print even if the fine print is there,” Hegarty says. “They think they’re just getting a week’s trial or a month’s trial and all they have to do is pay for shipping, but when they pay for that shipping, they’re agreeing to have that product shipped to them month after month and have those charges reoccur on their cards.”

The con artists who produce the pop-ups don’t really have the endorsement of the celebrity you see, he says, and more scams seem to appear as fast as they’re being shut down. “They’re like Whack-a-mole,” Hegarty says. “Most of them are operating out of Florida, there’s been some FTC action and a couple of these operations were shut down, but here’s the deal: because individual loss might be $180 or $200, there’s not any individuals that are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars.” Whatever amount you may have lost on the worthless products, Hegarty says it’s important to let the authorities know, as well as the nearest office of the Better Business Bureau. “We want them to report it to the BBB because we can compile that data and when state or local losses get to a certain threshold, then the government can take action,” he says.

Hagerty says this type of scam is estimated to have bilked Americans out of $1.3 billion in the past ten years.

DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a man stole nearly $37,000 from his mother while they lived in a smelly Dubuque residence filled with trash. Dubuque County court records say 35-year-old Michael Woods is charged with dependent adult abuse. The records don’t list the name of an attorney who could comment for him. Woods’ preliminary hearing is scheduled for Friday. The Telegraph Herald reports that police say Woods and his 75-year-old mother, Barbara Gebhardt, had been living as squatters in the lower level of a residence that had been owned by a woman who died in February 2017.

Officers sent to check the residence found Gebhardt in a room that was filled with trash and junk and smelled of “mold, rotting garbage, feces and urine.” She was taken to a hospital.

Sheriff Kevin Aistrope reports that early this morning the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office received a report of theft from the Pilot Travel Center. Upon deputies arrival the subjects had fled the scene and left the car they were operating on the side of the road after striking something and making the vehicle inoperable. A short time later Deputies located the three subjects, two of whom were juveniles. During the investigation 18 year old Cameron Peters of Lincoln, NE was found to be in possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia. All three subjects were transported to the Law Enforcement center where Peters was being held on a $1,300 bond. The two juveniles were cited into court and released to guardians.

Cameron Peters

(Radio Iowa) — The employees of six county jails in Iowa are being praised for going “above and beyond” the minimum state standards for those facilities. Delbert Longley, the chief jail inspector for the Iowa Department of Corrections, selected the six county jails as 2018 “Best of the Best” award winners. “I inspect 106 facilities every year. The vast majority of them do a tremendous job of making sure they are doing the right things and they never get recognized for that,” Longley said. “They’re just kind of like the red-headed stepchild out there…nobody wants to talk about them until, all-of-the sudden, something bad happens.”

Delbert Longley presents award to Shelby County authorities.

The awards were recently handed out at an annual banquet held by the Iowa State Sheriffs and Deputies’ Association. The six jails are located in Madison, Shelby, Iowa, Sioux, Dubuque and Marshall counties. Longley commended all six for being responsive to the needs of inmates. “They treat them with respect and (the jail staff) demand respect in return,” Longley explained. “We know the individuals who are (in jail) have been charged with something, otherwise they wouldn’t be there, but that doesn’t mean they should be treated as second-class citizens.”  The jails also scored high marks for cleanliness. “I don’t care how new or how old of a facility you have, I don’t believe there’s any reason why it should be dirty. I will cite that quickly,” Longley said. “I just don’t want poor living conditions – and not only that, it’s poor working conditions for staff.”

Another priority for Longley is making sure the county employees keep “thorough and complete” records of all jail proceedings. “The documentation is what’s going to keep a lot of jails out of lawsuits. If you can show what you’ve done, when, and why you’ve done it – that is very, very important,” Longley said. According to Longley, administrators and employees of many county jails face substantial challenges including limited budgets, overcrowding, and facilities that are badly in need of replacement or repair. There are several county jails in Iowa that were built in the early 1900s.
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The 2018 “Best of the Best” county jail award winners:
Small jails (up to 25 beds) – Madison and Shelby counties
Medium jails (26-100 beds) – Iowa and Sioux counties
Large jails (over 100 beds) – Dubuque and Marshall counties