Police investigating nude photos put in Cedar Rapids council member's cubicle

Brand-new City Council member Don Karr has asked the Police Department to see if it can determine who puts a dozen nude color photos of women on a shelf in his newly occupied City Hall cubicle.

“Somebody was trying to set me up for a human resources problem,” at-large council member Karr, 64, said on Tuesday.

Karr, who took the oath of office on Jan. 2, said he took over a City Hall cubicle last Thursday and spent some of the day cleaning out some of what remained from the already cleaned-out desk and a set of stackable filing cabinets.

He returned to the cubicle on Friday afternoon, opened the top cabinet and found a dozen nude photos of females inside. The photos came from Playboy magazine and  had been downloaded off a computer, he said.

“Somebody at City Hall was trying to sabotage me,” said Karr, the longtime owner of Affordable Plumbing and Remodeling who now has sold the business to daughters.

Karr said he suspected that the perpetrator placed the photos there with the expectation that a city staff member might see the photos while helping get Karr's cubicle ready for him to work in it.

“I raised Cain,” he said. “It's a real insult.”

Karr reported the matter to the city's Human Resources Department, and he said he met with Police Chief Greg Graham on Monday. The Police Department is checking the documents for fingerprints, Karr said. Karr also has asked if there is any way to track computer coding on the photos to see from which computer they might have been downloaded.

Karr said his new City Hall cubicle is in a line of cubicles occupied by council colleagues Chuck Wieneke, Justin Shields and Chuck Swore. Other council members have chosen not to have cubicles at City Hall.

Karr said he doesn't know why he was singled out, “unless it has to do with some of things I'm going to question” about the way city government has been running.

He said the photos had to be placed by someone who had access to City Hall between Thursday evening and Friday afternoon.