(Radio Iowa) – Iowa may join 19 states that require age verification before someone can access a website to view porn. An Iowa House subcommittee has advanced a bill to force businesses that intentionally distribute obscene material to verify whether a person seeking online access is an adult.

Tom Chapman, executive director of the Iowa Catholic Conference, says the bill would protect children and help parents who don’t always know how to filter content on their kids’ phones. “This puts more of the obligation for protection on the provider and so we support that,” Chapman said. “We realize this bill doesn’t solve everything on the internet, but if we can put a speed bump along the way, I think it would be worth it for our state to do so.”

Logan Murray, a lobbyist for the Technology Association of Iowa, says the group supports the general concept of the bill, but has some concerns. “Websites with legitimate content could be at risk of being held liable or requiring age verification — medical publications, things along those lines,” Murray said. “Additionally, this would require a lot of data collection, which puts Iowans at risk for data breaches.”

A year ago, Governor Reynolds asked legislators to pass this kind of a law requiring age verification for access to websites with pornographic or indecent content.

(Des Moines, Iowa) – An Iowa judge has decided not to revoke the probation of a former nursing home worker accused of sexual impropriety at three different Iowa care facilities. Martell Guider, 37, was convicted last fall of sexual exploitation of a minor and given a 25-year suspended prison sentence and five years of probation.

According to the Iowa Capital Dispatch, the charge stemmed from allegations that in January 2024, while working at the Pleasantview Home in Kalona, Guider was acted inappropriately with a 17-year-old minor and later shared with others an explicit photo of the girl. According to the police, Guider threatened the minor to induce her to send him the photo via the social-messaging platform Snapchat.

As a condition of probation, Guider was required to maintain employment and a residence of some kind. In December, Guider’s probation officer notified the court that Guider was in violation of his probation by living out of his car and that his employment at Taco Bell had ended after he was fired.

Two weeks ago, Washington County District Court Judge Shawn Sowers ruled that Guider’s probation would not be revoked, which would have resulted in the 25-year prison term being imposed. Sowers ordered Guider to live at either the Washington County Jail or a state residential correctional facility for 180 days “or until maximum benefits have been achieved.” Prior to the incident at Pleasantview Home, Guider worked at nursing homes located in Audubon and Correctionville.

In Audubon, a female caregiver at Friendship Home filed a complaint with the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing in 2023 about Guider’s behavior. The woman – who filed similar complaints with management at the home and with city police – alleged Guider had been making suggestive remarks to female coworkers, had sent them photos of himself masturbating, had recorded video of one worker as she provided care for a resident, and had invited some of his female colleagues out to his car where he kept a bottle of Seagram’s Crown Royal.

A former nursing home employee has avoided probation revocation after being convicted of sexual exploitation of a minor at a Kalona care facility. In March 2023, while working at Friendship Home in Audubon, workers there reported the man sent them cell-phone photos of himself pleasuring himself, and was taking videos of his co-workers. (Photo illustration by Iowa Capital Dispatch, with Friendship Home photo via Google Earth. Text-message photo is deliberately blurred.)

The complainant provided the Iowa Capital Dispatch with screenshots of Guider’s alleged text messages, which include two photos of a man’s genitals and two photos of a man holding a bottle of Crown Royal inside a vehicle. Audubon police later acknowledged fielding complaints about Guider’s conduct at Friendship Home but said they didn’t pursue the matter. Officials at DIAL rejected the complaint they received about Guider, reportedly because the agency felt the matter was best addressed by management at Friendship Home.

Six months after the incident in Audubon, Guider was working at Correctionville Specialty Care when he was the target of a complaint that he had raped a resident of the home. State records show the alleged victim in that case told management an employee took her to his car in the facility’s parking lot, told her he was a musician, played some of his music to her, offered her a drink of Seagram’s Crown Royal from a bottle he kept in his car, and then forced her to have oral sex with him.

According to state inspectors, the alleged rape victim, who is not cognitively impaired, also alleged the worker sent her a video of himself (pleasing himself) and provided a copy of the video. After the woman reported the alleged rape, officials at Correctionville Specialty Care evicted the woman from the facility and dropped her off at a homeless shelter, according to state inspectors. Guider was terminated from employment at the Correctionville home, but state inspectors say the facility’s parent company, Care Initiatives of West Des Moines, continued to provide work for him in other Iowa nursing homes that it operates.

No criminal charges were filed in the case.

