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Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Iowa paroles dangerous offenders too often, officials say
Official: ‘Our current prison release process is unsafe for our communities’
Mario Goodson broke into the home of a woman with whom he has a child, beat her up and coerced her into having sex with him in December 2016, court records show.
The 42-year-old Waterloo man was sentenced in March 2018 to 25 years in prison with a requirement he serve 85 percent of the time — which means his earliest release date was supposed to be July 2039.
But last fall, the Iowa Department of Corrections recommended Goodson be put on work release, which meant he would be freed from prison and allowed to live and work in the community less than five years into the sentence, causing alarm for the victim.
“The County Attorney has received several calls from community members, victim/family, etc. wanting to know why this individual is out of prison and in Work Release?” Ken Kolthoff, director of the 1st Judicial District Department of Correctional Services, wrote Nov. 3 to Iowa Corrections Director Beth Skinner, Board of Parole Chair Nick Davis and several others in the Corrections Department.
“I cannot imagine he has met the terms of the 85%???,” Kolthoff wrote of Goodson. “Regardless, is this the ‘low risk’ person we want out after a year? He has a substantial record including another sex crime in 1999.”
Katrina Carter, an assistant deputy director at the Corrections Department, wrote back a short time later saying she did not realize Goodson was required to serve a mandatory minimum sentence.
“Randy is working with Mike Heinricy to send staff to pick up Mr. Goodson. Please keep him at the (residential facility),” Carter wrote. “Great catch and my sincere apologies for this. So thankful everyone is OK.”
Some Eastern Iowa officials are concerned Iowa offenders are being released from prison too soon — in cases like Goodson’s, before their sentences even allow, and in other cases before the inmates had a chance to receive treatment or positive programming in prison. There have been at least two Eastern Iowa cases in which mistakes were caught by others outside the prison system.
“In my 34 years in parole work, I have never experienced a time when so many violent offenders were being released after serving such a short portion of their sentence,” said Bruce Vander Sanden, director of the 6th Judicial District Department of Correctional Services, based in Cedar Rapids.
“Our current prison release process is unsafe for our communities,” he said.
Right now, local community-based corrections boards serve as a safety net — alerting officials if there’s a problem and helping come up with local treatment solutions for people on probation and parole. An example of local collaboration is the Anchor Center, a 26-bed residential treatment center in Cedar Rapids for parolees and probationers with mental health and substance abuse issues.
A massive government reorganization bill signed Tuesday by Gov. Kim Reynolds siphons power from the local boards — which include sheriffs, county supervisors, health care providers and attorneys — and puts all decision-making authority with the Des Moines-based state Corrections Department.
“You have to have checks and balances,” said Sheila Wilson, who served on the Iowa Board of Parole from 2013 to 2019 after working in the Illinois Department of Corrections for 10 years.
“Referring to the case of a sex offender being released,” she said of Goodson. “I can’t even imagine that particular situation happening. This means you have several people who basically were not doing their jobs to protect the public.”
Some local board members echoed Wilson’s concerns.
“I think the opportunity for more mistakes is gong to be much larger than it already is,” said Scott Cerwinske, a Chickasaw County supervisor and member of the 1st District board. “My big concern is we’re always talking about mental health. What problems are we going to run into now with people released when they probably shouldn’t be?”
High-profile murder case
Before a person is paroled from prison, Corrections Department staff review the case to see how much time the prisoner has served, how he or she has acted in prison, what the plan is once released and other factors. The agency does not have a rubric for weighing these factors, but people who make the cut are recommended for parole.
The Board of Parole, five people appointed by the governor, reviews the Corrections Department’s recommendations using criteria included in Iowa Administrative Code 205-8.10. The group decides whether to approve or deny parole, a form of early release in which an offender agrees to meet behavioral conditions, including checking in with a parole officer, or risk being returned to prison.
The board paroled 1,503 people in fiscal 2021, according to the most recent Corrections Department annual report.
One case that raised alarms in Eastern Iowa is that of Henry Dinkins, 50, of Davenport, who spent just seven weeks in prison after being sentenced to up five years in October 2019 for third-offense drunken driving and driving while barred.
Dinkins is on the sex offender registry from a 1990 conviction of third-degree sex abuse when he was 17 and his victim was 13 or younger.
He’d also been arrested multiple times on charges that included assault while displaying a dangerous weapon, domestic violence, drug possession, theft and eluding, the Associated Press reported. Prosecutors dropped a 2009 murder charge after determining Dinkins was a witness, not the killer.
Dinkins lived in a minimum-security Davenport facility until spring 2020, when the state Corrections Department recommended him for parole. The Parole Board granted Dinkins full parole, determining he was “able and willing to fulfill the obligations of a law-abiding citizen,” the AP said.
On July 9, 2020, Breasia Terrell, 10, disappeared while staying at Dinkins’ house in Davenport.
Dinkins was charged in May 2021 with first-degree murder and kidnapping and is accused of shooting Breasia and dumping her body in a Clinton County pond, where two fishermen found the remains in March 2021.
Dinkins’ trial is set for Aug. 8 in Linn County.
When asked about Dinkins’ release, 7th Judicial District Department of Correctional Services Director Waylyn McCulloh told the AP it was “standard process” for repeat drunken-driving offenders.
“It’s a horrible situation and a horrific crime,” McCulloh said in May 2021. “But of course we have to keep in mind that he has yet to be convicted.”
