Officers with the Creston Police Department arrested a man and woman on assault charges, Thursday afternoon. 25-year old Amanda Marie Steinbach and 34-year old Joseph Dean Gaiser, both of Creston, were arrested at Gaiser’s home in the 200 block of S. Lincoln Street, at around 1:20-p.m. Steinbach and Gaiser were subsequently released on $300 bond, each.  Both face a charge of Domestic Abuse Assault.

The Des Moines Register reports a central Iowa couple who adopted nine former foster children has been charged with felony child endangerment causing bodily injury. Authorities in Ankeny gave the newspaper the files from 68 different reports of police calls to the home. State Senator Matt McCoy, a Democrat from Des Moines, has been criticizing the state agency in charge of investigating child abuse allegations and he didn’t let up last (Thursday) night. “This is the result of what happens when you cut government beyond the bone and that’s where we’re at right now with the Department of Human Service,” McCoy said. “And Terry Branstad and Kim Reynolds and the Republican legislature own it.” ‘

McCoy made his comments in a speech after receiving the Iowa Democratic Party’s 2017 “outstanding elected official” award at a party event last (Thursday) night. The Des Moines Register reports 55-year-old John Bell and his 57-year-old wife Joyce were booked into the Polk County Jail yesterday (Thursday) afternoon for abusing the children they’ve adopted over the years. All of the children — ranging in age from 16 to 38 — have disabilities.

The Des Moines Register reports two teenage boys who were still living in the home were removed by state officials after a mid-July police call at the residence. The Government Oversight Committees in both the Iowa House and Senate met in June to review the state’s child welfare system after cases in which two teenagers adopted out of the foster care system died and the parents who adopted them were charged. Also last month, a new director took over the Department of Human Services and launched a “top-to-bottom review” of the system.

(Radio Iowa)

Sheriff’s Deputies in Montgomery County, Thursday evening, arrested 70-year old Jerry Lynn Pontow, of Hastings (IA), on a charge of Indecent Exposure. The man was taken into custody a little before 7-p.m., following an incident at the Pilot Grove County Park in northern Montgomery County. Pontow was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $1,000 bond.