DAVENPORT, IA (IRN) – A former youth counselor at Four Oaks juvenile facility was arrested after she allegedly helped three juveniles escape and had sex with one of them. WQAD-TV reports 19-year-old Hannah Rose Fitzpatrick, of Marion, is charged with sexual misconduct with a youth offender in her custody.

OTTUMWA, IA (IRN) – A 16-year-old who took a loaded handgun into Ottumwa High School has been charged with a felony. The Ottumwa Courier reports the school resource officer and a school administrator found the gun and a knife in the student’s backpack Thursday. He was arrested and charged with carrying a weapon on school grounds. The boy showed the gun to another student, who then notified a teacher who alerted the resource officer.

DES MOINES, IA (IRN) – Voters are claiming to have been denied their right to vote in Tuesday’s special election in Polk County because they didn’t have a photo ID, according to KCCI-TV. The 1-cent sales tax came up 227 votes short of passing, and some have speculated the state’s new voter ID law could have affected the outcome. Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald said, “some of the poll workers got confused…a lot of things went wrong on Tuesday.”

PLYMOUTH COUNTY, IA (IRN) – A retired Plymouth County judge has admitted that “a couple hundred” of his rulings actually were written by attorneys involved in those same cases, sometimes without the knowledge of the opposing counsel. The Des Moines Register reports
former Judge Edward Jacobson’s admission prompted a sharp rebuke from the Iowa Supreme Court, who issued a statement Thursday saying Jacobson’s conduct could undermine “public confidence in our system of justice.”