Dangerous sex offender arrested in Mason City

MASON CITY – A twice-convicted sex offender from adjacent North Iowa counties – now calling Mason City his new home – was arrested in a south side hotel on a warrant.

Gerald Elton Busch, age 48 and formerly of Spencer, Iowa, was sought on a warrant by Iowa law enforcement. According to records, Busch reported to the Iowa sex offender registry that he was living at 818 15th Street SW in Mason City – the Beje Clark halfway house. However, Busch was allegedly crashing in a room at the Ashley Inn hotel located at 3451 South Federal Avenue, and police apprehended him there Saturday morning and placed him under arrest for violating the Iowa sex offender registry.

Busch is being held on $10,000 cash or surety bond in the Cerro Gordo County Jail.

Busch is a sex offender not to be trifled with. He stands 6 feet 9 inches tall and weighs 268 pounds. He was convicted in 1987 and 2007 of sex offenses against underage female victims, one of which was 13-years-old or younger. He spent about four years of a ten-year-sentence in the Anamosa State Penitentiary for his 1998 crime and subsequent 2007 conviction; he was sent to prison at that time, and was released in 2011. However, he is currently appealing that conviction and sentence in the Iowa Supreme Court, which already dismissed a previous appeal. The Clay County Sheriff’s Office reported just last October that Busch entered a school property without written permission – unbeknownst to school officials – just one of a number of violations of the Iowa sex offender registry Busch was accused of

Busch is also a convicted (felon) thief; has committed a number of assaults; forgery; (felony) false reports to law enforcement and other crimes in the Clay, Dickinson and Emmet county areas – as well as the sex crimes in Kossuth and Dickinson counties – before he moved to Mason City.