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Three suspects charged in death of Marengo man

July 20, 2009 By

Authorities in eastern Iowa are investigating the second murder in Marengo in less than two months. The Iowa County Sheriff’s office identifies the latest victim as 33-year-old Curtis Bailey. He was found dead inside his home near downtown Marengo early Sunday morning. Bailey’s common-law wife, 43-year-old Denise Frei, and two others are charged with first-degree murder. The other suspects, Jacob Hilgendorf and Jessica Anne Dayton, are both 19-years-old and from Belle Plaine.

Marengo resident Robert Lindsey spoke with KCRG-TV and said he enjoyed having Bailey as a neighbor. "He was a super neighbor. He used to come and bring me mushrooms during mushroom season. Anytime I needed help, he was always there," Lindsey said. "To me, he was really a good guy, a super guy." Other neighbors say Frei is Hilgendorf’s mother and Dayton is Hilgendorf’s girlfriend. Authorities did not confirm that information and have not said how Bailey was killed. An autopsy is scheduled for today.

Court records indicate Bailey served some jail time and a year of probation on a charge of domestic abuse in 2004. This is the second murder investigation in the Marengo area in recent weeks. Thirty-seven-year-old Tonch Weldon is accused in the June 7 shooting death of 35-year-old Amy Gephart.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Regulators won’t decide on new casino licenses ’til 2010

July 20, 2009 By

Although state gambling regulators set an October 1 deadline for counties that hope to win a license for a new casino, the decision on which — if any — get licenses will be made next year.

Greg Seyfer, an attorney from Cedar Rapids, is chairman of the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission.

"It will be 2010 before decisions are made," Seyfer says. "(With) applications in by October 1, at that stage, I mean, we don’t know if we’re going to have one applicant, if we’re going to have five. We just need to see what we’re dealing with before we decide a timeline for proceeding."

Voters in five Iowa counties — Franklin, Lyon, Tama, Wapello and Webster — have approved gambling referendums, but Seyfer isn’t assuming all five will apply for a license.

"At this stage we don’t know who will apply," Seyfer says. "…We have no idea until we see the applications and discuss them."

It’s possible no new licenses will be granted.

"Definitely, I think the consensus is that we need to look at the impact on the existing casinos," Seyfer says.

One of the requirements for those who apply for a new gambling license is that they show they’ve got the financing lined up for their proposed casino. That could be difficult in the current environment, with Terrible’s in Osceola — one of the state’s existing casinos — going through bankruptcy.

"It’s in the back of our minds and it’s just a clear indication of the state of the economy and, I think, the issue of financing," Seyfer says. "I think people would like to proceed, but is it feasible? Is it realistic? And maybe now might not be the time to apply."

This past Thursday, the five-member Racing and Gaming Commission reelected Seyfer as its chairman. His current term on the board is set to expire at the end of next April.

Filed Under: Business, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , , , ,

Sex assault suspect arrested in Omaha

July 20, 2009 By

An Omaha man who was wanted in connection with the kidnapping and sexual assault of a Lincoln, Nebraska, woman earlier this month, was arrested over the weekend on unrelated charges.

Omaha Police took 19-year-old Omar Perez into custody Saturday, on charges of burglary, possession of burglary tools and misdemeanor criminal mischief. He’s currently being held in the Douglas County, Nebraska, jail. Additional charges of kidnapping in the third-degree, and assault with the intent to commit sexual abuse are pending out of Pottawattamie County, Iowa.

Authorities allege Perez assaulted a 31-year-old woman whom he met at the Casa Del Sol Restaurant in Omaha, and left her partially nude along Highway 6. The incident is alleged to have occurred during the early morning hours of July 13th. A worker en-route to the Oakland Foods processing plant discovered the woman at around 3:30 that same morning, and brought her to the plant, where she was given clothes and authorities were contacted.

The woman was initially said to have been 14-years-old, but officials acknowledge that information was incorrect.

 


Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Motorcycle chase in NW IA reaches speeds of 123 mph

July 20, 2009 By

North central Iowa authorities have charged a New Hampton man after a high-speed motorcycle chase on Saturday night.

The Floyd County Sheriff’s Office says a deputy tried to stop 21-year-old Michael Shekelton for a traffic violation at around 9:30 Saturday night, saying that he failed to stop, with Shekelton then attempting to elude the deputy at speeds as high as 123 miles per hour.

That chase led authorities through parts of rural Floyd County for about 20 minutes before returning to Charles City. They say Shekelton was arrested after he supposedly tried to hide behind a building in Charles City.

Shekelton has been charged with eluding, excessive speeding up to 123 in a 30 mile per hour zone; 14 counts of failure to obey a stop sign or signal; unsafe passing; and driving on the wrong side of a divided highway.

 

Filed Under: Crime & Courts Tagged With:

Iowa astronauts recall Apollo 11 inspiration

July 20, 2009 By

The two Iowans in America’s astronaut corps both point to the historic first moon landing 40 years ago today as the spark that launched their successful careers in space exploration. Peggy Whitson of Beaconsfield and Jim Kelly of Burlington have both rocketed into orbit on multiple NASA missions in recent years.

Astronaughts

Whitson, in an interview from 2007, talked about watching the Apollo 11 mission on T-V as a girl, wide-eyed as Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon on July 20th of 1969. “I thought what a cool job,” Whitson says, laughing. “It really didn’t become a reality to me, to become a goal, until graduated from high school which was, coincidentally, the same year they picked the first set of female astronauts. I think that was when I decided I wanted to become an astronaut.”