Des Moines, IA (IA HHS Press Release) – Last Friday, a federal court preliminarily approved a Settlement Agreement in a class action lawsuit brought against the Director of the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services (Iowa HHS) to ensure that children with mental health disabilities receive the legally required and medically necessary mental health care services they need when and where they need them, without being segregated from their loved ones and communities.

The proposed Settlement Agreement requires Iowa HHS to develop and roll out a set of key services statewide, including care coordination, in-home mental health services, and mobile crisis services. It also requires a new screening and assessment process, to ensure children with mental health disabilities are screened for appropriate services.

Through the settlement agreement process, Iowa HHS has agreed to develop a new array of services through the Iowa Responsive Excellent Care for Healthy youth initiative (Iowa REACH). Iowa REACH is a new approach to mental and behavioral health services, aimed at helping youth remain in their communities, and connecting the development of community-based services across Iowa.

“The agreement and our REACH strategy signify a major step in the right direction for Iowa youth and their families. We’ve spent several years seeking input from stakeholders, individuals and families directly affected and believe REACH is a comprehensive approach focused on providing core services and path forward to meet the unique mental and behavioral needs of Iowa’s children. Iowa HHS is fully committed to implementing new strategies and evaluating current outcomes to ensure we are meeting the needs that our children and youth deserve and families expect,” said Iowa HHS Director Kelly Garcia.

The Settlement Agreement also includes an Implementation Plan that will serve as a blueprint for improving and strengthening the delivery of intensive home-and community-based behavioral health services for children and establishing effective quality management and accountability systems.

The case was filed in early 2023 by Disability Rights Iowa, the National Health Law Program, Children’s Rights and Ropes & Gray on behalf of Medicaid-eligible children under the age of 21 with serious emotional and behavioral health conditions. The complaint alleges instances where a child was denied access to intensive services in their homes and communities, separated from their families and placed in psychiatric hospitals and similar institutions for extended periods, where their mental health deteriorates further.

“Disability Rights Iowa commends the significant work that has been done by all parties to develop this settlement agreement. The partnership between our agency, Children’s Rights, the National Health Law Program, Ropes and Gray, and Gov. Reynolds and her administration enabled this move towards addressing the needs of children with mental health conditions in Iowa. For decades, the lack of services available has put the effected children at a greater risk for institutionalization which takes them away from their families or caregivers who are best able to love and care for them. We are pleased to be a part of this monumental change in addressing the pitfalls of the current system and finding solutions to improve the mental and physical wellbeing and safety of Iowa’s youth,” adds Catherine Johnson, Executive Director of Disability Rights Iowa.

“The National Health Law Program is committed to defending the rights of people with disabilities to access high-quality, community-integrated health care, free from discrimination, including vital mental health services. This commitment includes ending the unnecessary institutionalization of children and youth by ensuring they receive the care they need within their homes and communities,” said Kim Lewis, Managing Director, California Advocacy, and Practice Area Managing Director, National Health Law Program. “This Settlement Agreement marks a crucial step toward securing robust Medicaid home- and community-based services for Iowa’s children, along with better care coordination services and mobile crisis response services. We will continue to advocate for policies that ensure children in Iowa and across the country have access to essential mental health services.”

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) joined President Donald Trump Wednesday (today) at the White House for the signing of Sarah’s Law. The bill was included as an amendment to the Laken Riley Act to strengthen the legislation by requiring illegal immigrants who have committed violent crimes against Americans to be detained.

“Today is the culmination of a nine-year battle for justice for Sarah Root,” said Ernst. “Finally, after years of working on this bill and under the leadership of President Trump, our nation’s laws will no longer prioritize illegal immigrants over Americans. I will never stop fighting for Iowans and putting their safety first to ensure that no family has to endure the pain that the Roots were forced to.”

Senator Ernst with Sarah Root’s father, Scott Root.

Ernst’s bill honors Iowan Sarah Root, who was killed on January 31, 2016, the night of her college graduation, by an illegal immigrant driving drunk. Before her family could even lay her to rest, a loophole in the law allowed her killer to be released and escape justice for his crime.

Sarah’s father, Scott Root, also attended the signing ceremony at the White House.

(Radio Iowa)  – Hundreds of new Iowa residents face more challenges as the Trump administration has ordered all resettlement agencies in the U.S. to stop providing services to refugees.

Agencies are no longer allowed to access federal funding to find homes for those fleeing persecution. Nick Wuertz, director of refugee services for Lutheran Services in Iowa, says more than 800 individuals in Iowa have now lost access to this transitional program, and more than half of them are children.

