Three days after an Iowa judge listened to attorneys debate in court whether a 2017 search warrant in Jodi Huisentruit’s case should be unsealed, their legal battle continues in two new motions filed in Cerro Gordo County Court.
At issue is a statement made by Cerro Gordo County Attorney Carlyle Dalen in Monday’s hearing regarding Iowa’s new Cold Case Unit, which is a part of the Iowa Attorney General’s office.
In Monday’s hearing, Dalen told Senior Judge James Drew: “There’s a lot of law enforcement officers that are working on this. You have the MCPD working on this, you have the DCI, you have the FBI, and now you even have the cold case unit at the Attorney General’s office that are working on this.”
RELATED: Full video of Monday’s hearing
Attorneys for private investigator Steve Ridge filed a motion on Wednesday arguing Dalen’s “misrepresentation “ about the cold case unit working on Jodi’s investigation and want another court hearing on this motion.
Attorneys Nellie O’Mara and Jesse Marzen cited a conversation Ridge said he had Tuesday with the coordinator of state’s Cold Case Unit, Steve Ponsetto, indicating his investigators were not working on the case, as Dalen had claimed in Monday’s hearing.
However, in a countermotion filed today, County Attorney Dalen states that he was, in fact, working with the prosecutor assigned to the Cold Case Unit, Assistant Attorney General Scott Brown, and that’s what he was referring to in Monday’s hearing.
“The defense called Steven Ponsetto at the Cold Case Unit. He was unaware of the assistance being provided by Assistant Attorney General Scott Brown because Cerro Gordo County has not yet made a case referral to their office,” Dalen states in a countermotion filed on Thursday. “If the defense had called Assistant Attorney General Scott Brown at the Cold Case Unit, he could have explained how he was working with the Cerro Gordo County Attorney’s office on this case.”
FindJodi first revealed the existence of the search warrant in a 2018 report on our website. We learned of it from a follower who spotted it on the public Iowa Courts Online website.
The search warrant was for GPS data on two vehicles connected to John Vansice, a friend of Jodi’s who was a person of interest in her abduction in 1995 outside her apartment.
Mason City Police Chief Jeff Brinkley told CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod in a 2018 “48 Hours” interview, “We didn’t get any information that was useful.”
Ridge stated in court on Monday that Vansice passed away in December and that’s why his attorneys claim the document should be unsealed since Vansice can’t be prosecuted. They also said they want to clear the air for Vansice’s family.
During Monday’s hearing, County Attorney Dalen urged the judge to keep the search warrant sealed because it contains key facts about the case and argued it would harm the investigation if it were made public.
Judge Drew said at the conclusion of Monday’s hearing that he expected to make a decision within a 30 days on whether to unseal all or any part of the search warrant and the affidavit attached to it.
The affidavit is a sworn statement from a police officer to a judge that provides probable cause for him to approve a search. Some of the contents of the document include the basics of the crime being investigated, evidence involved, witnesses who have provided information, investigative tools officers used and other sensitive information. The background of the officer is also typically included
It will be 30 years on June 27 since Jodi was abducted on her way to anchor the morning news on KIMT-TV.
FindJodi will be honoring Jodi again this year on that date in Mason City and appealing for information to help solve her case and bring Jodi home to Long Prairie, Minnesota.
Anyone with any information on Jodi’s case should contact the Mason City Police Department at (641) 421-3636 or email Iowa DCI Special Agent Ryan Herman at rherman@dps.state.mn.us. You can always reach out to FindJodi.
