The Associated Press
LEON, Iowa (AP) - As Jerry Wineland sees it, crimes pays pretty well in Decatur County.
A 19-year-old woman who confessed to robbing his home of $6,100 in cash and family photos was fined just $100. She left town in a van that police say was bought in part with money stolen from Wineland.
“It hurts,” Wineland said. “I really don’t think the case should have been prosecuted this way.”
Only four felony cases have gone to trial in Decatur County - just north of the Missouri-Iowa state line - over the past six years, according to records kept by the court clerk.
Sheriff Burt Muir, Deputy Sheriff Jim Lynch and Leon Police Chief Todd Byerly told The Des Moines Register that County Attorney Carol Clark appears to be dismissing or reducing criminal charges to avoid having to take them to trial.
Clark, the county’s part-time prosecutor for 10 years, says the problem lies with law enforcement officers who fail to get her the paperwork she needs.
“Some of them don’t even try, in my opinion,” she said.
Each side blames the other for bureaucratic bungling they say has gone on for years.
“With all these charges being dismissed, we’ve got people who are going to get hurt down here,” Muir told the Register. “It’s all because of sloppiness that’s going on, and it’s not our sloppiness.”
In the past two years, Clark has blamed at least three police agencies - the sheriff’s office, Leon police and the Iowa State Patrol - for failing to give her the proper paperwork.
Muir said he once tried to get Clark to sign receipts for the files. She agreed initially, but eventually began refusing to sign for the records, he said.
“I’ve had a couple instances where I took copies of the same case file to her four times in one week, and each time she said it was never delivered the time before,” Muir said.
The printed forms on which Clark explains to a judge why she is seeking dismissal includes as an option that “no police reports were provided or made available to the county attorney.”
Clark said she has tried to get the paperwork problems corrected.
“You know, I have no control over the police departments,” she said. “That’s under the mayors’ jurisdiction. And I went to the board of supervisors in reference to the county, and I went to the sheriff himself.”
State Patrol spokesman Jim Saunders said the patrol was never made aware of any paperwork problems when charges against Gerardo Navarro-Robles were dismissed.
Navarro-Robles, an unemployed Nebraska man, was charged with vehicular homicide in a traffic wreck that left three people dead, including his 12-year-old daughter. He also was charged with failure to have a driver’s license, reckless driving and giving false information to police.
Clark asked a judge to dismiss the vehicular homicide charges, saying troopers had not provided her with the necessary records. The charges were dropped and Navarro-Robles was fined $200 for two minor traffic offenses.
“There was no communication from the county attorney’s office that there was any intent to dismiss the charges,” Saunders said.
Muir said he became so frustrated that charges were not being pursued against a convicted sex offender that he asked a local newspaper to publicize the man’s arrest and criminal history.
“I felt like I had to warn the people of this county,” Muir said.
The sheriff said Clark was furious, but since has pursued the case.
Muir said he fears retaliation for speaking out about his problems with Clark, “but the thing is, something here has got to change.”