The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation announced Tuesday afternoon that a state trooper’s been fired. D-C-I director Gene Meyer says his agency began the investigation in February after being contacted by a family member of the victim, and discovered sufficient probable cause to file a charge of second-degree sexual abuse against 39-year-old Karl Ronald Kluender of Huxley (Shown in photo above). Kluender was taken into custody in Des Moines by the DCI on Tuesday morning, jailed in Polk County on 32-thousand dollars bond pending an initial appearance before a judge.
Allegations indicate Kluender was off-duty when he had sexual contact with a 7-year-old girl in Denison in 1993. Meyer says the victim’s now 18, and lives out of the state.
The investigation’s ongoing and Meyer says there is no indication there were other victims. He also says they’ve found nothing illegal that Kluender did while he was on duty. Public-safety spokesman Jim Saunders was at the press conference, apologizing for not having more information to release yet.
Saunders says the information they released this week was preliminary, the complaint and affidavit remain sealed, and that information probably won’t get any more information until Kluender makes an initial appearance in Crawford County Court. Kluender joined the patrol in August 1990 and served as a trooper out of District One headquarters in Des Moines. Colonel Robert Garrison, head of the Iowa State Patrol, says based on the investigation, Kluender’s employment with the patrol was terminated. The attorney general’s office will handle the legal prosecution of the case.