Orange City, Iowa — There’s been an interesting development in the case of a Matlock man facing two counts of sexual abuse.
According to court records, Sioux County Sheriff’s Deputies arrested 30-year-old Daren Thomas Leikvold of Matlock at his home on a warrant on Tuesday, April 12, 2016. Court records indicate that Leikvold is accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old on two separate occasions. The incidents are alleged to have occurred in October of last year, and in January of this year.
A bench trial was held last week, but no verdict has yet been entered in the case. On Thursday, July 28th, defense attorney Angela Kayl filed a motion to strike any and all reports, exhibits and testimony from the DCI lab where Amy Pollpeter was employed.
The Iowa Department of Public Safety says Amy Pollpeter, an analyst at the Iowa state crime laboratory, was fired on Tuesday, July 26th. The DPS issued a statement saying she was fired for a post on social media, but did not say what the post contained. According to Radio Iowa, the Des Moines Register reported that Pollpeter, in a Facebook post on July 8, lashed out at the Black Lives Matter movement and wrote that, “Because of blacks” she now does notice skin color and “frankly, I no longer feel safe around them.” The post followed the killings of several police officers in Dallas, Texas.
Pollpeter, who worked as a state criminalist for 10 years, has posted on Facebook that “there is more to the story than the Department of Public Safety is letting on” and she’s “disappointed that the department has chosen to disregard the policy of keeping personnel matters confidential.”