“We’re continuing to show up each day, and serve families and continue to provide services,” Wuertz says. “We don’t know yet if and how we’ll be able to pay for some of those things.”

Wuertz says resettlement agencies provide financial assistance for basic living expenses, while Lutheran Services in Iowa covers those expenses for the refugees’ first 90 days in the U.S.

“There are no other community services that do that, or that people can be referred to,” Wuertz says. “It’s really the only way that families have an opportunity to understand their new community, get on their feet, find jobs and get settled.”

Wuertz says roughly 80 percent of LSI’s funding comes from the federal government.

(Radio Iowa) –  [UPDATED] – State Treasurer Roby Smith hosted an event today to return an Iowan’s Purple Heart his closest living relative. Smith says the Purple Heart was found in a safety deposit box a bank turned over to his office as unclaimed property. “It took a lot of homework, but we finally tracked it down,” Smith said. “We had been in possession of this for several years.”

Garold Hayes of Tama died in 2015 and the safety deposit box was his. Nancy Clark, his cousin, accepted the medal on behalf of the Hayes family. “I was around him quite a bit when we were kids, but I lost contact with him. I thought he was younger than me,” she said. “He was a cute little boy, but we were the same age, but I think he was sheltered because his mother had a child that died just before he was born, so he was a good cousin.”

It’s unclear who the Purple Heart was awarded to because there was no paperwork in the safety deposit box where it was found. According to the obituary for Garold Hayes, he spent most of his life in Tama and was buried in a cemetery in Pleasantville, where he was born.

The state treasurer said his office has another Purple Heart in its possession and would like to return the medal to a relative. “Herman Eggers of Waterloo is who it was awarded to and so if there’s a way we can help find the next of kin for that, we sure would appreciate it,” Smith said.

Papers found with the Purple Heart indicate Eggers served in the Korean War. According to a brief online obituary, Eggers died in a Waterloo nursing home in 2020 at the age of 91 and had formerly lived in Charles City.

(Guthrie Center, Iowa) – The Guthrie County Sheriff’s Office reports three accidents took place over the past week, with one resulting in minor injuries. Authorities say 18-year-old Marshall Dickson, of Stuart, suffered from a chipped tooth when the 2006 Chevy Monte Carlo he was reportedly test driving before buying the vehicle from a friend, went onto the rumble strips on the gravel, as the vehicle was going down hill on York Avenue, causing the vehicle to lose traction on a curve. The car entered a ditch and struck several small trees, which caused the left front tire and rim to ripped off of the vehicle. The car’s airbags deployed during the crash, which happened at around 7-p.m. on Monday, January 27th. Dickson was cited for Failure to Maintain Control. The vehicle sustained $2,600 damage.

Saturday evening, a 2015 GMC Yukon driven by 19-year-old Thea Alexander, of Boone, was backing out of the Casey’s parking lot in Guthrie Center, when it struck a gas pump, causing an estimated $5,000 damage to the vehicle. The gas pump sustained about $2,000 damage, and was shut-down by Casey’s staff, following the accident. No citations were issued.

The third accident happened on White Pole Road in Guthrie County, at around 6:40-p.m. on January 23rd. The Guthrie County Sheriff’s Office says a 2015 Dodge Grand Caravan driven by 72-year-old Michael Freestone, of Redfield, was traveling east in the 3400 block of White Pole and rounding a curve, when a vehicle approaching from the west entered the eastbound lane. The unknown vehicle struck the van, causing the driver’s side mirror of the van to be torn-off. The other vehicle didn’t stop, and could not be located by authorities. Damage from the incident amounted to $1,500.

(Greenfield, Iowa) – The Board of Supervisors in Adair County today (Wednesday), authorized Board Chair Nathan Baier to sign OSHA Form 300A, which pertains to work-related injuries and illnesses records. Auditor Mandy Berg said the form needs to be submitted by February 1st each year.The signed form will be posted in all County locations. The Board also approved a Tax Suspension request by the Adair County Treasurer Brenda Wallace said her office hasn’t had a similar request for about nine-years. The request pertained to a property owner who has passed away.

In other business, the Board approved Dispatch/Jailer wages increases.

Afterward, they approved a wage increase for the Adair County Courthouse Custodian.

And, they approved FY26 Salaries/Wages, which included a five-percent wage increase for all elected officials and hourly part-time employees, except for the Attorney’s Office. The Attorney is getting a $10,000 adjustment for switching from part-time to full-time. The Board concluded their regular business and moved into a Budget Work Session.