MASON CITY – Shortly after 10 am Saturday morning, 29-year-old Kenneth Shaun Neilsen was booked into the Cerro Gordo County Jail on a serious misdemeanor charge of serious assault.
Neilsen has been in Beje Clark’s residential treatment program since November as part of his sentencing in a plea bargain deal that allowed him to avoid a mandatory one year prison sentence in a third or subsequent offense domestic abuse assault case.
Court records show Neilson had twice been convicted of domestic abuse assault but was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of second offense domestic abuse assault, even though he already had been convicted of second offense domestic abuse assault in 2009.
In exchange for his voluntary negotiated guilty plea he was sentenced to two years of probation with the Iowa department of Corrections, a two year suspended prison sentence, and ordered to complete a program at Beje Clark.
At this time there is no information on where the alleged assault occurred or whether this will be considered a violation of his terms of probation.
SUBJECT IS INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY.