DES MOINES, Iowa – A Des Moines man was arrested on Wednesday, February 21, 2024, and made his initial appearance before a United States Magistrate Judge in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. Jeffrey Walter Gray, 61, is charged in a criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of Iowa with Sexual Exploitation of a Child (and Attempted Sexual Exploitation of a Child) and Possession of Child Pornography.

According to the allegations in the unsealed complaint, Gray, from as early as approximately 2005 to at least approximately 2016, used minors to produce child sexual abuse material. Some of this material was allegedly created at the photography business Gray owned and operated in the Des Moines area—Wicked Imagery. The material included images from hidden cameras placed in the changing rooms at Wicked Imagery to capture videos and/or images of minor children undressing. In November 2023, investigators recovered from Gray’s residence a hard drive which was later determined to contain child sexual abuse material.

To date, investigators have identified approximately fifteen minor victims depicted in child sexual abuse material seized from Gray’s residence. Investigators request the public’s assistance in identifying other minors. If you believe that you or your minor children may have been victimized by Gray, or if you have information relevant to this investigation, please  visit www.fbi.gov/JeffreyGray.WickedImagery or email WickedImagery@fbi.gov.

This case is being prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa. United States Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa made the announcement. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the case with the assistance of the Des Moines Police Department.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc. For information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the resources tab.

A complaint is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Senior Alumni Scholarship Foundation (SASF) recently held their annual meeting and welcomed new members Melanie Petty and Steve Wallingford. The SASF was created by Atlantic alumni with the goal of providing need-based scholarships to graduating seniors of AHS.

Funding for the foundation is provided by donations from Atlantic alumni. Generous donations from individuals and previous classes have allowed the foundation to grow. The first $500 scholarship was given out in 2003, and this year is being expanded again to reach as many students as possible.

The SASF will award five, $2,000 scholarships to the Class of 2024. Students must have a GPA of 2.5 and higher to qualify. Applications are online at the Atlantic High School website and are due April 8th of this year. Students are encouraged to apply and contact Gina Honke for more information.

Photo L to R Front Row: Deb Schuler-Secretary, C.J. Heitoff- President, Billie Hoover
Back Row Mark McNees, Cathy Baragary- Executive Director, Melanie Petty, Linda Robinson- Executive Director, Cathy Hansen, J.C. Van Ginkle, Steve Wallingford, and Jackie Sampson. Not pictured are Ted Robinson- Vice President, Tammy Wickman, Mark Smith- Treasurer and Denise Masker.

Alumi, or friends of the Atlantic High School, who would like more information on donating to the 501c3 foundation are encouraged to visit the website at atlanticsasf.org or visit the Atlantic High School Senior Alumni Foundation Facebook page.

(Photo & info. courtesy Mark McNees)

The Iowa Arboretum in Boone County will debut a first-in-the-Midwest feature at its facility this spring, according to spokesman Mark Schnieder. “We’re going to be opening Treehouse Village, which is an all-inclusive tree house suspension bridge and outdoor nature play area,” Schnieder says, “and it will give people elevated and ground level experiences in tree houses and in a really neat play area.”

He says the Treehouse Village will be a welcome addition to the arboretum near Madrid, with several features just for people in wheelchairs, including a swing and a zip-line.

A portion of the Treehouse Village (Iowa Arboretum photo)

“The whole project is located in our woodland area across from our main campus, so we’re still about gardens, which is very important to us, and growing trees,” Schnieder says. “This is a new element that will bring families, bring people, bring grandparents with their grandchildren to the arboretum to experience nature and be outdoors.”

Almost $1.7 million dollars has been raised for the Treehouse Village project, with a fundraising goal of $2-million.

(Radio Iowa) – A capital campaign is being launched to build an indoor Olympic-level bicycle motocross, or BMX, track and cycling park in central Iowa. One of the effort’s organizers, Bobby Kennedy, operations manager of the Des Moines Street Collective, says the proposed facility would be an excellent resource for community wellness that would promote access to sports and recreation. Kennedy says BMX involves both bike racing and freestyle.

“Basically, you’re racing on a short course, like a quarter mile, and you’re going over what we call pumps. You have doubles, tables, things that basically either force you to adjust yourself on the bike as you’re moving, or to go into midair,” Kennedy says, “and freestyle is more what you’d see like in a skate park where you can do tricks, jumps, things like that.”

The plans call for a 200,000 square foot facility that could cost between five and nine-million dollars. “What we’re hoping to put in is a full BMX race track, but then also a skills park,” Kennedy says. “It’d be a place where you can practice drops like ledges, a pump track, and then dirt winds as well. We’re aiming big, so it’d be nice if we had some actual single-track style, maybe wooden features where people could practice mountain biking in the winter.”

