Mason City sex offender loses appeal on lying about employment and using a woman’s lost credit card

DES MOINES – A Mason City sex offender who lives right now at the Beje Clark halfway house for derelicts has lost his appeal for for violating the sex offender registry and unauthorized use of a credit card.

Shawn Holmes, age 39, appealed his convictions and sentences for failure to comply with the sex offender registry requirements and unauthorized use of a credit card.

The Iowa Court of Appeals concluded there is a factual basis in the record to support Holmes’s plea of guilty to the charge of failure to comply with the sex offender registry requirement. Also, Holmes has not met his burden to show by a preponderance of the evidence that he would not have pled guilty if defense counsel had informed him more fully of the elements of that offense. Finally, the district court acted within its discretion by sentencing Holmes, the appeals court said.

The minutes of evidence show Holmes quit his job at Rib Crib, a restaurant in Mason City, on September 10, 2013, without any prior notice to the employer. Holmes thereafter attempted to get his job back but was unsuccessful because he had quit without giving two weeks’ notice. On September 20, 2013, a deputy sheriff informed Holmes he would need to contact the sheriff’s office within five business days if his employment status changed. Holmes informed the Cerro Gordo Sheriff’s Office on September 25, 2013, of the change in his employment status and was charged with failure to comply with the sex offender registry requirements, second or subsequent offense.

On December 12, 2013, Holmes was charged with unauthorized use of a credit card, an aggravated misdemeanor. The minutes show Jayda Spradling lost her wallet, then noticed fraudulent charges on her credit card account. Some of the charges were made at Wal-Mart in Mason City, where a review of surveillance video showed Holmes purchasing a cell phone and signing up for a two-year calling plan using Spradling’s credit card. Holmes entered into a plea agreement in which he agreed to plead guilty to the offense of failure to comply with the sex offender registry requirements, second offense, and to enter an Alford plea to the offense of unauthorized use of a credit card, and the State would recommend that he receive concurrent sentences. After a plea colloquy, the court accepted Holmes’s pleas. He was sentenced to terms of imprisonment not to exceed five years and two years, respectively, to be served concurrently.

He then appealed those guilty pleas and sentences.

Holmes was twice convicted in Texas for sex crimes against children. The first conviction came in 1997 on a charge of indecency with a child 13 years of age or younger. The second conviction came in 1999 on a charge of aggravated sexual assault on a child between the ages of 14 and 17.

Holmes previously resided at the Ashley Inn on South Federal Avenue in Mason City until a judge sent him to Beje Clark to live with the other malcontents that are sent here from all over the region.