Articles Tagged: Sexual abuse

A Johnson County jury deliberated for two hours Friday before convicting a Chicago man of sexually assaulting an Iowa City woman in 2018. He faces 10 years in prison.

The parents, who set up a video call app on a phone to watch their infant as they went outside, had no idea they would catch a predator sexually abusing their 3-month-old. The abuser was sentenced Tuesday to 25 years in prison.

Iowa House and Senate lawmakers Tuesday advanced bills aiming to — among other things — increase intellectual diversity on the University of Iowa campus and sexual abuse awareness and prevention education in schools, restrict state funds to libraries that are American Library Association members, and allow public schools to offer an elective social studies course on the Bible.

Erin Merryn, who has worked to get similar laws passed in 38 states, testified this week at the Iowa Capitol during a legislative hearing on an Iowa bill

An Iowa City man was arrested Tuesday on charges that he repeatedly paid a 14-year-old girl to meet him for sexual acts.

A Linn County jury took only 90 minutes to convict a Hiawatha man of human trafficking a 17-year-old Dubuque girl. The teen testified last week Jarod Anderson, 35, of Hiawatha, had forced her to have sex with multiple men in May 2024 and also sexually abused her.

Explicit photos, messages about prostitution on his phone weren’t his, he says

A Hiawatha man, during a police interview, said he had nothing to do with prostitution or sex trafficking a Dubuque teen, but an investigator testified his phone showed numerous conversations with customers wanting sexual acts in exchange for money.

A Cedar Rapids woman testified she met a Hiawatha man, who is on trial this week for human trafficking, after she was “past rock bottom” and agreed to work as a prostitute for him. She said he recruited a 17-year-old to work with her.

A Johnson County jury convicts a Cedar Rapids man of strangling and sexually assaulting a woman who was walking home on Oct. 7, 2023. He sexually assaulted her outside a downtown bar.

The case against Jarod Anderson, 35, which got underway this week in Cedar Rapids, is the first in Iowa under a 2023 law that increases the penalties for human trafficking of a minor to a Class A felony — punishable by life in prison without the possibility of parole.

An 18-year-old pleaded guilty this week to sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl last March. He faces up to 10 years in prison. His sentencing is set for March 24.

Also proposed: Putting those guilty of ‘grooming’ on sex registry

The legislation is similar to a law passed in Louisiana, which last year became the first U.S. state to permit judges to order surgical castration of sex offenders.

A man from Rockwell City has been arrested in Linn County on charges that he sexually abused a woman in Cedar Rapids in April 2024.