A traffic stop early this (Saturday) morning in Ringgold County resulted in the arrest of a Decatur County man on drug charges. The Ringgold County Sheriff’s Office reports deputies conducted a traffic stop in the parking lot of a Casey’s General Store. During the stop, the K9 “Heky” was deployed and alerted on the vehicle. The driver of the car, 32-year old Joshua Jerome Baker, of Leon, was arrested for Possession of a Controlled Substance/Marijuana, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. A passenger in the vehicle, 37-year old Travis Eugene Moffitt, of Mt. Ayr, was charged with Possession of Marijuana. Both men were being held without bond in the Ringgold County Jail, until appearing before a magistrate.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports the Page County Sheriff’s Office contacted Montgomery County at around 1:47-a.m. today (Saturday), with regard to a car accident that had occurred somewhere between the Page and Montgomery County line. Several agencies were called to search for the accident scene. The overturned vehicle was located at the intersection of 270th Street and D Avenue, in a cornfield. The driver, 26-year old Ethan Ted Schoonover, and his passenger, 22-year old Demi Rae Skidmore, both of Red Oak, were checked by rescue crews for injuries. Schoonover refused transport to the hospital, but Skidmore was transported to the Shenandoah Medical Center for treatment of minor injuries.

Schoonover was subsequently arrested for OWI/1st offense. His intoxication test came out to .160%, twice the legal limit. He was booked into the Montgomery County Jail and held on a $1,000 cash bond.

Agencies assisting at the accident scene included: Montgomery County Emergency Management, Red Oak Fire and Rescue, Essex Fire and Rescue, and Shenandoah Rescue.

A longtime deputy commissioner of the Iowa Division of Labor, who died just over a year ago, left behind a large gift that will benefit firefighters across the state. The bequest from Walter Johnson came as no surprise to his friend and former co-worker Mary Bryant, who says “Wally” spent 30 years in public service. “And he pretty much dedicated his life to safety for Iowa employees,” Bryant said.

Walter Johnson

A 130-thousand-dollar ($130,000) check was recently delivered to State Fire Marshal Dan Wood. Johnson, in his will, requested the money be directed toward the state’s Fire Service Training Bureau. “At this time, we’re kind of evaluating what we’re going to spend that money on so we spend it the right way, the proper way, and the most effective way…we have nothing specific yet planned,” Wood said.

Wood, a Clarinda native, became the State Fire Marshal late last year. Walter Johnson was a Hopkinton native who graduated from Maquoketa Valley High School in 1965. He died last February at the age of 69 due to kidney failure and other complications.

(Radio Iowa)

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:40 a.m. CST

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Supreme Court has denied an appeal filed by an Iowa farmer-turned-reality television celebrity charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident. Chris Soules asked the Iowa Supreme Court to dismiss the felony charge before it goes to trial but the court denied his request.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A prominent basketball coach has left his organization amid an Iowa criminal investigation into secret video recordings of nude teenagers. The Iowa Barnstormers of the Amateur Athletic Union announced Thursday that 42-year-old coach Greg Stephen was no longer with the traveling organization, where several prominent basketball players have been on the roster. Court documents show the Division of Criminal Investigation served a search warrant Thursday at Stephen’s home in Monticello

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — The owner of a gun that a 4-year-old boy used to accidentally kill himself in Iowa last year has been sentenced. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa says Daniel Henriksen was sentenced Wednesday to two months in federal prison and three years of supervised release. He had pleaded guilty last year to a federal count of possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user of marijuana.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Police have charged a man in the shooting death of another man last year near a Des Moines elementary school. Des Moines police said in a news release Friday that detectives arrested 19-year-old Jahmar Saheim Mustin, of West Des Moines, charging him with first-degree murder and criminal gang participation in the May death of 23-year-old Choice Elliston.

