Prosecution calls witnesses in Lindaman sex abuse trial

By Mira Schmitt-Cash, For the Press

Jurors in Franklin County District Court heard testimony Friday from three witnesses for the prosecution in the retrial of a Charles City man on a sex abuse charge.

Shortly into the testimony of the fourth witness, Douglas Lindaman objected to a reference to his criminal history, and court recessed for more than half an hour until adjourning for the day.

Floyd County Attorney Rachel Ginbey is attempting to prove that Douglas Lindaman, 62, committed third-degree sexual abuse on a 17-year-old boy in 2011 in Floyd County by touching the boy’s penis with his hand, against the boy’s will.

Lindaman, who is representing himself, is arguing that the touch was not sexual in nature but rather an “intervention” in which he tried to trigger a blocked memory of someone he perceived to be a “sexually injured person.”

The trial was moved to Franklin County District Court in Hampton on a change of venue from Floyd County because of pretrial publicity.

The boy’s father had been testifying for less than five minutes Friday when he brought up Lindaman’s 1988 felony convictions for two counts of lascivious acts with a child in recalling a conversation he had with Lindaman.

Lindaman immediately objected to the statement because Lindaman’s previous criminal history was not to be brought up in front of the jury.

The prosecution had planned to call four witnesses Friday: a former teacher of the alleged victim, the boy himself, and the boy’s parents. Testimony concluded for the first three three.

Robert Pittman, who is in his 14th year teaching social studies for Charles City schools, was the first witness Ginbey called.

He said he taught the boy in spring 2011. One day, he said, he noticed in class the boy and classmates were off-task and he pulled the boy aside for a minute during class. The boy appeared embarrassed and uncomfortable, the teacher said.

Pittman followed up with him after class and learned, he said, about a very uncomfortable employer-employee relationship. Pittman urged the boy to talk to law enforcement.

Under cross-examination from Lindaman, Pittman said he didn’t remember the boy’s specific allegations from seven years ago or any details of the boy’s home life.

“I have 120 students right now,” Pittman said, noting he focuses on those.

The young man, who was allegedly abused at age 17 and who is now 24, was the second witness Ginbey called.

The Press has chosen to not identify the alleged victim by name, or use the name of his family members.

The witness said he has worked in industrial, farm-related fields for three-plus years and builds motorcycles for fun.

In 2011, as a high school junior, while hunting scrap metal with his brother and dad, Lindaman offered the boys a job. It seemed good at first, but began to feel “really strange,” he said.

Ginbey asked him to describe some of the sexually oriented comments and conduct by Lindaman.

He said once when he didn’t tighten the fuel cap on some farm machinery, Lindaman told him the machine had “ejaculated” fuel all over, and threatened if it happened again he would have anal intercourse with the boy, using a vulgar term for that act, and he would do it “in the shop and have all your friends watch,” the witness said.

Lindaman also asked about the boy’s masturbation habits “like he was checking up on me,” the witness said.

He said Lindaman had not offered to send acne cream home or have his family apply it. He said Lindaman said the cream was expensive and “acted like he was a doctor or something,” so he let Lindaman apply the cream by massaging it into him “at least once a day.”

He later told Ginbey that, yes, this was because he was embarrassed about his acne scars.

Lindaman purchased a dirt bike for the boy in Clarksville, with a check, the young man said. While the boy’s friends were in the garage looking at the bike, Lindaman pulled the boy aside and whispered the boy would “owe him big,” he said.

Next, Lindaman applied the cream to the boy in a green van. Lindaman asked the boy to pull down his pants for Lindaman to massage his thigh. After warning his employer not to touch his genitals, the witness said, he complied.

The next geographical location Lindaman applied the cream was in an apartment outbuilding on Lindaman’s farm.

Lindaman has called this encounter “the intervention” and said it occurred about May 10.

The alleged victim said Lindaman made the boy remove his shirt for the cream massage in the kitchen. The back room had a twin bed “perfectly made with a heater running,” the manrecalled.

Lindaman then asked the boy to finish disrobing to see if the rest of him was healthy, “like he was some kind of doctor,” the alleged victim testified.

“He said stuff like ‘Oh, that’s really nice.’ He asked if he could touch it. I told him ‘no.’ He kind of just grabbed it. Whatever I said, it did not matter because he did what he wanted to do,” the witness said

Lindaman later had the young man read the deposition and his own written statement and confirm that no variant of the word “grab” appeared there, whereas variants of “tap” occurred several times.

“You told him ‘no’ again?” Ginbey said.

Yes, the young man said, and said that Lindaman’s eyes watered and his breathing was heavy.

“Did he touch you again?”

“Yeah, he did.”

“What did you do after that?”

“I think I kind of felt obligated to do this because he got me this dirt bike.”

The witness said he told his brother, and their mother overheard part of the conversation.

He said he and his brother did not return to work for Lindaman. Later, Lindaman pulled into their driveway and their father confronted him and Lindaman left, the witness said.

Next, “He sent us some cheesy document” and an agreement, whose contents the witness did not recall, along with a check with a memo for “car parts.”

