A 27-year-old man from the eastern Iowa town of Lowden has been sentenced to a decade in prison after bringing a 14-year-old Minnesota girl to Iowa and hiding her as her parents searched for the teenager.
The federal judge who sentenced 27-year-old Randy Abels described him as “a predator.” According to a plea agreement, Abels admits he met the teenager online and the two exchanged sexually explicit videos and texts. Abels picked the girl up in Minnesota and the two were found in a park in Cedar County in 2020.
The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports Abels also has faced felony charges in state court for allegedly taking the same girl from Minnesota to his home in eastern Iowa and sexually assaulting her.