(Glenwood, Iowa) – The Mills County Sheriff’s Office reports a man from Bellevue, Nebraska, was arrested Thursday morning at the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office. 52-year-old Brent Edward Johnson was taken into custody on a Mills County warrant for Failure to Appear (FTA) on a Criminal Mischief in the 3rd Degree, charge. Johnson’s bond was set at $2,000.

Des Moines, IA – State Auditor Rob Sand today (Friday) urged organizations and individuals to take steps to increase measures to safeguard their systems against cyber-attacks. In a news release, Sand said “Individuals, businesses, schools, and government entities are all susceptible to cybercrimes. It’s important for everyone to increase cybersecurity measures because a deficiency in one system can give criminals access to mounds of data that can result in cybercrimes like identity theft.”

The most common cybercrimes include Business Email Compromise (BEC), identity theft, ransomware, and spoofing and phishing scams. On average, the FBI received 2,300 cybercrime complaints per day in 2021, resulting in $6.9 billion in losses to victims. Iowa ranks 21st in the country in the number of cybercrime victims per state, losing a total of $33.8 million dollars to cybercrimes. According to Sand, “BEC attacks were reported to the Auditor’s Office by state and local governments, as well as schools.”  He said he was the target of a BEC scheme last year, but, “Thanks to some vigilant state workers, the scam was squashed.”

Iowa Auditor of State Rob Sand

BEC and Email Account Compromise (EAC) are sophisticated scams that are carried out when legitimate email accounts are compromised. The compromised account is then used to send fraudulent emails soliciting funds that are directed to illicit accounts. Combined losses in 2021 totaled $2.4 billion.

Measures to protect organizations from cybercrime include:

• Updated multi-factor authentication
• Updated software
• Control measures that include detailed IT policies and procedures
• Anti-malware
• Enhanced Firewalls
• Think before you “click”

The Auditor’s Office is partnering with the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners for International Fraud Awareness Week in an effort to draw attention to the latest forms of fraud and measures to prevent fraud.  To report the misuse of public funds or resources, email info@aos.iowa.gov or call 515-281-5834. Additional information on fraud prevention can be found on the Auditor of State website, Facebook, and X, formerly known as Twitter.

GRIMES, Iowa – Nov. 17, 2023 – If you travel on Interstate 80 near Altoona, you need to be aware of an upcoming construction project next week that may slow down your trip.

Starting on Monday night, Nov. 20, from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m., weather permitting, construction crews will work on resurfacing the bridge decks on I-80 over Fourmile Creek near Altoona. This will require alternating lane closures on the westbound lanes of I-80. On Tuesday night, Nov. 21, from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m., crews will work on resurfacing the bridge decks on the eastbound lanes of I-80 which will require alternating lane closures. You will follow a marked detour route for ramp closures affected by this construction project.

The latest traveler information is available anytime through the 511 system. Visit 511ia.org; call 511 (within Iowa) or 800-288-1047 (nationwide).

(Radio Iowa) –  Dozens of Iowa pastors and worship leaders are endorsing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for president today (Friday). Darran Whiting, pastor of Liberty Baptist Church in Cedar Rapids, is one of the people signing on to the DeSantis campaign’s Faith and Freedom Coalition. Whiting says it’s time to make his choice public. “I appreciate the stand that Governor DeSantis has taken, especially on life,” Whiting says. “Not that there aren’t other good candidates, but at this point I think Governor DeSantis is the right man at the right time.” Former President Donald Trump’s criticism of DeSantis for signing a Florida law to ban most abortions after the sixth week of a pregnancy was a defining moment for Whiting.

“I am pro-life. I don’t think it’s a terrible mistake to protect life at six weeks,” Whiting says, “and I think it’s a terrible mistake for former President Trump to say that.” And, if Trump winds up being the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nominee, he will not get Whiting’s vote.  “I cannot vote for somebody who tried to overthrow the government,” Whiting says. “I appreciate the Supreme Court justices that he put into place.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on the Iowa campaign trail. (RI photo)

“I appreciate some of his policies, but I absolutely, positively cannot endorse his rhetoric, his divisiveness, his lack of constitutional knowledge…We can’t afford at this point having a president who could be a felon running this country.”

