The Iowa Supreme Court will not hear appeals filed by two former Creston police officers who are serving 25-year prison sentences for the rape of a country club bartender.
The court denied requests for further review by former Creston police chief James Christensen and his assistant chief, John Sickels.
The former officers were found guilty of second-degree sexual abuse in March 2009. The Iowa Court of Appeals upheld both convictions in November.
Prosecutors argued at trial that Sickels raped a bartender at the Crestmoor Country Club in Creston in April 2008. A smiling Christensen watched the rape take place, stroked the woman’s hair and tried to shush her, the woman testified at trial.
Sickels had contended the sex was consensual, and Christensen testified that he stumbled upon the two after a trip to the restroom.
The men had argued in their appeals that there was not enough evidence to convict them, that evidence was improperly excluded, and that inappropriate statements by prosecutors should have resulted in a mistrial.
