Lindaman convicted on lesser charge

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Douglas Lindaman received a guilty verdict Wednesday afternoon on a lesser crime than his original charge.

A Cerro Gordo County jury found Lindaman, 62, of Charles City, guilty of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, an aggravated misdemeanor. He had been charged with sexual abuse in the third degree, a Class C felony.

The jury deliberated about 2¼ hours Tuesday afternoon after receiving the case, then almost all day Wednesday before the verdict was announced about 4:30 p.m.

Lindaman was charged with sexually touching the genitals of a 17-year-old boy in 2011, without the boy’s consent. The teen was working for Lindaman on Lindaman’s farm near Charles City.

The teen’s parents, who had both testified during the trial, were in the courtroom for the verdict. The mother began weeping before the verdict was announced and sobbed briefly when she heard the decision.

Lindaman had originally been convicted on the charge of sexual abuse in the third degree in April 2016, and had been serving a sentence of up to 10 years in state prison when the Iowa Supreme Court overturned the conviction and sent the case back for retrial.

The possible sentence for this conviction on assault with intent to commit sexual abuse is up to two years in prison, said Floyd County Attorney Rachel Ginbey, who prosecuted the case.

After his original conviction was overturned, Lindaman was released on bail in June 2017, having served almost 14 months in prison.

“He could be given credit for time served and have nothing left, or he could serve the remainder of two years,” Ginbey said in an email to the Press.

Judge Gregg Rosenbladt set sentencing for 10 a.m. May 11 in Floyd County District Court.

Lindaman had been free on $10,000 bond leading up to the trial. Rosenbladt said this conviction was a bailable offense, so he continued to allow Lindaman to remain free on the original bond until sentencing.

Lindaman had admitted that he touched the teen’s penis once while the two of them were in an outbuilding apartment on Lindaman’s farm, but Lindaman has maintained that the touch was meant as a form of therapy to break through a psychological barrier due to a sexual injury that Lindaman said he had identified in the boy, and that the teen had consented to the touch.

The prosecution had argued that Lindaman had “groomed” the teen for sexual abuse, through gifts to him and his family, and by rubbing oil on the boy, first on his back to treat acne scars, then eventually on his chest, then on his legs. The teen had testified that he  told Lindaman not to touch him.

To be convicted of sexual abuse in the third degree, the prosecution needed to prove that Lindaman had performed a sex act on the victim, and that the sex act was done by force or against the will of the victim, according to jury instructions.

The lesser charge of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse required the jury to decide that the evidence proved Lindaman assaulted the victim and that he acted with the specific intent to commit a sex act by force or against the victim’s will.

Ginbey said she thought the jury “put a lot of time into their decision and took their job seriously.”

“I am disappointed that the jury did not find him guilty as charged, but am reassured he will be required to register as a sex offender,” she said.

The conviction requires Lindaman to register as a sex offender for life, she said, and also subjects him to a special sentence under Iowa code that provides for 10 years of supervision by the state Department of Corrections as if on parole.

Lindaman declined to comment as he was leaving the courtroom after the verdict was announced.

This was the third time Lindaman was tried on this charge. His first conviction was overturned because the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the court had not adequately insured Lindaman was making an informed decision to represent himself at that trial.

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 and served two years in prison.

A retrial on the case was held in February in Franklin County on a change of venue from Floyd County, but that trial quickly ended in a mistrial after two witnesses for the prosecution mentioned during testimony the word prison when referring to Lindaman. The court had ruled Lindaman’s criminal history could not be brought up before the jury.

Lindaman also represented himself in the second and this last trial, although he had a standby attorney sitting with him with whom he could confer. That attorney never addressed the jury.

This latest trial was held in Cerro Gordo County District Court in Mason City on another change of venue.