A 23-year-old man has been convicted of attacking a 19-year-old woman a little over 13-months ago, at a rest stop off Interstate 29 near Onawa. The Monona County Attorney’s Office says Mark Bitzan was accused of taking the woman into a stall in the women’s restroom, threatening her with a knife and sexually assaulting her. The crime occurred on Dec. 17th, 2010. A jury convicted Bitzan on Tuesday. His sentencing has not been scheduled yet. Bitzan was also convicted in 2006, of a sexual assault in Natrona County, Wyo.

Police in Council Bluffs are looking for a man who robbed a convenience store early this (Thursday) morning. Officials say at around 1:15-a.m., a man entered the Kwik Shop store at 3632 Avenue G, and confronted the clerk. The suspect produced a black handgun and demanded money before leaving the store on foot with an undetermined amount of cash. No injuries were reported.  The man was described as being in his early 20’s, about 5-feet 4-inches tall, and weighing about 150-pounds. He had hazel eyes, wore a gray hooded sweatshirt and baggy red sweatpants. He also wore a dark stocking cap, a face covering, and dark gloves. The incident remains under investigation by the Council Bluffs Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division.

A Council Bluffs man faces a 5-year prison term for his role in a burglary which occurred in Malvern last Summer.  According to the Omaha World Herald, 31-year-old Miguel Martinez was sentenced Tuesday in Mills County District Court to five-years in prison, for attempted burglary. Prosecutors say Martinez was one of three people convicted as a result of an investigation into the incident, during which he was the ringleader of the trio, and the one who breached a door when he was confronted by 66-year-old farmer Don Hopp during the August 17th incident. 19-year-old Patrick Hover, who prosecutors said was the “wheelman,”  and 33-year-old Yosvani Galindo, of Omaha, plead guilty to charges of 2nd degree burglary, and were given suspended prison sentences of 10 years each. Both were sentenced to two years of supervised probation.  Hover was ordered to reside at a Council Bluffs half-way house.

Prosecutors say the three men had been smoking methamphetamine in the countryside near Malvern when they hatched a plot to burglarize a nearby farmhouse. During the incident, Martinez was shot by Hopp, who said the shooting was an accident. He said he was outside his home after confronting the burglars when he fell, discharging the weapon.  In December, a grand jury decided not to indict him. In an interview Monday at his Council Bluffs home, Martinez, who has a wife and seven children, said he and the other two were only looking for a place to stay overnight. He told the paper, “I just thought it was an abandoned house.”

Both home sales and home prices held fairly steady in Iowa last year compared to 2010. That’s according to the latest report from the Iowa Association of Realtors. Association president Dale Gross, of Atlantic, says 2,430 homes were sold last month – 154 more than in December 2010. Gross said it marked the fifth consecutive month of increased home sales. In all 12 months of 2011, 31,089 homes were sold – just 135 more than 2010. The median sale price of an Iowa home in 2011 was $122,000, a one-point-two-percent (1.2%) decline from 2010. “There’s been an increase in the lower end of the housing sales numbers and that’s probably being driven by a lot of the foreclosed or distressed properties. They’re selling for much, much less,” Gross explained. Average prices in Iowa should increase as more of those distressed properties are taken off the market. Gross said he’s already seeing signs that prices will rise based on inventory. “This last month, we had 7.4 months (worth) of homes available to sell – based on the average monthly sales. That happens to be down from nine (months) a year ago,” Gross said. “So, that inventory is slacking off, which means there is a likelihood of higher prices in the future because inventory is dropping.”

(Pat Curtis/Radio Iowa)

The U-S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa said Wednesday, a New Zealand Osteopathic physician whose children live in Greenfield, was sentenced last week to five-years probation for willingly failing to pay child support. Dr. Greg Michael Singer, D.O. of Napier, New Zealand, a former Rock Island, Illinois resident, was also ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Longstaff to pay $209,000 in restitution to the Iowa Child Support Recovery Unit for past due payments owed to his ex-wife for the support of their four children and herself.

In an amended child support order of August 2006, the Iowa District Court for Adair Country ordered the 50-year old Singer to pay child support of $2,142 per month until his oldest child turned 19, $1,932 when three children were eligible for support, $1,626 when two children when two children were eligible for support, and $1,104 as long as his last child was under 19. During the divorce, Singer was also found guilty of criminal contempt of court for willfully disobeying the court’s order to promptly return a vehicle to his wife for her use and that of the children. As special conditions of his probation, Singer, who is listed as a physician for “The Doctors,” an accident and medical centre in Napier, New Zealand, was ordered to find employment, surrender his passport, limit his travel to the states of Iowa and Illinois, and start making the court-ordered child support payments for the two remaining children who still reside at home with their mother.

According to the court, it chose five years of probation over sending the defendant to jail for six months in order to monitor Singer’s compliance with its restitution order and Singer’s duty to pay ongoing child support. The court warned Singer he could still be sentenced to some form of incarceration if he violates the terms of his probation by failing to fulfill these duties. Singer’s request to renew his passport was denied by the United States Department of State because the State of Iowa reported he owed more than $2,500 in past due child support. The passport sanction means the State Department can deny an application for a passport, refuse to renew a passport, restrict or limit the use of a passport, or revoke a passport. The passport sanction is not removed until the overdue support is paid.

The Iowa Child Support Recovery Unit sends updates to the U.S. State Department every month. The Iowa Board of Medicine suspended Dr. Singer’s medical license on July 14, 2011 “for failing to pay a debt owed to the Iowa Department of Revenue.” His Illinois medical license was also recently suspended for tax problems. The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General and the State of Iowa, and was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.