The Fremont County Sheriff’s Office reports a Council Bluffs man was arrested Wednesday night on a burglary charge. 48-year old William Marty Shepard was taken into custody in Council Bluffs, in connection with an investigation into the January 1st burglary of a residence located in the Waubonsie Ridge housing development. Shepard was being held in the Fremont County Jail on a $100,000 cash bond.
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — University of Iowa officials should have acted sooner after learning star running back Marcus Coker was under investigation for sexual assault to either clear him if he was innocent or discipline him if there was evidence, an attorney familiar with the school’s checkered handling of such cases said Thursday. Attorney Roxanne Conlin of Des Moines said school officials must explain what actions they took after they learned a woman named Coker in an assault complaint Oct. 28, given missteps in the past decade involving other assault allegations against Iowa athletes. “Innocent until proven guilty is still the law of the land, but you need to conduct an immediate investigation and the university needs to determine whether or not he did in fact rape somebody. And if he did, he shouldn’t be playing football,” Conlin said.
The Iowa City Police Department formally closed its investigation into the case last week without filing charges. Authorities say they decided not to charge Coker in late November or early December after it became clear the woman did not want to pursue the matter. At that point, they shared their investigative findings with university officials who were conducting their own disciplinary investigation. Iowa City Police Lt. Doug Hart said the university was told about the Coker investigation the day before Iowa played Minnesota on Oct. 29. Coker played the final five games of the regular season, but was suspended for unspecified misconduct Dec. 20 before the Insight Bowl. The university announced Tuesday he’d asked for a release from his scholarship and dropped out of classes this semester so that he could transfer. Coker, the second-leading rusher in the Big Ten Conference with 1,384 yards and 15 touchdowns, has made no public comments on the situation. Neither have top university officials.
University vice president for strategic communications Tysen Kendig said the school was editing Coker out of a promotional video that featured him and a handful of other students as success stories. The video, often played for groups of university supporters, touted Coker’s success on the football field and his academic prowess in his double majors of physics and astronomy. Kendig and other university officials argue that a federal law protecting students’ privacy prohibits them from describing how they responded to news of the police report. The Iowa Board of Regents, which oversees the school and asked for a review of sexual assault policies after the scandal at Penn State, also has no comment, a spokeswoman said. Bill Hines, a law professor who chairs an advisory committee that helps oversee the athletics department, said he learned of the Coker matter by reading the newspaper and knows nothing more.
Conlin, who has represented several women over the years who claim they were sexually assaulted by Iowa athletes, said the university’s response has been inadequate. “Things have not gone well in the past. The ball has been dropped, to use a football analogy, so many times that they need to be out making public statements that explain what they’ve done or what they have failed to do,” she said. “It’s very frustrating.” In 2002, Conlin acted as a mediator to resolve a felony charge alleging that Iowa basketball standout Pierre Pierce had performed unwanted sex acts on a woman. She helped broker a deal in which Pierce pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault but was allowed to rejoin the team after sitting a year out. The leniency sparked protests on campus. And Pierce was arrested during the 2005 season on charges that he broke into the home of a former girlfriend, falsely imprisoned and then assaulted her. He served 11 months in prison. “It turned out to be a horrible thing. It turned out that he was a serial offender. I would never do that again,” Conlin says.
The Coker case comes three years after the parents of a female athlete who was assaulted by two football players in a dorm room accused university officials of being insensitive to her and trying to keep the case quiet. Two players were convicted of assault while a third transferred. The dean of students and the school’s top lawyer were fired for what President Sally Mason called an inadequate response, and both of them continue to sue for wrongful termination. University officials say they have made a number of changes since then, including hiring Monique DiCarlo as a sexual misconduct response coordinator to help victims navigate the university bureaucracy. It was not clear whether DiCarlo, who has not responded to a message seeking comment, played a role in the Coker case.
Greenfield Police Chief Austin O’Brien says there were at least three victims of alleged hazing by students on the wrestling team at the Nodaway Valley High School, in Greenfield. Two members of the high school wrestling team were arrested Tuesday on sexual abuse charges. The arrests follow an investigation that began January 4th after a parent of a Nodaway Valley wrestler reported her son was the possible victim on an assault in the high school’s wrestling room in mid December.
Police then learned of two other potential victims, but their investigation was complicated by witnesses who initially refused to come forward and make a statement to investigators. O’Brien says the assaults were “sexual in nature” and were “directly related to some type of punishment toward the victims.”
