A Minnesota woman has been sentenced to nearly three decades in prison for a sex crime involving a nine-year-old relative. Forty-nine-year-old Cynthia Mitteness of Mayer, Minnesota, was arrested last July after authorities learned of “explicit” text messages sent by Mitteness and a registered sex offender in central Iowa. Mitteness ultimately pleaded guilty to “conspiring to transport a minor child” across state lines “with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.”

She was sentenced this week to 27 years in a federal prison. Michael Williams of Runnells, Iowa, is the convicted sex offender who allegedly had sex with the child Mitteness brought to Iowa. Earlier this month he was sentenced to life in prison.

(Radio Iowa)

CLIVE, Iowa (AP) – The state has shared the lack of luck with people who played Iowa Lottery games over the last fiscal year. Lottery figures released Thursday show the lottery generated nearly $81 million for the state in the year ending June 30 – down around $7 million from the record $88 million the previous fiscal year. The Des Moines Register reports that the record fiscal 2016 sales were bolstered by Powerball purchases for a jackpot of nearly $1.6 billion in the multistate game.

Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich says “there simply won’t be a world record jackpot every year.” Iowa Lottery sales for fiscal 2017 totaled $352.2 million – a drop of 4 percent from a year earlier. Prizes paid were down nearly 3 percent.

A central Iowa dentist who admits he used his patients’ prescription drugs faces up a decade in federal prison. Thirty-eight-year-old Shawn Michael Kerby has pleaded guilty to one count of obtaining hydrocodone by misrepresentation along with one gun-related charge. He’ll be sentenced in November. Kerby has admitted he was a drug addict who wrote prescriptions for patients who agreed to give the pills back to him.

In the fall of 2014, state regulators fined Kerby 25-hundred dollars and placed him on probation for two years after a pharmacy in the Des Moines area reported Kerby was phoning in a lot of prescriptions for drugs that can be addictive. In the spring of 2016, after D-E-A agents raided Kerby’s home and offices, he voluntarily agreed not to practice dentistry.

(Radio Iowa)

The Creston Police Department reports one recent arrest. Thursday, 32-year old Jared James Wilmeth, of Creston, was arrested on a Union County warrant for Violation of Probation. Wilmeth was being held in the Union County Jail on a $2,000 bond.

And, a Creston man residing in the 400 block of New York Avenue reported Thursday, that sometime between 10:30-p.m. July 19th and 7:30-a.m. July 20th, someone broke into his home and stole a safe. The loss was estimated at $200.

A red wooden wagon, a piece of one of the most infamous cold cases in Iowa history, is going to be on display at this year’s Iowa State Fair. Ron Sampson of Des Moines has possession of the wagon – which was being used by Johnny Gosch on the morning of September 5, 1982 to deliver newspapers. The wagon was left behind when the 12-year-old boy vanished. So, why does Sampson want to showcase the wagon at the Fair? “We’re certainly not trying to commercialize anything,” Sampson says.

Gosch’s apparent kidnapping remains unsolved 35 years later — despite countless news reports, a documentary, and books about his disappearance. Sampson says he wanted to put the wagon on display for all fair-goers to see as a “tribute” to Gosch’s parents.  “John and Noreen went on a crusade to make things safer for young children, for parents, and helping law enforcement with getting things done and reported,” Sampson said. “I guess I would reach back and say they were the very beginning of the Amber Alert. They were the first people to have a child on milk cartons.”

John and Noreen Gosch divorced in 1993. Sampson, now a real estate agent, became friends with the couple after their son disappeared. At the time, Sampson was owner of the Ankeny Press Citizen and he wrote a series of articles about the case. “They plowed some important ground legislatively and just everyday life. Things changed because of John and Noreen,” Sampson said. “I think if this wagon symbolizes anything it’s the great changes that they made happen for today’s parents.”

Johnny Gosch wagon

The Iowa State Patrol has agreed to include the wagon among its displays inside the Grandstand at the Iowa State Fair. Gosch’s father, John, sent the wagon to Sampson around a year ago. “He had the wagon and just said, ‘There needs to be a better place for it, a place that will touch people and mean something to people.’ He was going to start traveling at this point in his life and didn’t want anything to happen to the wagon,” Sampson said.

On the back of the red wagon, the name “Gosch” is painted in black lettering. The Iowa State Fair in Des Moines is scheduled for August 10-20.

(Radio Iowa)