Photo courtesy 80/35 BMX

There’s also discussion of building a steeply banked track, called a velodrome, for bike racing within the facility. Cycling is huge in Iowa and Kennedy says there are no indoor tracks near this level in the state. “The nice thing about an indoor track is constancy, which is not how you talk about Iowa weather,” Kennedy says. “So basically, we’re looking at something that people would be able to use on a day-to-day basis, no matter if it’s 120 degrees outside or negative 20.”

Under the capital campaign, backers have 12 months to raise $47,000 to pay for a feasibility study on the track, and Kennedy says they’ve already raised $16,000 toward the goal.

(Radio Iowa) – A state tax rebate for film, TV and documentary productions may be modified and revived for a trial run after a 15 year hiatus. Republican Representative Bobby Kaufmann, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is sponsoring a bill to create a two-year, $10 million pilot project to provide a 30% tax rebate for qualified expenses. “I’ve been convinced by seeing movies that would have been filmed here going to other states and to other countries,” Kaufmann told Radio Iowa.

The State of Iowa’s previous tax incentives for TV and film productions were halted in 2009 after auditors found the majority of tax credits were misused. Iowa is now one of 13 states that do not offer tax incentives for film and TV productions.

Todd Rognes, chief administrative officer of Renovo Media Group in Clear Lake, told lawmakers today that Renovo recently helped produce a movie with a script partially set in Iowa, but Hollywood decision makers chose to have it filmed in Kentucky since that state provides tax incentives for filmmakers. “States around Iowa — Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri — all have credits,” Rognes said. “Nebraska just rolled out a credit program.”

Rognes said “Wildcat” — a movie with stars Liam Neesen and Laura Linney that will be released in May — got $2 million in incentives from Kentucky. “So, ultimately we had to decide to not do it in Iowa and take it to Kentucky, so there are scenes in the film where the main character is walking through a park in Iowa City that we filmed in Louisville. There’s a scene with one of the main characters in a classroom in Iowa and we filmed it in Louisville,” Rognes said. “We would have loved to have done that here.”

Renovo president Lisa Crnic speaks at House Ways and Means Committee Feb. 21, 2024. (RI photo)

Lisa Crnic, a Des Moines native, recently joined Renovo as its president after 17 years in Hollywood where she helped develop and produce hits like “Clifford, the Big Red Dog” and “The Smurfs” movie. “I’ve been with Renovo for the last four or five months and, you know, we have all the relationships and the experience and whatnot to really bring high level films here,” she said, “but one of the first questions being asked by producers — and kind of the non-starter is: ‘What is your film incentive?’”

Crnic told lawmakers another movie they’d hoped to film in Iowa likely will be shot in Ireland, due to that country’s incentives for filmmakers. “Another film we’re looking at called ‘The Great Nothing’ that we’re hoping to shoot in the fall and hopefully, you know, have this rebate in place and bring to Iowa — which the producers have said, ‘We’re happy to shoot this in Iowa’ — is a really heartfelt family film that Ryan Gosling’s looking at producing and starring in right now,” Crnic said.

Crnic and Rognes made their comments during a public presentation to members of the House Ways and Means Committee meeting earlier today.

(Radio Iowa) – The Teamsters have staged an hour-long protest outside the Iowa Capitol over a bill about certification votes for unions representing state and local government workers. “We’re standing up, we’re fighting back, we’re united and this is just the beginning,” Teamsters Local 238 Secretary-Treasurer Jesse Case said during a news conference on the Capitol steps.

The Teamsters represent public sector workers who drive school buses and snow plows and work at water and sewage treatment plants. “The public sector bargaining law wasn’t broken in 2017 and they broke it and now they want to break it some more,” Case said. “Well, guess what? We’ve had enough and our members are not obligated to go above and beyond the call of duty while they’re under attack.”

The bill Case is criticizing would decertify union representation for public sector workers if their manager fails to send a list of local union members to the state. Republicans who back the bill say some managers haven’t been following that requirement and some recertification votes haven’t been held. Case said some public sector employees are being asked to be on-call outside of work hours — a violation of their union contracts.

Democratic lawmakers joined union members for news conference led by Jesse Case, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 238. (RI photo)

“I’m telling you right now, the next time that there’s a union busting bill signed into law, people across this state will start feeling the affects of service,” Case said. “…People don’t have to get up in the middle of the night to push snow when they’re not being paid to be on call.”

As part of today’s protest, a convoy of vehicles drove around the Capitol in Des Moines, honking their horns for an hour. A plane flew over the Capitol with a banner that said “Kill Senator Dickey’s Union Busting Bill.” Senator Adrian Dickey of Packwood leads the committee that approved the bill that sparked today’s protest.

“We’re going to be rolling through Senator Dickey’s senate district soon and educating people and doing press conferences,” Case said. “If he wants to bust unions…he’s going to bust business. He’s going bust services provided to people in this state.”

A 2017 Iowa law requires union recertification votes before contract negotiations, which happen every couple of years.