‘He’s out early’
Kyle W. Netolicky, 24, of Cedar Rapids, was sentenced Sept. 14, 2021, to nine years in prison for two charges of operating a motor vehicle without an owner’s consent. Before that, Netolicky was convicted of theft, arson, assaults on police officers and probation violations.
Netolicky entered prison in September 2021. Corrections staff recommended him for parole in March 2022, but the Parole Board decided not to release him. Staff again asked in August 2022 for Netolicky to be released, and this time the Parole Board agreed.
He entered work release Oct. 21, 2022, which meant he spent about 13 months of the nine-year sentence in prison. Netolicky was arrested Feb. 27 after police allege he led officers on a high-speed chase and struck a house in a vehicle, KCRG-TV reported.
Jovon T. Ellis, Jr., 21, of Cedar Rapids, pleaded guilty June 15, 2020, to first-degree theft and going armed with intent connected to a Jan. 27, 2020, incident in which he robbed a female Kennedy High School student of her cellphone at gunpoint. He also pleaded guilty to extortion for holding up three others in an earlier incident.
Sixth Judicial District Judge Fae Hoover Grinde sentenced Ellis on June 15, 2020, to 15 years in prison. He petitioned several times to have his sentence reconsidered, but Hoover Grinde said no, court records show.
After he served 10 months in prison, the Corrections Department recommended Ellis for release. The Parole Board declined twice, but the third time — 19 months into Ellis’ 15-year sentence — the board paroled him. But in November, Ellis was charged with armed robbery in Coralville.
“I was like, ‘Why the heck is he even out?’” Coralville Police Chief Shane Kron said. “Anybody who looks at it and saw his past offenses would say, ‘He’s out early’.”
But Kron also understands the flip side. “I’m sure there are people out who don’t reoffend,” he said. “If you looked at their criminal histories and say ‘Why are they out?’ but they are doing fine. We only see the ones who don’t work.”
Judge reiterates sentence
The Parole Board in February 2022 reversed its decision to parole Lamar C. Wilson, who was scheduled to be released less than four years into a 24-year sentence for voluntary manslaughter and two other charges related to a 2017 fatal shooting on the Iowa City Pedestrian Mall.
“I don’t feel like justice was served,” Shafona Jones, the mother of Kaleek Jones, who was gunned down Aug. 17, 2017, said in 2021 after the initial parole decision.
The Corrections Department had recommended Wilson’s release after misunderstanding his prison sentence, Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness said last year. The department provides the parole board with information on the inmate, including the prison time served and whether there is credit for days served.
Sixth Judicial District Court Judge Paul Miller took the unusual step of reiterating Wilson’s sentence in a Nov. 4, 2021, order.
“The order clearly state that all counts were to be run consecutive to each other for a total prison term not to exceed twenty-four (24) years,” Miller wrote. “The court further ordered … the defendant should serve a minimum of five (5) years on Count IV.”
The Corrections Department did not respond to The Gazette in 2022 when the decision was reversed.
Parole Board pay
A former Parole Board member last month filed a lawsuit against the state, Reynolds and a former chair, alleging the board had made illegal decisions to release people from prison.
Kathleen Kooiker, of Osceola, who served on the board from 2018 to 2021, said in the lawsuit she was wrongfully discharged from the paid position when she complained to the governor about former Chair Helen Miller’s decision to let alternate board members make parole decisions.
“Over the objections of Plaintiff and other board members, Defendant Miller continued to assign and authorize payment to individuals from the pool of three alternate members to substitute for Miller and other salaried and per diem board members in parole hearings when board members were available for those hearings,” according to Kooiker’s lawsuit filed in Polk County. “Defendant Miller continued this practice, contrary to Iowa Code 904A.2A, throughout fiscal years 2020 and 2021.”
Wilson, who served on the board with Kooiker, resigned from the board in 2019 to protest the same problems Kooiker reported in her lawsuit, Wilson told The Gazette.
“I resigned from a job that I absolutely loved,” Wilson said.
She wrote a letter to Reynolds in February 2021 expressing her concerns, but never heard back.
A Gazette analysis of Parole Board statistics shows that while the board’s caseload fell in fiscal 2021 — following a push in 2020 to reduce the prison population during COVID-19 — total payroll for the board’s members and alternates nonetheless stayed high in fiscal 2021 and 2022.
Reynolds’ government reorganization — detailed in the nearly 1,600-page House File 662 — calls for the Board of Parole to fold into the Corrections Department rather than having its own cabinet-level leader. Each of the board’s five members would be paid regular salaries ranging from $63,690 to $97,460, versus daily wages now paid to board members who aren’t the chair and vice chair.
State response
Corrections Department spokesman Nick Crawford said the agency is not being pressured to release more people from prison, despite the nine-prison system being about 14 percent over capacity.
Goodson was released last November due to a “records discrepancy” caused when Corrections staff incorrectly adjusted Goodson’s time computation after an appeal process vacated part of his work release, Crawford said.
“Immediately following discovery of the error, the IDOC conducted an audit of our offender management system and confirmed no further issues persisted. The department also added additional steps to our reentry procedures to make certain a situation like this does not occur again,” he said in an email.
Crawford declined to address other alleged early releases or respond to questions about why the Parole Board’s payroll increased when their caseload fell in fiscal 2021.
Comments: (319) 339-3157; erin.jordan@thegazette.com
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