Police in Red Oak, late Tuesday night, arrested a man on an aggravated misdemeanor charge of Harassment in the 1st Degree. 43-year-old Kim Jack Douglas Trost, of Red Oak, was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on $2,000 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – Officials say a vandal trying to steal copper wire risked being electrocuted by 69-thousand volts of electricity and raided an active power substation in southwest Iowa on Monday night. About 11-hundred Clarinda area residents lost power about 11 P-M and MidAmerican Energy spokesman Geoff Greenwood says a utility crew quickly identified the cause of the outage.

Greenwood says repairs to the damaged substation took a few hours to complete.

Greenwood says vandals have tried to take copper wire from MidAmerican substations in the past, and it’s a potentially deadly proposition.

Greenwood says they’ve seen similar acts at substations in Hastings, Glenwood, and twice in Emerson. According to the Page County Sheriff’s Office, a suspect was arrested Tuesday in connection with the incident.

Des Moines, Iowa- A man from eastern Iowa is facing a felony charge of insurance fraud. The Iowa Insurance Division reports 36-year-old Frank Paul Tarasi, of Hiawatha ,was charged with one count of Fraudulent Submissions (a Class D Felony), following an investigation by the Iowa Insurance Divisions Fraud Bureau.

The charge against Tarasi stems from an investigation which began in May of 2022.  According to a criminal complaint filed by the Iowa Insurance Division’s Fraud Bureau, while Tarasi was working as an insurance producer, he altered documents and submitted them in support of a life insurance policy knowing that they misrepresented material facts. Tarasi was seen for an initial appearance on September 2, 2022, and released on his own recognizance.

Frank Tarasi

And, a Davenport man, 42-year-old Jared Simmons, pled guilty on September 1, 2022, to one count Presenting False Information, a class “D” Felony, following an investigation by the Iowa Insurance Division’s Fraud Bureau. The investigation began in January 2021 after the Iowa Insurance Division’s Fraud Bureau received information indicating Simmons had provided false information to an insurer following an automobile accident in Scott County.

The investigation determined Simmons had made false representations regarding the nature of the loss in an effort to secure benefits of the policy. Simmons claimed that his vehicle sustained damage after hitting a deer when, in fact, the damage was sustained when Simmons was involved in a single-car accident while he was intoxicated. Simmons was arrested on February 3, 2022. Following his guilty plea, Simmons received a five year suspended prison sentence and placed on supervised probation for a period of two years. Simmons was also ordered to pay a fine of $1,025.

Iowans with information about insurance fraud are encouraged to contact the Iowa Insurance Divisions Fraud Bureau at 515-654-6556.

Note: A criminal charge is merely an accusation and a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa State University researchers are studying challenges facing Ukrainian refugees who settle in Iowa and they hope to build an app that will help groups to identify housing for refugees in the future. I-S-U civil engineering professor Cristina Poleacovschi wants to document the experiences of the refugees. She says stable housing is foundational to a refugee’s integration, but it’s not always readily available in the resettlement process. “Refugees are already a group of people who are experiencing trauma,” Poleacovschi says, “and whenever being resettled to a different place, if they are not provided with the right resources, that the effect of trauma on their quality of life is compounded.” She says the researchers will bring their work to policy-makers in hopes of improving conditions.

I-S-U political science professor Scott Feinstein says the team will document what the refugee are going through in hopes of bringing their often-marginalized voice to the forefront. “With the intent to bring the voice and challenges that refugees are facing to those who are planning cities, who are, you know, stakeholders in these communities,” Feinstein says. He says the project will also explore how refugee arrivals shape our national identity.

(reporting by Kendall Crawford, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – Sioux City police were able to quickly arrest two people who allegedly drove by students leaving school and fired an airsoft pistol at them Tuesday. Sergeant Jeremy McClure describes what happened.

Airsoft guns fire rubber B-Bs. McClure says the school resource officer responded and the two suspects were taken into custody quickly.

The school district put all elementary schools on lockdown after the shooting was reported until the two suspects were arrested.