Marion man who killed Chris Bagley sentenced to 5 more years for firearms

CEDAR RAPIDS — A Marion man, already serving 57 years for murder, was sentenced Monday to five more years, but this time in federal prison for a firearm conviction.

Johnny Blahnik Church, 35, formerly known as Drew Blahnik, would have faced less prison time for being a drug user in possession of a firearm according to the federal sentencing guidelines. But U.S. District Judge C.J. Williams increased his time by taking away points for acceptance of responsibility, which most offenders receive for pleading.

Williams said he was denying it because Blahnik Church attacked and violently beat a jail inmate, Ethan Palmer, on May 27 in the Linn County Jail while awaiting this sentencing. He said Blahnik Church has “trouble controlling his violence.”

Blahnik Church murdered a man, Chris Bagley, 31, of Walker, in December 2018, and then assaulted Palmer in a “calculated, designed attack,” Williams said. Palmer wasn’t capable of fighting or resisting Blahnik Church and the other inmate enlisted to help. Palmer, in a video recording of the attack the judge viewed, could hardly stand up after the “brutal attack,” Williams noted.

“He’s a violent man who isn’t deterred by the criminal justice system,” Williams added.

Leon Spies, Blahnik Church’s lawyer, asked for less prison time. He cited mitigating factors such as his client’s military service and his post-traumatic stress disorder that resulted from his tours of duty with the U.S. Army. Spies said Blahnik Church’s experiences have made him hyper vigilant and that’s why he had a loaded gun and knives in his residence. It wasn’t related to his drug dealing. It was from “fear he had every single night,” Spies said.

Evidence showed Blahnik Church had a loaded 40-caliber handgun on an ottoman in the living room and the marijuana cartridges were in the bedroom when police searched his Marion apartment on Feb. 25, 2019. Law enforcement also found multiple rounds of ammunition.

He was previously convicted in Linn County District Court of possession of a controlled substance — marijuana, a serious misdemeanor.

Blahnik Church, during the hearing, said he served honorably in the military, asked for less prison time and requested that this sentence to run concurrently with his 57 years in state prison for second-degree murder.

Williams said he was running the five years consecutively to the murder, as well as any sentence for the jail assault if Blahnik Church is convicted.

Blahnik Church was charged in August in Linn County District Court with willful injury resulting in serious injury, a felony, and tampering with a witness, an aggravated misdemeanor, for assaulting Palmer in an attempt to stop Palmer from testifying against a drug dealer.

If convicted, he faces up to 12 years in prison.

Jail assault

According to a criminal complaint, Blahnik Church, along with Gregory Sills, 49, of Oelwein, followed Ethan Palmer, the drug informant, into the bathroom in their cell pod at the Linn County Jail on May 27. They began “striking” Palmer, and eventually dragged him out into the main area of the cell block and continued to attack him.

Blahnik Church and Sills “repeatedly punched, kicked and hit Palmer with a metal lunch tray causing serious injuries.” Palmer’s injuries included a broken nose, two broken orbital bones, a torn retina, chipped teeth and a broken knee, the complaint states.

A complaint hasn’t been filed on Sills, who will be charged separately in the assault.

Palmer’s wife, Laurie Palmer, told The Gazette in August about the attack on her husband. Law enforcement and court documents from a federal conviction of the drug dealer, Justin Michael Buehler, 39, who Palmer testified against, confirmed the assault.

Buehler was convicted in U.S. District Court in June on two counts of distributing methamphetamine.

Linn County Sheriff Brian Gardner previously told The Gazette that none of the jail staff witnessed the assault. In reviewing surveillance video, jail administration said that “from the time the assault started until the time Palmer was removed from the cell block was just over three minutes.”

Gardner said “no one made staff aware of the assault until Palmer pushed the call button.”

Jail staffers aren’t told which inmates are testifying against whom in court, Gardner added. They receive only a remand, placing detainees in the county’s custody, and any no-contact orders between inmates.

The U.S. Marshals didn’t have a no-contact order between Palmer and Blahnik Church before the assault, he said.

Blahnik Church, who claimed self-defense in the Bagley killing, was convicted by a Linn County jury in July 2021 of second-degree murder, obstruction of prosecution and abuse of a corpse. He stabbed Bagley 13 times in the neck and torso.

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