Whitson has since set several records of her own, including being the first Iowa woman in space, being named the first female commander of the International Space Station and spending more than a year in orbit on her two space station missions. Her 377 days in space is the most of any U-S astronaut. Whitson also peformed six spacewalks, totalling nearly 40 hours, more than any other woman.

Astronaut Jim Kelly has flown two space shuttle missions, both as the pilot of Discovery, in 2001 and 2005. In this Radio Iowa interview from earlier this year, Kelly says he’d love to be assigned to Project Orion, the space agency’s name for the new missions to the moon, Mars and beyond.

“When I first came (to NASA), I was all fired up about it, thinking that we’d be able to do that faster than we have,” Kelly says. “When I caught fire from the space program as a kid watching the initial moon landing, I naturally assumed back then that we’d just keep doing it so it’s surprising to me still that it’s going to take so long to get back there.”

Virtually everyone has heard the historic recording of what Neil Armstrong said as he first stepped on the moon in July of 1969 — “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Kelly was asked if he had ever pondered what he would say if he ever got the chance to walk on the moon.

“Never,” Kelly says, laughing. “Nope, that’s not something that ever occurred to me, to think about that kind of stuff. It would be far more interesting what you were going to do there than what you were going to say there, probably.” 

Under the current timeline, Orion is to start flying in about six years with Americans perhaps again making bootprints in moondust by 2020. Kelly says he’s thrilled NASA is making significant progress with Project Orion as a replacement for the shuttle fleet. “I’m really, really happy to see that America is back on the course to go to the moon and beyond that, to Mars, and to keep going out, so it’s something that’s been a long time coming,” Kelly says. “I’m very, very excited about the possibility of that. It’s exciting to have a new program starting up. It’s bittersweet to see the shuttle (program) end however it’s time for the shuttle to come to an end because it’s an aging vehicle that’s been around for a very long time.”

The space shuttle Columbia was the first to go into space in 1981. Project Orion is expected to become reality in about six years and may be landing Americans on the moon in 2020.

Filed Under: Human Interest Tagged With:

Iowa educators wowed on China trip

July 20, 2009 By

Three Iowa educators just returned from an eight-day whirlwind tour of the world’s most populous nation, China. Lyle Schwartz, superintendent of the South Hamilton Community Schools in Jewell, explains the goals of the trip. Schwartz says, "To explore the Chinese culture and language and ultimately to increase the awareness of culture and language from China in the United States."

Schwartz and the other Iowans were part of a 400-member delegation from America. He was surprised by a few things during the extensive tour, which included a visit to the city of Harbin in northeastern China. "My eyes were opened a little bit in that there’s over 30 cities in China that are bigger than New York City," Schwartz says.

They visited an elementary school with an enrollment of 5,300 as well as a high school that was even larger. It was what would be considered a magnet or advanced placement school in the U.S. "One out of ten students that apply to this high school are accepted," Schwartz says. "That’s a little bit different. It wasn’t a private school but a public school. Their system operates differently in that regard."

He was also a bit taken aback by the English proficiency of the Chinese students. He says the 3rd and 4th graders spoke English very well. He says in just a very few years, China will be the largest English-speaking country in the world.

Schwartz was joined on the trip by two other Iowa educators from area education agencies in Cedar Rapids and Muscatine.

 

Filed Under: Education Tagged With:

Sioux City judge getting national attention for crack-dealing sentences

July 20, 2009 By

A judge in Sioux City is drawning national attention for equalizing the penalties for those caught dealing crack and powder cocaine.

Under federal law, someone accused of dealing five grams of crack can get a five-year sentence, while someone dealing powder cocaine would have to be caught with 500 grams to get the same, five-year sentence.

Court watchers believe Judge Mark Bennett has become the first federal judge in the country to base sentences for crack cocaine offenses using the guidelines for those caught with powder cocaine, significantly lowering the prison time for crack dealers.

"Many federal judges thought that the 100-to-one ratio created too much disparity," Bennett says. "The impact was to be highly-discriminatory towards African Americans." So,

Bennett’s sentences for crack dealers are now in line with those who deal powder cocaine. A few years ago, Bennett gave a crack dealer a much more lenient sentence — not quite as lenient as his recent sentences — and that case was appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"The United States Supreme Court said that district court judges, if we wanted to, had a right to disagree with the (sentencing) guidelines if we had policy differences," Bennett says. "And so I decided that the fairest thing to do would be to go to a one-to-one ratio."

So, Bennett is now sentencing crack and powder cocaine dealers on equal terms rather than imposing the significantly-longer sentences on those caught with crack. Douglas Berman, an Ohio State University criminal law professor who has been following this issue, says Bennett has taken a significant step.

"For quite some time just about everybody has expressed dissatisfaction with the 100-to-one status quo," Berman says. "Now, there’s a tangible and quite forceful statement of, ‘Hey, look! We as judges are taking this into our own hands.’"

Congress is considering bills that would equalize the penalties for dealing crack and powder cocaine.

Bennett, a 1975 graduate of Drake Law School, was appointed a federal judge for the Northern District of Iowa in 1994.

 

Filed Under: Crime & Courts Tagged With:
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