The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports the arrest Tuesday of 37-year-old Kenneth W. Dine of Red Oak on a felony warrant for Parole Violation. Dine was arrested at 3:15pm at the Montgomery County Law Enforcement Center. The parole was in place for the original charge of 3rd Degree Sex Abuse. Dine was held without bond in the Montgomery County Law Enforcement Center.

The Iowa Department of Transportation, as a courtesy to the Nebraska Department of Roads, is advising motorists of impending extended closures of the westbound Interstate 80 ramp to northbound I-480, northbound U.S. 75 ramps to westbound I-80 and northbound I-480, and the F Street entrance ramp to northbound U.S. 75. The closures are scheduled to take place 10-p.m. Wednesday, July 5th, according to the Nebraska Department of Roads.

These extended ramp closures are necessary for bridge deck repairs. The project is anticipated to be completed by fall 2017. (See map below for suggested detour route – eastbound I-80 to northbound I-29 to westbound I-480.)

Cramer and Associates Inc., of Grimes, Iowa, is the contractor on this project. Motorists are urged to drive cautiously through construction zones, along detours and selected alternate routes.

VERSAILLES, Mo. (AP) — A state trooper charged with involuntary manslaughter after an Iowa man drowned after falling from a patrol boat into a Missouri lake has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor boating violation. The Kansas City Star reports Trooper Anthony Piercy pleaded guilty Tuesday to negligent operation of a vessel in the May 2014 death of 20-year-old Brandon Ellingson, of Clive, Iowa. Piercy was scheduled for trial July 10 in Morgan County.

Piercy had stopped Ellingson at the Lake of the Ozarks on suspicion of boating while intoxicated. While riding in a boat driven by Piercy, Ellingson fell into the lake while wearing handcuffs and an improperly secured life vest. Piercy jumped into the lake but couldn’t save him.

The state of Missouri last year paid $9 million to Ellingson’s family.

A man from Pottawattamie County was found guilty Monday in Cass County District Court, on charges resulting from a pursuit that occurred nearly one-year ago. Judge Jeffrey L. Larson found 38-year old Joseph Lee Ray Bartlett, of Council Bluffs, guilty on five counts: Two counts of assault on persons in certain occupations; two counts of criminal mischief in the 2nd degree, and one count of eluding. His sentencing date has not yet been set. Bartlett, who had earlier waived his rights to a jury trial, remains in the Cass County Jail, where has been held since January 10th.

Bartlett was the subject of a July 3rd 2016 pursuit that went through Pottawattamie County and into Griswold on Highway 92. The SUV he was driving was traveling at speeds of up to 90-miles per hour through Griswold and continued east to Highway 71, where Cass County Deputy Ben Bartholomew was waiting with “stop sticks” deployed. The SUV hit the sticks at around 1:30-a.m. and entered a field, came back out of a ditch and rammed into the rear of Bartholomew’s cruiser.

The SUV continued into the intersection at Lyman, where Pott. County Deputies performed a PIT maneuver on the vehicle. The vehicle continued and eventually struck Deputy Bartholomew’s cruiser on the front and nearly struck Deputy Kyle Quist’s SUV. The suspect continued to drive south on Highway 71 for a couple of miles before the vehicle became disabled. No injuries were reported.

Bartlett was taken into custody and transported to the Pottawattamie County Jail, where he’s charged with Eluding with Injury and OWI/1st offense. His jury trial there is set to begin July 25th. Bartlet plead guilty earlier this year in Montgomery County to charges of Burglary in the 3rd degree, and Theft in the 2nd degree. He was given a five-year suspended prison sentence, with credit for time served, plus two-years probation.

The Red Oak Police Department arrested a Red Oak woman on Tuesday on a warrant for Violation of Parole. At 12:27pm Officers arrested 41-year-old Rachel Charise Kathlee Hadden of Red Oak at 105 East Coolbaugh Street. Hadden was taken to the Montgomery County Law Enforcement Center and held on no bond.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – A western Iowa school district’s investigation of its superintendent has been completed and no disciplinary action will take place. The Sioux City Journal reports that Sioux City School District’s former finance director John Chalstrom accused Superintendent Paul Gausman earlier this year of creating a hostile workplace and threatening his job if he shared alternative budget proposals with school board members outside regular board meetings.

