MASON CITY – A convicted Waterloo crack dealer has migrated to Mason City, where she is piling up arrests and leaving victims in her wake.
Lakisha Latione Phillips is a 47-year-old former resident of Waterloo, Iowa. Police in that notable community nabbed her back in 2005 for possession of crack cocaine with intent to deliver. They also found marijuana in her possession. After months of court shenanigans, she was finally guilty in a plea deal to a felony C drug crime, and a judge mercifully placed her on 5 years of probation and suspended a decade in prison sentence. She was also ordered to pay a whopping $5,173.90 to Iowa courts, and she is not even close to satisfying that debt to this day. In fact, according to records, authorities ended up garnishing her Arby’s paycheck to help satisfy the debt. Phillips, however, could not contain herself and eventually violated her probation, and a judge served her up a steamy 182 day stretch in the pen.
Now, this pillar of the fast food community finds herself in Mason City, Iowa, apparently having migrated here to find greener pastures. However, things are going south for Lakisha since crossing the Cedar River. Charges are piling up fast, and she is now in a Mason City jail cell facing felony assault and other charges.
Phillips showed her community pride here by victimizing an upstanding liquor store establishment in Mason City. On October 28, 2024, she allegedly stole a $35 vaping device from MidTown Liquor and Vape. A judge had to issue a warrant for her arrest in the matter and she was arrested in November on a charge of fifth-degree theft. However, she is fighting the charge and proclaimed innocence. She will face a non-jury trial on January 7, 2025.
Phillips, evidently, is not a licensed driver, and has racked up at least six arrests for driving with a suspended license or driving while barred. The Floyd county sheriff nabbed her in 2022 and 2023, landing her in jail for 5 days and costing her $624.25. To complicate her driving future, she has been caught four times in Cerro Gordo county – once in 2022, once in 2023 and twice in 2024. She’s still facing court appearances for the 2024 arrests, but the earlier ones will cost her $838.75 owed to Iowa courts.
Phillips may be frustrated with her legal troubles and apparently took it out on a domestic partner in Mason City. Police here have dealt with her alleged violence twice, first in August of this year, when the MCPD was called to her home and arrested her for domestic abuse assault. This cost her $249.18 owed to Iowa courts and two days in jail. Then, days ago, police were again called about Phillips and investigated fresh incidents of alleged violence. According to Mason City Chief of Police Jeff Brinkley, “December 29, 2024, are charges from two domestic assaults that occurred in the days prior to the arrest. The charges are Domestic Abuse 2nd, Domestic Abuse with Strangulation and Bodily Injury, and Obstructing 911 Communication. The victim in these incidents was a domestic partner. It is the same domestic partner as the August 3, 2024, incident.”
Phillips (pictured at top) was rounded up and taken to the Cerro Gordo county jail, and she was booked in on the evening of December 29. She now awaits a preliminary hearing on the felony assault charge set for January 9, 2025.