SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – State prosecutors have given way to federal prosecution of a Sioux City man accused of assault and robbery.  Court documents show robbery, burglary, theft and assault charges against Levon Dean have been dropped.  Woodbury County Attorney Patrick “PJ” Jennings says dropping the local case will save the state money and could lead to heavier federal punishment for Dean.

Authorities say Levon Dean and his brother, Jamal Dean, broke into a Sioux City home and beat and robbed a resident at gunpoint in April. A few days later Jamal Dean shot Sioux City Police Officer Kevin McCormick, who survived. Jamal Dean was given 25 years in prison for attempted murder.

Sheriff’s officials in Montgomery County report the arrest of a Stanton man on an assault charge, Sunday morning. 38-year-old Marshall Adams was arrested early Sunday morning on an Assault causing serious injury charge. Adams was taken into custody at around 1-a.m. Sunday in the 200 block of North 2nd Street shortly after the incident allegedlyt took place.

Adams was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on $1,000 bond.

Four Republican candidates for Iowa’s U-S Senate seat agree: the U.S. should not send military strikes into Syria. The four spoke Saturday night at the Polk County Republican Party’s annual summer picnic and the crowd applauded each for their stand on the issue. Sam Clovis of Hinton is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who signed off his radio talk show in Sioux City in June to run for the senate.

“I’m amused at the fact that Bruce Braley has to go out and put a poll on the internet to find out where he stands on Syria,” Clovis said. “He ought to know where he stands on Syria. I know where I stand on Syria and that’s that we have no business being in Syria — not now, not ever. Ever!” Braley is the only Democrat running for the senate seat Tom Harkin has held since January of 1985. Candidate Joni Ernst of Red Oak is a lieutenant colonel in the Iowa National Guard and the commander of a battalion with 12-hundred soldiers.

“We are not going to Syria, not at this time,” Ernst said, telling the crowd there’s been a “lack of leadership” from the president on this issue. Candidate Matt Whitaker, a lawyer from Ankeny who was the G-O-P’s nominee for state treasurer in 2002, also served as a U-S Attorney. “I don’t see how it is in our strategic interest and I would be a note on military action in Syria,” Whitaker said.

David Young of Van Meter, who quit his job as Senator Chuck Grassley’s chief of staff this spring in order to run for the U.S. Senate, would be another “no” vote on a congressional resolution to authorize U.S. military strikes into Syria. “Assad is a mad man, obviously, gassing people,” Young says. “…But I would not support this. I certainly don’t want boots on the ground, that’s for sure.”

Congressman Tom Latham of Clive also spoke at the Saturday evening event, telling the crowd of fellow Republicans it is “irrational” to attack targets in Syria and kill men, women and children as a response to the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons to kill men, women and children. Latham also faulted the president for failing to build an “international coalition” to respond to Syria.

(Radio Iowa)