Lindaman trial on tampering charge delayed until late November

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

A trial that was scheduled to begin this week on charges that Douglas Lindaman tampered with witnesses in a previous trial, has been postponed to the end of November.

Lindaman, 62, of Charles City, was convicted in April of the aggravated misdemeanor charge of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, and was sentenced in June to up to two years in prison, various fines and fees, life registration on the state sexual offenders registry and a special 10-year probation for persons convicted of sexual crimes.

Lindaman is appealing that verdict.

He is also facing a charge of having failed to register with the sexual offenders registry, an aggravated misdemeanor.

Lindaman was first charged on July 23 with not registering, and he was ordered to appear in magistrate court on Aug. 17.

Lindaman pleaded not guilty to that charge, arguing that when he appealed his conviction and posted an appeals bond, the sentencing provisions were placed on hold, including the registration requirement.

Floyd County Attorney Rachel Ginbey argued, however, that Iowa court rulings had determined that the registration requirement became effective upon conviction, regardless of appeal status.

Lindaman argued that a transcript of the sentencing would show the judge had included the registration requirement as part of the assault conviction sentence that was placed on hold by the appeal, but a request for a transcript was being delayed because of the length of the transcript.

Ginbey then filed in district court the charge of not registering on the sexual offenders list, moving it out of the jurisdiction of the magistrate’s court.

On Aug. 14, Lindaman was again arrested on a charge of failure to register on the sexual offenders registry, and this time a condition of his release from jail was that he register.

Lindaman registered on the list, although he added a note in his filing for counsel that he believed the requirement was “otherwise set aside” according to his appeal.

“I will register today with that note in record,” he wrote.

Lindaman had originally been charged with the Class C felony of sexual abuse in the third degree for allegedly touching the genitals of a 17-year-old boy who worked for him on Lindaman’s farm. He had been convicted of that charge in 2016, but that conviction was overturned by the Iowa Supreme Court in 2017.

Lindaman was retried on the felony charge in April and a jury in Cerro Gordo County — where the trial was moved on a change of venue — found him guilty of the lesser aggravated misdemeanor charge of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse.

After an initial attempt at a retrial ended in a mistrial because prosecution witnesses mentioned Lindaman’s criminal history on the stand, Floyd County Attorney Rachel Ginbey filed a charge of tampering with a witness against Lindaman.

She charged that Lindaman had filed a small claims court suit against the family of the victim in the case for failing to meet the terms of an agreement they had signed regarding the incident that led to the sexual abuse charge. Lindaman offered to drop the suit if the family agreed that the terms of the agreement were correct.

Ginbey called that an attempt to sway the family’s testimony, but Lindaman said the language in the suit was typical of similar negotiations.

The trial on the tampering charge had been scheduled to begin Wednesday, but District Judge Peter Newell delayed the trial to Nov. 28 after Ginbey requested a continuance because one of her witnesses, a Floyd County deputy, would be out of the state transporting a witness for another trial. Lindaman did not resist the continuance.

The tampering case is being tried in Waverly, in Bremer County, on a change of venue from Floyd County.

Lindaman has filed several motions in district court regarding his appeal on the conviction of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse and registration on the sexual offenders registry.

But District Judge Gregg Rosenbladt, who handled the original sexual abuse trial and the subsequent trials, ruled that since the case is on appeal, “this court will take no further action on the requests made by the defendant, and leave determination of those questions for review by the appellate court.”