MASON CITY – A man who escaped a sex abuse charge was picked up for his third probation violation within the last seven months.
Andrew Lloyd Spurgeon, 20, originally from Iowa Falls but now showing a Mason City address, was picked up on a warrant by a Cerro Gordo County Sheriff’s deputy on Friday afternoon at Beje Clark Residential Center.
The warrant was set by the courts for an unspecified probation violation that occurred last week. This alleged violation would be Spurgeon’s third since May of 2012 in relation to a third degree sexual abuse charge that Spurgeon received a deferred judgement on. Spurgeon received a deferred judgement on March 26, 2012, in a 3rd degree sexual abuse case from Judge Stephen P. Carroll, stemming from a complaint from the Mason City Police Department brought in May of 2011. Carroll ordered Spurgeon to register as a sex offender for 10 years and perform 50 hours of community service and was placed on probation and ordered to stay at Beje Clark Residential Center.
Spurgeon is currently being held in the Cerro Gordo County Jail on $10,000 bond.
SUBJECT IS INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY
Arizona and Texas have tried hard labor and it triggered an outcry from the YOUR VIOLATING THE PRISONERS RIGHTS nuts. No more free rides for the criminals might change their attitudes.
I guess I shouldn’t have said hard labor. I should have said real labor. Keep them busy 15 hours a day with work, education, and rehab. Make their lives productive like they should be on the outside.
I tried to read this story and I am a paid subscriber but this is what I see!!
Man who escaped sex abuse charge picked up for third probation violation
MASON CITY – A man who escaped a sex abuse charge was picked up for his third probation violation within the last seven months.
Sorry but you do not have access to this post/page
You’re right. I’m logged in as well and that is all that is visible today.
We opened the story up to everyone, in order to correct the issue. Sorry about the problem.
BeJe Clark residential facility is funded by the state through the Department of Corrections not local tax revenues. State law requires each judicial district have a community based corrections program. They are not for minor offenders. If the Department of Corrections believes that the offender, even a convicted felon, can be rehabilitated through a community based program instead of prison, the court will likely follow that recommendation. Even if the offender is placed on probation, placement at a residential center makes sense for minor violations. The state has limited prison space. The last thing we need to spend more money on are prisons for nonviolent offenders.
So how do you suggest we put a stop to non-violent offenses? What we’ve been doing (NOTHING) doesn’t seem to be working. Nonviolent offending seems to be escalating. If deferred sentences, parole, BJ Clark, and fines aren’t the answers, what are? It seems to me that incarceration, rehab, and maybe some hard labor at a state industry may be the only things that will get through to these knot heads who think they can steal, drive drunk, sell drugs, and do whatever they choose to do in a nonviolent way. Maybe we should build a prison/rehab in Mason City and have them bottle River City Water to sell to support their incarceration! Of course, they’d likely find some way to contaminate it……
WoW Katie-I like the way you think.
Raise the minimum wage to $15.00/hour. That would be a start.
@Kunstler: So you want to put a lot of people out of work? Many businesses would not be able to pay $15/hour and if forced, prices would have to go up accordingly and we would all end up in the same boat. Raising the minimum wage fuels inflation. McDonald’s would become unaffordable for some. Employees at other businesses would demand to be paid minimum plus what they were making over that before. More inflation. The playing field would stay the same, just making everything more expensive. Supply and demand should be the only thing driving wages. That’s why you can make a lot of money with specialized trades near the ND oil fields right now. They supposedly can’t find people to do finishing jobs in homes, businesses, etc. And it’s darned hard to find a motel room to live in, let alone if you’re traveling through that area.
@Kunstler’s Ghost, You said “BeJe Clark residential facility is funded by the state through the Department of Corrections not local tax revenues.”
That is how short thinking people like you have it wrong, very wrong!
Who pays for the police calls to this place on a regular basis? Check the police blotter, there are plenty of calls. (The tax payers of Mason City pay for that.) Who pays for the Sheriff calls to this place? The people of Cerro Gordo County.
Then these wonderful people are released back into society by the 2nd judicial district and they say, fly butterfly, fly. They don’t fly, they plant their ass in Mason City and offend again and we have to pay our police department to pick them up. We have to pay our county attorney to prosecute them again and we have to pay the public defender to defend them AGAIN!
Am I the only one that see’s a problem with this picture?
What you’re describing is a problem that every community already has regardless of whether it has a community based correctional facility. There has always been crime. There will always be crime.
@John-I completely agree with what you are saying here. As I recall when the opened the place it was supposed to be for minor offenders and now all the sudden the courts are using it like it is a regular prison. If we had any idea how many of these people walk away we would really get after them but they are real careful not to let us know that. If they want to have a prsion, build one and man it the way it should be.
We need a jail tax so we can protect ourselves from these people who belong behind bars. They need to set up an industry for them to earn their keep. We need some innovative people to come up with a workable plan for Iowa.
I am really getting sick of this Beje Clark place. It was a bad idea to put it in Mason City in the first place. This place is not good for our community.
This place was set up for “offenders to make the right choice and blend back into the community.”
The problem is that these “offenders” come from all over the place and when let out, often times to blend into the the Mason City community and continue to offend when they are released. Now it becomes a Mason City problem with our local law enforcement force to have to deal with.
Betty Jean Clark never intended for this to happen to this center with her name on it. It is a drain to the economy of Mason City and the taxpayers here.