Vanessa Miller, CR Gazette –
A 49-year-old Iowa City man who was arrested two years ago in connection with sexual abuse allegations stemming from a 2006 incident has been found not guilty.
A Johnson County jury acquitted Daniel Jay Jensen of a charge of second degree sexual abuse after a three-day trial that began Tuesday and wrapped up Friday.
According to the original Iowa City police complaint, Jensen was accused of holding a victim against her will for 12 hours in his apartment on Muscatine Avenue in Iowa City on Sept. 30, 2006. Jensen was accused of threatening the victim with a hammer and ordering her to remove her clothes, according to police.
Investigators said Jensen forced the victim to have sex with him and injected her five times with what the victim thought was cocaine, according to police.
Second degree sexual abuse is a class B felony, and Jensen could have faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted. Jensen’s trial in the Johnson County sexual abuse case was reset six times before it finally went before a jury.
Jensen was in and out of the Johnson County Jail’s custody during that time, and on July 26, 2010 – just one month after he was arrested on the Johnson County charge on June 25, 2010 – Jensen was arrested in Hardin County on suspicion of felony forgery charges.
He was convicted in that case of two counts of forgery and sentenced in August 2011 to five years in prison. Jensen is still being held in the Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility, according to the Iowa Department of Corrections, but he has a tentative discharge date of Oct. 26, 2012.