Eighteen-year-old Mikel Feick and an unnamed 17-year-old juvenile were charged with second-degree sexual abuse. Both have been removed from the wrestling team, but there’s no word if they’re still students at Nodaway Valley High School. Feick was booked into the Adair County Jail in Greenfield, and later released on $25,000 bond. The 17-year old male was being held in the juvenile detention facility in Eldora, on $25,000 bond.
This is the second known investigation in recent weeks involving inappropriate conduct by members of an Iowa high school wrestling team. Police have submitted simple assault charges against three members of the Lisbon High School wrestling squad in connection with an incident that took place in a locker room. The Linn County Attorney’s office is reviewing that case.
The Adair County Board of Supervisors will hold a special session Friday morning in Greenfield, to hear several departmental budget requests. During the meeting, which begins at 9-a.m. the Board will hear Fiscal Year 2013 budget requests from: County Attorney Mike Maynes; Custodian Rich Wallace; Conservationist Kevin Blazek; Fair Board representative Teresa Davison; VA Coordinator Donna Bittner; Library representative Lillian Nichols; Steve Bolie, representating the Area 14 Agency on Aging andSouthern Iowa Trolley; and, Environmental Health Specialist/County Sanitarian, Steve Patterson.
The Adair County Supervisors will then recess and reconvene at the Adair County Public Safety Center/Jail Conference Room, for a special presentation on a Geographic Information System (GIS), from Jan Bowles, with the Schneider Corporation.
The Audubon County Sheriff’s Office reports a Cass County man faces drug charges, following an investigation into an incident which occurred January 6th, in rural Audubon County. 38-year old Joseph John King, of Marne, was charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance/Marijuana, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. The incident whereby the drugs were found allegedly took place in the 11-hundred block of 150th Street, in Audubon County. King appeared in magistrate court this (Thursday) morning.
Lavon Eblen speaks about kids in the kitchen!
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Sheriff’s officials in Audubon County report an Elk Horn teen was injured during a rollover accident Wednesday night south of Kimballton. 17-year old Daniel Jacob Brown was transported by private vehicle to the Cass County Memorial Hospital following the crash, which happened on County Road M-66 near the intersection with Sharon Road, at around 10:30-p.m. Officials say Brown was traveling south on M-66 when he lost control of the 1993 Chevy pickup he was driving, after he applied to brakes in order to avoid a deer on the road. The pickup entered a ditch and began to roll. Damage to the truck was estimated at $3,500. The accident remains under investigation.
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The FBI is investigating a bank robbery Wednesday at the Citizens First National Bank in the northwest Iowa town of Early. According to Sac County Sheriff Ken McClure, the robber entered the bank at 9:43am and demanded cash from the tellers. The suspect did not display or threaten the tellers with a weapon. The suspect fled on foot from the bank with an undisclosed amount of cash. No injuries were reported.
The suspect is described as a white male, who is six feet tall and weighs between 200 and 225 pounds. He was wearing a gray stocking cap, dark colored sunglasses, blue hooded sweatshirt that was on backwards, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes. He had a light colored beard.
This is the second bank robbery in Sac County in the past two weeks. Iowa State Bank in Odebolt was robbed on December 29th. Anyone with information is asked to call the Sac County Sheriff’s Office at 712-662-7127, or the FBI at 402-493-8688.
(Radio Iowa)
Additional complaints have been filed against a Council Bluffs anesthesiologist accused last month of sexual misconduct and professional incompetency. Three women have stepped forward to accuse 48-year old Dr. Michael Prescher of wrongdoing. The women alleged Prescher treated them when his office was closed and no other staff were present. They also alleged: that he gave them an I-V sedation before he administered pain management injections; they were unconscious for lengthy periods of time; and, that Prescher did not charge them for the procedures, even though the women had insurance. One of the women also alleges Prescher released her to drive home alone, while she was under the influence of sedation.
The new charges led the Iowa Board of Medicine to amend the charges against Prescher, who lives in Omaha. The Board issued an emergency order in December, suspending Prescher’s license, for allegedly engaging in sexual misconduct and professional incompetency, for performing injection procedures for pain treatment on two female patients who were under sedation. Prescher denied any wrongdoing in association with the first two allegations. Council Bluffs Police conducted an investigation into the initial allegations made last month, and concluded that the investigations should end without any formal criminal filings. Pottawattamie County Attorney Matt Wilber said the evidence gathered by police was insufficient to secure a conviction against Prescher.
Under terms of the emergency order, Prescher is prohibited from practicing medicine until the matter is resolved. He’s scheduled to appear before the Board during a hearing today in Des Moines. The hearing is not open to the public.
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