School board president Mike Krysl says the investigation into the allegations is complete unless new information arises. The board approved a settlement agreement with Chalstrom in April. It allows him to remain on paid administrative leave until the expiration of his contract on June 30 and awards him about $35,000 in severance pay.

The board hired Patricia Blankenship on Monday as the new finance director.

BRITT, Iowa (AP) – A northern Iowa veteran group is assembling care packages for sailors on the USS Fitzgerald, which collided with a merchant vessel off the coast of Japan on June 17, killing seven U.S. sailors. The Mason City Globe Gazette reports that nine members of the Dean Welsh Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary of Britt are working on the project.

Jean Perkins is the chairman of the care packages drive. The drive was inspired by Perkin’s 27-year-old granddaughter, Brianna Downer, who is serving in the Navy. Downer asked Perkins last week if the group could do anything for the sailors. The group sent about 50 care packages to Downer’s crew in 2012.

The care packages will include toiletries, books, magazines, socks, T-shirts, snacks, hard candy and non-perishable items.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – A father and son whose Iowa-based egg production company caused a massive 2010 salmonella outbreak have exhausted their appeals and a federal judge has ordered them to begin serving prison sentences.

53-year old Peter DeCoster must report to the Federal Prison Camp in Yankton, South Dakota after July 30 and his 83-year-old father Austin “Jack” DeCoster must serve his three-month term at the Federal Correctional Institution in Berlin, New Hampshire, 30 days after Peter is released.

They were sentenced to prison by a federal judge in Iowa in 2015 but appealed their sentences claiming they were unconstitutional and unreasonably harsh. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their appeal in May. The DeCosters, who owned and operated Quality Egg LLC, pleaded guilty to selling adulterated food as responsible corporate officers.

Officers with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) today (Tuesday), were called to dispatch a mountain lion from a farm near Galva, in northeast Ida County. The situation arose after a neighboring livestock producer discovered a dead calf that showed evidence consistent with an attack by a large cat late last week. Repeated calls were placed to 911 Monday evening by a nearby landowner who discovered the cat.

DNR officers use lethal action as the last resort option in these situations and every effort is made to humanely remove the animal. Bruce Trautman, deputy director with the Iowa DNR, said “White-tailed deer and other wild animals, particularly the weak or injured, are often the preferred prey. But in this situation, it appears this mountain lion has targeted young livestock and livestock producers are well within their rights to protect their livelihood.”

This is the first confirmed female mountain lion in Iowa. There is no physical evidence that she has produced any young. The Iowa DNR will collect teeth, tissue samples for genetic analysis and examine the stomach contents of the 88 pound animal. This is the fourth mountain lion killed in Iowa and the most recent since 2013 when a four year old male was shot in Sioux County. Since 1995, there have been 21 confirmed mountain lions in Iowa.

Western South Dakota and Nebraska have been the genetic source for the lions killed in Iowa. Mountain lions are not listed as a furbearer and have no protected status in Iowa.

A notorious criminal who robbed a Mason City credit union two years ago and committed other crimes in Nebraska and across the western United States -may- be in custody. In 2012 and 2014, a man the FBI called the “AK-47 Bandit” robbed several banks, as well as shot and wounded a police officer in Chino, California. 39-year-old Richard Gathercole was arrested last week in Dawson County, Nebraska after allegedly firing shots from an AK-47 rifle at a Kansas state trooper.

FBI Los Angeles spokeswoman Laura Eimiller says numerous agencies are investigating whether evidence found in the search of a Roundup, Montana home is linked to the suspect. A jailhouse phone call transcript submitted to a judge by federal officials seeking a search warrant for the Montana home shows Gathercole asked his mother a few days after his arrest to clear his home of guns. Federal agents say homemade bombs were found at the home.

Court documents show that Gathercole is accused of stealing $126-thousand from the Iowa Heartland Credit Union in Mason City on July 28th, 2015 after informing tellers he had a “pressure bomb.”

(Radio Iowa)