Whiting says he thought and prayed about this decision and will be proud to Caucus for DeSantis in January. “Just his unwavering stance on life and social issues and his ability to articulate that position is essentially what led me to him,” Whiting says. Nearly 80 percent of likely Iowa Caucus-goers in the recent Des Moines Register “Iowa Poll” said a candidate’s stand on abortion restrictions is either “important” or “extremely important.”

The head of the Iowa Coalition of Pro-Life Leaders endorsed DeSantis in September, as did two Iowa attorneys who’ve represented the State of Iowa against legal challenges of a six week abortion ban.

(Des Moines, Iowa) – Auditor of State Rob Sand, today (Friday), released an audit report on Guthrie County.

FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS:
The County’s revenues totaled $19,612,679 for the year ended June 30, 2022, a 2.8% increase over the prior year. Expenses for County operations for the year ended June 30, 2022, totaled $14,213,357, a 10.0% decrease from the prior year. The increase in the revenues is due primarily to an increase in property tax revenue and the significant decrease in the expenses is due primarily to a decrease in rock and sand inventory purchased in fiscal year 2022.

AUDIT FINDINGS:
Sand reported seven findings related to the receipt and expenditure of taxpayer funds. They are found on pages 92 through 98 of this report. The findings address issues such as lack of segregation of duties, material amounts of accounts payable, prepaid expenses and infrastructure and capital asset additions not properly recorded in the County’s financial statements. Sand provided the County with recommendations to address each of these findings.

Five of the seven findings discussed above are repeated from the prior year. The County Board of Supervisors and elected officials have a fiduciary responsibility to provide oversight of the County’s operations and financial transactions. Oversight is typically defined as the “watchful and responsible care” a governing body exercises in its fiduciary capacity.

A copy of the audit report is available for review on the Auditor of State’s website at Audit Reports – Auditor of State.

(Radio Iowa) – Lakeside Casino in Osceola is paying a 40-thousand dollar penalty for allowing two minors on the gambling floor in separate instances in January. One cases involved a 12 year old who got onto the floor with his mother, and the other involved a 14 year old who got onto the floor with her mother and played a slot machine. Lakeside general manager David Monroe told the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission Thursday security measures were not followed. “The incidents that occurred in January are the result of a couple of employees failing to follow the training and guidelines that they had committed to,” he says. “In both instances, the minors would not have gained access if the employees and just to even a marginal job.”

Monroe says they took a number of steps to ensure there is not a repeat. “First of all, we did the obvious we retrained every employee on property and had them sign an acknowledgment that they understood that it’s everybody’s responsibility on the property, not just security’s. And we went back and retrained the security officers on turnstile responsibilities,” Monroe says. “And we added a step where the security manager and assistant security manager were the only two that could approve somebody work in those stations. So not only do they have to demonstrate

IRGC (Radio Iowa photo)

the ability to verbally stay, they understood the job.” He says they reviewed the entry area and put in a new turnstile at the entrance to the gambling floor.

“The new turnstile has a physical arm barrier that requires a security guard to push a button that says I’ve acknowledged and I won’t let you in. We upgraded our I-D scanning system to a state of the art system which gives our security guards a better opportunity to identify fraudulent I-Ds,” he says. Monroe also apologized to the Commission. Commission member Allen Ostergren says his first thoughts on the violations involved a possible license suspension.” I can tell you in my mind, when I first read this, I was extremely punitive in my thoughts as to what should happen,” Ostergren says.

He says there was a lot going on in the one case with a mother bringing a 12 year old to the casino near midnight. Ostergren says the measures taken by the casino made him decided to go along with the fine. “But I can tell you and I want to tell other licensees, had there not been this level of remedial measures taken, I would have, I would have had a very hard time agreeing to just this kind of financial penalty, it would have been a lot more or something that would have hurt a lot more,” Ostergren says.

The Commission unanimously approved the 40-thousand dollar penalty.