Officials with the Iowa DCI (Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation), Thursday, obtained a state search warrant for the residences of Greg Stephen in Monticello and Delhi, Iowa.  The search warrant affidavit states that a device had previously been obtained from Stephen’s  Monticello residence and was examined by law enforcement agents.

The affidavit states the device was found to contain video clips believed to depict young, non-adult disrobed male individuals.  Based on the investigation, the male individuals do not appear to be aware they were being recorded.

The DCI says it seeks any information regarding this investigation.  Members of the public with information or parents with questions or information should call 563-284-9506.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — The owner of a gun that a 4-year-old boy used to accidentally kill himself in Iowa last year has been sentenced. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa says Daniel Henriksen was sentenced Wednesday to two months in federal prison and three years of supervised release. He had pleaded guilty last year to a federal count of possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user of marijuana.

Prosecutors say Henriksen had left his .45-caliber handgun in a mobile home where Jayden Choate and two other preschoolers were staying on June 17, 2016. Police say Jayden found the gun near where he and the other children were napping and accidentally shot himself in the head.

Henriksen had faced up to 10 years in prison.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Supreme Court has denied an appeal filed by an Iowa farmer-turned-reality television celebrity charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident. Chris Soules asked the Iowa Supreme Court to dismiss the felony charge before it goes to trial. He contends Iowa law doesn’t require fatal wreck surviving drivers to wait for police but state prosecutors say it does.

Soules asked a judge to dismiss the case but the judge declined last month and Soules appealed. The high court Friday denied his request to hear the appeal. Soules appeared on “The Bachelor” and “Dancing With The Stars” in 2015.

He struck a tractor driven by a neighbor on April 24 last year in northern Iowa. He called 911 and waited for first responders but left before police arrived.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Police are investigating whether an elite Iowa youth basketball coach took video recordings of nude teenagers without their knowledge after a source gave them an electronic device with child pornography, according to court documents filed Friday.

The Iowa Barnstormers of the Amateur Athletic Union announced late Thursday on Twitter that 42-year-old Greg Stephen was no longer with the traveling organization, where several prominent players have been on the roster since its founding in 2005.
Court documents show the Division of Criminal Investigation served a search warrant Thursday at Stephen’s home in Monticello in northeast Iowa.

Investigators were looking for evidence of “unlawful manufacturing of child pornography and invasion of privacy,” as well as evidence of “additional” pornographic images and victims who may have been recorded. Stephen hasn’t been charged with any crimes.

Stephen’s father, Roger, who with his son run a family-owned car dealership in Monticello, said he and his son have been advised not to comment by lawyers. But he dismissed any allegations of wrongdoing, calling them “fake news” and noting his son has run the team successfully for 12 years.

“There’s nothing to hide. It isn’t the way it looks,” Roger Stephen told The Associated Press. “My son has got many, many scholarship players for all the schools around here. The team has been a great, great deal for the community. He’s a great guy and there’s no reason for all this to happen.”

Barnstormers co-founder Jamie Johnson didn’t immediately respond to an email from AP seeking comment. Sponsored by Adidas, the program’s alumni include Iowa’s Jordan Bohannon and Connor McCaffery (son of Coach Fran McCaffery), Wisconsin star Ethan Happ and former Northern Iowa stars Jeremy Morgan and Wes Washpun. Current players include two heralded Iowa recruits, Patrick McCaffery of Iowa City and Joe Weiskamp of Muscatine.

Court documents show that agents seized several items from Greg Stephen’s home, including laptops, a hard drive, three security cameras and a backpack containing two “covert cameras.” A sworn affidavit signed by DCI special agent Ryan Kedley says the investigation started Sunday, when Monticello Police Chief Britt Smith received information from a source saying he had evidence of a criminal act.

The source told Smith that he was at Stephen’s home on Feb. 15 performing construction services when he came across what appeared to be a plug-in electronic device with video recording capabilities in a bathroom, the affidavit says. The source told Smith he was concerned about the nature of the device and had prior concerns “involving photographic images possessed by Stephen of young males.” The source took the device and turned it over to police after finding video files of young males showering, the affidavit says.

