Corrections officer fired for alleged assault in state-run residential facility

A state corrections officer fired for allegedly assaulting an individual is not entitled to jobless benefits, a judge has ruled.

According to state records, Jordan Nuno was employed by the Eighth Judicial District Department of Corrections as a full-time residential officer at the state-run Ottumwa Residential Facility from 2019 until January 2025, when he was fired.

The Ottumwa facility houses criminal offenders who have been ordered by the court to reside there as a condition of probation or parole. Nuno was tasked with supervising residents, taking periodic resident counts, and addressing any resident conduct issues.

According to the department, the final incident that triggered Nuno’s firing occurred on Dec. 18, 2024, as Nuno was making his rounds in a hallway at the Ottumwa Residential Facility. Based on video surveillance and witness statements, the department alleged that Nuno knowingly and intentionally shoulder-checked a resident of the facility, Jaden Miller, in an overt, unprovoked act of aggression.

Then, as Nuno continued down the hallway, Nuno allegedly directed a racial slur at resident Derek Winston, who is African American, and threatened to assault Winston and have him sanctioned or given jail time.

Nuno, the department alleged, then shoulder-checked Winston in another overt and unprovoked act of aggression, then shoved Winston against the wall.

According to the department, neither resident responded with violence. Immediately after the incident with Winston, Nuno allegedly informed a supervisor he had used force against a resident, and later told Resident Manager Charles Severs he was willing to “take a suspension” for doing so.

Later, when questioned by his superiors about shoulder-checking Miller, Nuno allegedly compared the residential facility to a prison and stated that Miller should have stepped aside as Nuno proceeded down the hallway. The department subsequently fired Nuno.

After he applied for unemployment benefits, Nuno participated in a fact-finding interview with Iowa Workforce Development and, according to an IWD administrative law judge, he “willfully misrepresented” the facts surrounding his dismissal.

“Essentially everything Mr. Nuno (said) was an intentionally false statement,” Administrative Law Judge James Timberland ruled. “Mr. Nuno asserted a resident suddenly approached him, called him a racial slur, and hit him,” and also asserted he was discharged because his manager is a racist, Timberland stated.

Based on the statements he had made to the IWD fact-finder in January, Nuno was awarded unemployment, and he subsequently collected $8,084 in benefits over a 12-week period.

After finding that Nuno misrepresented the facts related to his firing, Timberland recently ruled Nuno had “assaulted” residents of the Ottumwa facility and was ineligible for unemployment benefits. Nuno was ordered to repay the $8,084 in benefits already collected.

Court records show Nuno is currently facing a criminal charge of cruel treatment of a prisoner, a serious misdemeanor, as well as a simple-misdemeanor charge of assault. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and informed the court he intends to mount an affirmative defense of justification and self-defense. A jury trial on the cruel-treatment charge is scheduled for June 23, 2025.

This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.