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Lindaman trial scheduled to begin Wednesday

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com 

The retrial of a Charles City man on a sex abuse charge is set to begin Wednesday in Franklin County.

Jury selection in the trial of Douglas Lindaman was scheduled to begin Tuesday in Hampton, but the trial’s start was delayed a day because of weather.

Douglas Lindaman
Douglas Lindaman

Lindaman, age 62, is charged with third-degree sexual abuse for an incident that allegedly took place in 2011. Charges were 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 Lindaman appealed and the Iowa Supreme Court overturned the conviction and sent the case back for retrial.

Judge Gregg Rosenbladt moved the trial to Franklin County District Court after Lindaman filed for a change of venue because of extensive pretrial publicity, and Floyd County Attorney Rachel Ginbey did not resist the request.

Lindaman is accused of sexually touching a then-17-year-old boy after hiring the boy as a farmhand. Third-degree sexual abuse is a Class C felony.

Lindaman, who is representing himself at trial with an attorney standing by, has filed dozens of motions regarding the case since the trial was rescheduled. The motions generally are along three lines:

• LINDAMAN ARGUES THAT when he touched the boy’s genitals, the touch was not sexual but therapeutic, because he was trying to help the boy deal with psychological problems that he refers to in several instances as a “psychological pus pocket.”

He has filed several motions regarding jury instructions on the definition of sexual contact and the possibility of a touch to the genitals not being sexual.

For example, Lindaman has said, a person could change a baby’s diaper and touch the genitals while cleaning the baby and that would not be sexual.

Judge Rosenbladt has proposed a jury instruction including the following: “You may consider the type of contact and the circumstances surrounding it in deciding whether the contact was sexual in nature.”

“A legitimate and nonsexual purpose for the contact does not constitute a sex act or sexual contact,” another proposed jury instruction says.

Lindaman also asked the judge to rule that current Iowa law defining sexual abuse is too vague, that simple “contact” with the genitals is not enough because a sexual act must include “rubbing.”

Rosenbladt ruled that Iowa law states that sexual abuse in the third degree occurs when a person performs a sex act with another person, done by force or against the will of the other person, and that the law is clear that a “sex act” can include any contact between the finger or hand of one person and the genitals of another.

• LINDAMAN HAS RAISED the issues of bias, discrimination, unconscious bias and implicit bias on the part of the jury, describing himself as a “third-class citizen” because he has identified himself as gay and because he was previously convicted in 1988 of two felony counts of lascivious acts with a child.

Citing a June 2017 Iowa Supreme Court ruling that courts need to address implicit bias against minorities, Lindaman proposed a list of 51 written “psycho-sexual” questions to be mailed in advance to members of the jury pool, dealing with their familiarity with topics such as sexual abuse, same-sex marriage, types of sexual activities and sexual orientation.

Rosenbladt ruled that a list of 13 written questions would be given to potential jurors after they had been sworn in, in court, but Lindaman challenged that ruling, asking again that all 51 questions be used and stating, “Iowa’s legal system needs to play catch-up with modern psychological instruments.”

In answering Lindaman’s challenge, Rosenbladt ruled against any written questionnaire, saying Lindaman could address any of the topics raised in his 51 questions during verbal questioning of potential jurors during jury selection.

As part of Lindaman’s motions on this topic, he entered into the record a 122-page book he wrote on sexual orientation discrimination that he titled, “Iowa’s Tuskegee Experiment,” saying it outlined “new tools and understanding in the treatment of sexual offending behavior,” and that he wrote it “to establish my credibility as a sexual detective.”

• LINDAMAN HAS QUESTIONED the motives and actions of County Attorney Ginbey. He has said that recordings of interviews between him and law enforcement officials have been tampered with, that recording equipment malfunctioned and that statements he made at the time are missing from the recordings.

He says that a previous Floyd County attorney decided to not file charges when the incident in question was investigated in 2011, and that Ginbey was politically motivated to file charges right before an election in 2015 to prevent him from winning a seat on the Charles City Board of Education.

Ginbey resisted Lindaman’s motions on these issues, stating that the recordings are complete and that the time stamps and lengths of the recordings show nothing is missing.

“The alleged content described by the defendant does not exist because it did not take place. The defendant is unable to demonstrate with any concrete proof that it ever existed or that it was destroyed by any party involved,” Ginbey wrote.

“The state has not tampered or altered any of the evidence,” she wrote in another resistance.

Ginbey also wrote that the timing of charges is not relevant to the facts of the crime. “It is not for the jury to decide why, when or how the charge was filed,” she wrote.

Judge Rosenbladt agreed with Ginbey, ruling that it is up to the jury to determine by the weight of the evidence whether the crime that was charged took place or not.

“Issues surrounding the timing of the charges are irrelevant,” he wrote. “It is not relevant to the jury, nor may the jury consider, the prosecutor’s analysis or reasons for filing a charge. At the end of the trial, their decision comes down to whether there is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt.”

Lindaman has a law degree and was a Floyd County magistrate judge for two years. His law license was permanently revoked in 1989 by the Iowa Supreme Court after he pleaded guilty in 1988 to two felony counts of lascivious acts with a child. He served two years in prison and was released on parole in 1991 and was fully discharged from parole in 1994.

In 2005, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack issued a blanket order that persons convicted of a felony who had completely discharged their sentences would have their political rights restored. That made Lindaman eligible to run for public office.

Lindaman was convicted at a jury trial April 12, 2016, in Charles City, on one count of sexual abuse in the third degree, and sentenced to serve up to 10 years in state prison.

He was serving that sentence in the Newton Correctional Facility when a three-justice-panel of the Iowa Supreme Court reversed the conviction on May 19, 2017, and remanded the case for retrial.

Lindaman had represented himself at his trial in April 2016, and that was the basis for the Iowa Supreme Court decision reversing the conviction.

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the district court had not adequately assured that Lindaman’s decision to represent himself was “intelligent and knowing” and the court had not fulfilled the legal requirements for the discussion necessary before someone proceeds to defend himself or herself.

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