Lindaman has offered two checks discussed in this case, one of which was for the dirt bike loan about May 5. On one check he had written “scrap steel” in the memo line, which spurred a jury question. The other check, for the signed agreement, was labeled “car parts” in the memo line.

Lindaman showed the agreement, signed May 17, 2011, to the boy before questioning. It states in part that the parties waive charges for defamation of character, slander or libel, and that the $3,000 check represents net damages between them.

The agreement stipulated that neither party would slander or lives the other, as, Lindaman had the witness read in cross examination.

Lindaman later referred to is as “extortion” because the family was not silent.

Ginbey had the witness confirm that he was 17 at the time of the agreement and didn’t know what it meant.

He agreed that the act in the apartment was against his will, that Lindaman was aroused at that time and “wanted you to get aroused … specifically told you to think about naked girls.”

“When the defendant said that you voluntarily pulled your pants (and) underwear down, were you pressured into that?” Ginbey asked.

“Definitely,” the young man said.

“Do you clearly indicate you had to put your underwear back on?” in the deposition, Ginbey asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“So it’s clear in that deposition your underwear was off?”

“Yes.”

“On that page 32 (of the deposition) the defendant’s jumping around to different topics. When the question was asked did you allow him to touch your penis, what should the answer have been?”

“I should’ve been ‘no.’”

“Does it say that you said, ‘I don’t think I said yes.’?”

“Yes,” he said.

The next witness for the prosecution was the alleged victim’s mother, who went through the order of events again under questioning by Ginbey.

She said she overheard the boys talking about the incident while she was downstairs loading the washer.

The boys were told not to go to work, she said. The boys’ father confronted Lindaman.

Lindaman left and brought back an agreement and a check.

As a stay-at-home-mom, she described her family as “close-knit.”

In cross-examination, Lindaman asked, “You indicated in direct examination that (your son) suffered from abdominal epilepsy, correct?”

“Yes,” the mother said.

“That wasn’t a diagnosis that I reached. That was something that the family told me?” Lindaman asked.

She nodded.

“In abdominal epilepsy (he) had a tendency to pass out?”

“Yes.”

“If I have him in a 250-horsepower tractor, and he passes out, it could be a serious problem, couldn’t it?” Lindaman said.

“No, because he knows when it’s coming on,” she said.

“If he has a bout of it and he passes out, that tractor may keep operating, is that possible?” Lindaman asked.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“So as an employer, I do have some concerns about his health and operating equipment?”

“I suppose,” she said.

She acknowledged that Lindaman had given her materials on her son’s condition.

“Do you recall what those materials outlined in the treatment of abdominal epilepsy?” Lindaman asked.

“Well it wasn’t to touch a penis! I know that!” the mother said.

“So you don’t recall what the written materials contained.”

“Not really, no. … I think I threw them away,” she said.

Later on, Lindaman asked if an 18-year-old female touched her son when he was 17½, would that be wrong?

The jury submitted a different question, which District Court Judge Gregg Rosenbladt read. “If a 56-year-old female or a female boss touched (your son’s) penis, would that be wrong?”

“Yes,” she said.

Lindaman never told her about the cream he rubbed on the boy for acne, she said, answering another jury question. The boy did, however, tell her Lindaman wanted him to use the cream, sometime while working for him, she told Lindaman in later questioning.

The family reported the incident to police “right afterward,” the mother said. “There was never any question in my mind that we would.”

Asked if she felt that Lindaman had a medical background, she told the jury, “Absolutely not.”

The alleged victim’s father was the final witness to testify Friday.

“How was it that you found out something was going on?” Ginbey asked.

“My wife was downstairs loading the washer and overheard them and decided to spy on them a bit, see what they were talking about,” he said. “They were saying that Doug was trying to do some weird stuff to them, so the boys were going to try to take knives with them to work or stuff like that because they were worried about it. … I think (the boy’s brother) told her something.”

“When you found out, did you tell the boys to stop going to work, did you say anything to them?” Ginbey asked.

“I told them, I said to give Doug a call; tell him to come out here. They said, ‘Well, he’s coming out to pick us up for work anyway.’ I said ‘OK, I’ll be waiting.’”

“He pulled in the driveway and I said, ‘Hey, didn’t you go to prison once for —’”

“OBJECTION, your honor!” Lindaman said, loud enough to drown out whatever came next.

“Objection sustained,” Judge Rosenbladt said.

“And strike the answer,” Lindaman said.

“And the answer stricken,” Rosenbladt said.

Court recessed for about forty minutes, until the end of the day.

Charges in this case were originally filed in 2015 and Lindaman was found guilty in Floyd County District Court after a jury trial in 2016. He was sentenced to up to 10 years in prison, but the Iowa Supreme Court overturned the conviction and sent the case back for retrial.

The original trial was overturned on the grounds that the district court did not adequately ensure that Lindaman knew the consequences of his decision when he decided to defend himself in court.

William Morrison, an attorney from Mason City, is assisting Lindaman in his defense this time.

Testimony is expected to resume Monday morning.