The Iowa Court of Appeals has refused to overturn the theft conviction of the former Dallas County Sheriff who allegedly took $120,000. Former Sheriff Brian Gilbert was found guilty of first-degree theft after money confiscated in a traffic stop in March of 2006 turned up missing.

The money had been put in a vehicle that Gilbert was driving back to the Sheriff’s office from a D-O-T garage where officers had counted and taken pictures of the money. A deputy report that one of the bags of money shown in the picture was not there once the money was delivered to the Sheriff’s office.

Gilbert was found guilty by a jury and given a suspended sentence and placed on probation for five years. He appealed claiming there is insufficient evidence in the record to support his conviction. The appeals court ruled that the evidence showed the money was in a different place in the vehicle when Gilbert arrived at the Sheriff’s Department, and that one of the packages in the picture was missing.

The court also noted that Gilbert did not say until the investigation had started that he had stopped at his home on the way to the Sheriff’s office. The court says there is sufficient evidence to find Gilbert guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and the evidence raised more than mere suspicion that Gilbert was the person who took the missing package of money.