Jury finds Iowa City mandatory reporter not guilty in landmark trial

UPDATE: After deliberating for just two hours Friday, a six-member jury found Susan Freeman-Murdah not guilty in the state's first trial of a mandatory reporter accused of failing to report child abuse or neglect.

The verdict was a sealed verdict, meaning the jury handed the signed forms to the judge, who then contacted the attorneys by phone.

In closing arguments earlier Friday, Assistant Johnson County Attorney Meredith Rich-Chappell argued that a reasonable person trained as a mandatory reporter and experienced in running a child care center would not have immediately dismissed allegations from a mother concerned that a teacher had sexually abused her daughter.

But, Rich-Chappell said, that's what Susan Freeman-Murdah did.

Freeman-Murdah, director of Iowa City's Broadway Neighborhood Center accused of the state's first failure to report charge, said to the mother, “It didn't happen. It didn't happen here,” Rich-Chappell told the six jurors and one alternate chosen to hear Freeman-Murdah's four-day trial.

“Freeman said that to her because she had disregarded her role as a mandatory reporter,” Rich-Chappell said. “She should, as a mandatory reporter, be able to say, ‘This is a red flag. It might not have happened, but this is a red flag.'”

Rich-Chappell told jurors that “a reasonable mandatory reporter would have recognized the red flags and acknowledged those red flags as signs of possible sexual abuse.” And, she said, that reasonable mandatory reporter would have been required to make a report to the Iowa Department of Human Services.

Defense attorney Leon Spies argued that his client considered all the information at her disposal and, knowing sexual abuse did not occur, did not find cause to contact the state.

Judge Stephen Gerard told jurors before closing arguments that, to find Freeman-Murdah guilty of failure to report, the prosecution had to prove three things. Rich-Chappell had to show that Freeman-Murdah is a mandatory reporter, that she reasonably believed that the child in question had suffered abuse by a teacher at the center, and that Freeman-Murdah knowingly and willingly failed to report suspected child abuse.

Spies argued that his client never believed the child had been abused, and therefore did not willingly fail to report the crime. Rich-Chappell argued that a reasonable mandatory reporter would have suspected the complaint as legitimate and passed it over to authorities to investigate further.

“The state is not saying that she acted with a motive or didn't care for (the child),” Rich-Chappell said. “The state is alleging she made an assumption and never looked back. She considered the case as a boss. She considered it as director of the Broadway Neighborhood Center. But she did not consider the case as a mandatory reporter.”

The six-member jury is now deliberating Freeman-Murdah's fate.

Judge Gerard has not yet ruled on a motion for acquittal in the case. State officials have said they're watching the case as they believe it's the first of its kind in Iowa.

Freeman-Murdah, 44, was arrested Feb. 1 on suspicion of failure to report after police said a mother of a child who attends the center she oversees came to her in December with a report that a teacher there had taught her 3-year-old daughter how to kiss “passionately.” The mother, who The Gazette is not naming to protect the identity of her daughter, also said her daughter came home with her underwear inside out and with pain and a rash in her private area.

Rich-Chappell said the child had symptoms consistent with sexual abuse, and an Iowa City detective testified that the department is continuing to investigate whether someone else abused the child.

The original teacher named by the child has been cleared as a suspect in the case.

The Johnson County courtroom Friday morning was filled with supporters of Freeman-Murdah, along with the mother who contacted police about the suspected abuse to her daughter and police detectives who made the arrest.