Municipal League attorneys defending a former Benton police officer over a fatal encounter in 2016 that claimed the life of a suicidal 17-year-old rested their case Friday in federal court after calling their final three witnesses, an officer who was present at the shooting and two expert witnesses.
Municipal League attorneys defending a former Benton police officer over a fatal encounter in 2016 that claimed the life of a suicidal 17-year-old rested their case Friday in federal court after calling their final three witnesses, an officer who was present at the shooting and two expert witnesses.
A Davenport man was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison and 15 years of supervised release this week for traveling to Illinois to engage in illicit sexual activity and attempting to entice two underage girls to engage in sexual activity. Details of the case were not released but according to court documents, in November of 2020, 31-year-old Douglas Speer of Davenport arranged to pay for sex with individuals he believed to be two girls, ages 15 and 11. After traveling from Iowa to Illinois to meet with the intended victims, Speer was arrested by federal agents and local law enforcement officers. At Speer's sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Sara Darrow stated that the applicable penalties, including statutory minimums, were severe but necessary given that such law serves to protect the most vulnerable within the community from "predators" like Speer. According to the Department of Justice, Darrow further commented on the need for a sentence such as this to deter