Iowa
Gambling busts at Iowa State were the result of improper searches, athletes’ attorneys contend
(AP) – Iowa State athletes caught in a gambling sting last year were criminally charged and lost NCAA eligibility as a result of improper searches into their online wagering activities, according to defense attorneys’ court filings.
Attorneys for former Iowa State football players Isaiah Lee and Jirehl Brock and wrestler Paniro Johnson wrote in motions for discovery last week that special agents for the state Division of Criminal Investigation had no reasonable cause to track their clients’ use of sports wagering apps.
“These investigations were done without any tips of wrongdoing, allegations of wrongdoing, or by requesting a warrant which raises Constitutional issues involving illegal searches and seizures,” Van Plumb, attorney for Lee, wrote in a statement to The Associated Press on Monday. “Motions have been filed with the Court setting forth this information in an attempt to gain access to more discovery surrounding these events.”
The DCI public information officer and defense attorneys Christopher Sandy and Matthew Boles did not respond to AP requests for comment.
Lee, Brock and Johnson were among about two dozen Iowa State and Iowa athletes criminally charged. Those three each face a felony charge of identity theft and aggravated misdemeanor charge of tampering with records. Former Iowa State football player Enyi Uwazurike, who faces the same charges as the other three in Iowa, is now with the Denver Broncos and was suspended indefinitely for betting on NFL games in 2022.
Most of the Iowa and Iowa State athletes who were charged pleaded guilty to underage gambling, paid fines and had identity theft charges dropped. The identity theft charges stemmed from athletes registering accounts on mobile sports betting apps under different names, usually a relative.
The investigation and prosecutions drew national attention because athletes at the two schools were the primary targets and occurred as the NCAA was addressing concerns about nationwide expansion of legal sports wagering.
NCAA rules prohibit wagering by athletes, coaches and staff, with athletes losing varying amounts of eligibility depending on the violation. Lee and Brock were among five starters on the Cyclones football team who lost some or all of their eligibility and are no longer in the program.
Johnson, the Big 12 champion at 149 pounds last year, is on the wrestling roster but has not competed for the Cyclones. He has participated in open events as an unattached wrestler.
Plumb, citing depositions taken two weeks ago, wrote that DCI special agent Brian Sanger conducted warrantless searches on the Iowa campus. Sanger found wagering apps were opened in freshman and sophomore dormitories, but he could not determine whether they were used to make wagers. Sanger asked his superiors for permission to expand the search and was told no, according to the filings.
Sanger then placed a geofence around Iowa and Iowa State athletic facilities that have restricted access and again found evidence of open wagering apps. He requested subpoenas for account information of hundreds of individuals without reasonable cause, Plumb wrote, and the result was indictments against Iowa athletes. Plumb contends their privacy had been invaded.
In his Jan. 19 deposition, Sanger said that while he didn’t recall why he conducted warrantless searches, he was concerned about possible match fixing and people infiltrating Iowa’s athletic teams to gain insider information.
Sandy, Johnson’s attorney, cited the deposition of DCI special agent Mark Ludwick, who said the search of athletes was illegal and that he was misled by other agents about the purpose of the investigation. He said special agent Troy Nelson had said the nature of the investigation was administrative with the targets being FanDuel, Draft Kings and other online gaming operators.
According to the filing, Ludwick reassured Lee the focus was on the gaming operators and no criminal consequence would come from what was said. Lee made statements regarding his online gaming activities; Ludwick said when he reported his interview to Nelson he was congratulated “for obtaining a confession.”
Ludwick, who told his superiors he would no longer participate and requested reassignment, said there was no geofence warrant and there was no reasonable suspicion to conduct the search. His deposition also was cited in a motion filed by Boles, Brock’s attorney.
Copyright 2024 KCRG. All rights reserved.
POLK COUNTY, Iowa (Iowa Capital Dispatch) – Eight months ago, a state licensing board charged an Iowa nurse with multiple regulatory violations, including soliciting or accepting money from a patient. This week, for the first time, the Iowa Board of Nursing publicly disclosed those charges.
The records show the board has charged Abbriel Rae Mitchell, 44, of Roland with five separate regulatory violations: violating patient confidentiality or privacy rights; soliciting, borrowing, or misappropriating money or property from a patient; committing an act that causes physical, emotional or financial injury to a patient; participating in or attempting to initiate a sexual, social or business relationship with a patient; and engaging in behavior that is contradictory to professional decorum.
As is customary with the Board of Nursing, it has publicly disclosed no information as to the alleged conduct that gave rise to the charges or indicated when or where that conduct is alleged to have taken place.
State records indicate the board’s investigation of the matter was initiated in 2024. The charges were formally approved by the board on Oct. 8, 2025, but were made public only this week in the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing’s official Notice of Board Action for the month of June 2026.
It’s not clear why the charges were not publicly disclosed last year. In recent months, DIAL has indicated questions about the numerous licensing board errors and lengthy delays in public disclosure of disciplinary charges are best directed to the Iowa Attorney General’s Office. That office has, in turn, referred such questions back to DIAL.
Board records indicate Mitchell was first authorized to work in Iowa as a licensed practical nurse in July 2005.
A hearing on the charges against her is scheduled for Oct. 15, 2026.
Copyright 2026 Iowa Capital Dispatch. All rights reserved.