Agents inspected the device Wednesday and found more than 100 video clips, including three folders labeled with names that were redacted in the affidavit. Two of those folders included clips of “young, non-adult male individuals disrobing to the point of nudity with genitalia exposed to the camera,” Kedley wrote.
He added that the clips appeared to have been recorded in a hotel bathroom without their knowledge, and that additional footage in the device included footage of an adult male who appeared to be Stephen.

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley spoke at the Greater Burlington Partnership this (Friday) morning — with gun control one of the main topics. A woman pulled out a wallet-sized photo and showed it to the Republican Senator. “This is my son,” the woman said, “yesterday I spoke to his teacher… and she was in tears because she is scared that she is going to be gunned down in her classroom.”

Many showed up to challenge Grassley’s stance on new gun control measures in the wake of a Florida school shooting that left 17 dead last week. Grassley said he wouldn’t support a new ban on so-called “assault weapons,” he said the 1994 ban was allowed to sunset for a reason. “Because it demanded a study that the National Institute of Justice… to do a study whether the ban cut down on crime and murder, and that showed it didn’t,” Grassley says he is willing to consider changing things with an “intellectual basis,” however says the study “proves otherwise” for a new ban on AR-15 style rifles.

Around 150 people were in attendance for the event, in which Grassley discussed infrastructure, the farm bill, federal tax-cut, and even President Donald Trump’s tweeting habits. “He hurts himself by tweeting,” Grassley says. “When he does something that is really good…then tweets something irrelevant it detracts from it. If he doesn’t have the approval rating he thinks he ought to have…it’s probably his own fault.”

The stop was part of Grassley’s 99 county tour of Iowa, which also includes stops in Keosauqua and Wapello today.

(Radio Iowa)

A bill that has cleared the Iowa Senate was inspired by he security breach at a credit reporting agency that exposed millions in the U.S., Canada and Britain to identity theft. Senator Brad Zaun’s bill would forbid the agencies from charging consumers a fee to freeze their credit in hopes of preventing scammers from taking out loans with the stolen information.

“It’s time that we stand up to these credit reporting agencies,” Zaun says, “and I think this is a step in the right direction.” Equifax temporarily waived fees when its security breach was made public, but it generally costs 10 dollars to put a freeze on your own credit report — and 12 dollars to get it lifted. Hackers stole names, birthdates and Social Security numbers in May and June of last year, but Equifax didn’t disclose the theft until September.

“I personally find responsible Equifax for not having the safeguards in place,” Zaun says. “I can say, in full disclosure, that my information was breached.” Similar bills have been introduced in other states. A bill in Oregon’s legislature would go further and require a credit reporting agency to notify consumers within 45 days of any breach of their personal information. Zaun’s bill banning agencies like Equifax from charging consumers a fee to freeze their credit cleared the Iowa Senate this week by a unanimous vote.

“This is a very important issue,” Zaun said. “With the internet the way it is today, we’re really vulnerable.” Senator Herman Quirmbac of Ames says he is a recent victim of identity theft. “I was notifed a couple of weeks ago by the Social Security Administration that somebody had filed for my benefits,” Quirmbach says. “…Fortunately, their security was better than Equifax’s and they did catch this and the claim was denied, but since then I have been through a lot of hassle trying to shut off a lot of other vulnerabilities.”

Zaun says both he and his wife have run into similar problems trying to clean up their credit record after a security breach.  “I, for one, have tried to correct some of the mistakes on my credit report and it sounds as if I might be a little bit biased, but it takes an act of congress or an act of God to change something on your credit reports,” Zaun says. More than a million Iowans were affected by the Equifax security breach. Attorney General Tom Miller urged Iowans to check their credit reports and freeze their credit as protection from imposters.

(Radio Iowa)