Iowa State WBB coach Bill Fennelly on future timeline
Iowa State women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly on end of career timeline, thoughts on possible retirement?
The Iowa State women’s basketball team will face a trio of its old Big 8 opponents at home and on the road next season during conference play.
The Cyclones’ home-and-home league partners for the 2026-27 campaign are Kansas, Kansas State and Oklahoma State, the Big 12 announced June 11.
Iowa State’s home-only opponents are BYU, Colorado, Houston, TCU, Texas Tech and Utah. The Cyclones get Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, UCF, Cincinnati and West Virginia on the road only.
The unbalanced schedule — with just three home-and-home opponents — has been in place since the league expanded to 16 teams.
It will be a pivotal season for the Cyclone program after losing nine players to the transfer portal, including stars Audi Crooks, Addy Brown and Jada Williams.
Dates, times and broadcast information will be released later this summer.
Iowa State columnist Travis Hines has covered the Cyclones for the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune since 2012. Contact him at thines@amestrib.com or (515) 284-8000. Follow him on X at @TravisHines21.
Hear Rob Sand as he details his ‘Accountability for All’ plan
Iowa Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand talks through his ‘Accountability for All’ plan at a press conference on April 2, 2026.
State Auditor Rob Sand said pharmacy benefit managers who work with Iowa’s Medicaid program appear to be overcharging taxpayers by using prohibited pricing techniques.
But Sand said he wasn’t able to get a full picture of the financial impact to the state’s Medicaid program because the three pharmacy benefit managers that work with Iowa Medicaid did not provide certain financial records and other information his office requested.
“We believe that Iowans deserve to know how their tax dollars are being spent and that PBMs shouldn’t be allowed to rip off taxpayers by hiding behind what they say is proprietary information,” he said at a news conference Wednesday, June 10.
At issue is the use of what is known as effective rate pricing, which Sand said allows PBMs to claw back payments previously made to pharmacies at the end of the year. That results in “spread pricing,” which the audit says occurs when the PBM receives a larger reimbursement payment from the Medicaid managed care organization it works with than the PBM pays to the pharmacy.
Sand said spread pricing is prohibited under Iowa Medicaid.
“It can inflate costs for taxpayers, reduce the quality of care and create financial hardships for pharmacies,” he said. “That’s especially true for the independent pharmacies in smaller communities.”
Sand’s office released a report Wednesday covering transactions from 2019 to 2021. While incomplete, he said it showed the effective rate reconciliations for one of the three PBMs that works with the state totaled $100 million over that time period.
“That’s $100 million that Iowa taxpayers may have been overcharged,” Sand said. “We believe it to be even more than that because despite the fact that we made repeated requests and negotiated, the PBMs still at the end of the day withheld critical financial information.”
Sand said his office hired a firm called 3Axis Advisors that has performed similar work in other states to assist with the audit, at a cost of about $30,000.
Sand’s report recommends banning year-end reconciliations and requiring PBMs, managed care organizations and other state contractors to provide unrestricted access to information for the auditor’s office.
The report says there should be additional regulations on PBMs to separate Medicaid payments from non-Medicaid payments and to remove pricing variability from PBM contracts.
Sand, a Democrat who is the party’s nominee for governor, earlier this year released a health care platform pledging to crack down on pharmacy benefit managers.
Last year, Iowa lawmakers passed legislation placing several new regulations on PBMs, including requiring them to pay higher reimbursement rates to pharmacies.
A federal judge partially blocked portions of the law last summer while a lawsuit is pending from a coalition of business groups. It is awaiting an appeal.
Sand praised the law as “very good” but said “I think there’s a lot more that could be done.”
“The regulations that were contained in it would prevent some abuses,” he said. “But again, I think it’s very important to emphasize that auditors need to have access to this information to make sure that taxpayers are being protected, and they’re not being ripped off.”
Heather Nahas, a spokesperson for Gov. Kim Reynolds, said Iowa has recovered hundreds of thousands of dollars in improper fees charged to pharmacies.
“For the last several years, Gov. Reynolds and Iowa lawmakers have been leading the fight against abusive PBM practices, advancing reforms, strengthening oversight and defending those efforts against repeated challenges,” she said in a statement.
Nahas called Sand’s report “irrelevant and outdated,” saying the data he looked at does not reflect current practices at Iowa’s Department of Insurance and Financial Services or Medicaid pharmacy oversight.
Nahas said the report includes recommendations that Iowa Medicaid implemented more than three years ago.
“The auditor may be late to the game, but he’s finally arrived at the same conclusion that Iowans, the Republican legislature, and the Reynolds administration have known for years: PBM practices demand scrutiny, transparency and reform,” she said. “The difference is we’re doing something about it.”
Sand said his efforts to gather data were delayed by resistance from the PBMs and by a Republican-passed law, Senate File 478, that blocks the auditor from going to court against other state entities to force them to turn over documents.
“It took absolutely forever to get all of this data, to go back and forth with the PBMs, to evaluate legal claims about trade secrets or about SF 478,” he said. “And so as usual with this industry everything is much murkier and slower moving than any reasonable person would expect.”
Stephen Gruber-Miller is the Capitol bureau chief for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com, by phone at 515-284-8169 or on X at @sgrubermiller.
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