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A Henry County family is suing the sheriff for false arrest and malicious prosecution, alleging the county has waged a campaign of “wild west justice” against them.
Curtis and Lori Wagler are suing Sheriff Rich McNamee, Henry County Deputy Carlos Lopez, and the county in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. They allege Lopez’s conduct was “so clearly abusive and in violation of the law that he earned his way to being the sole member of the county’s Brady-Giglio list” – a reference to the list of law enforcement officers known by prosecutors to have been untruthful in the course of their police work.
The lawsuit, originally filed in state court before being transferred last week to federal court, says the Waglers own a family lumber business called Outdoor Tradition. On April 21, 2023, Lopez and seven other police officers are alleged to have arrived at the Wagler home to execute a search warrant allowing then to seize financial records related to Outdoor Tradition. The couple and their 20-year-old son, Owen, were arrested on 10 felony counts each, the lawsuit claims, and Curtis allegedly was subjected to two body-cavity searches.
The Waglers were released later that day and returned home to find “their belongings were all over the floor,” with closets “ripped out” and their house ransacked by police, the lawsuit claims. It also alleges that Lopez then “commenced a smear campaign against the Waglers” and contacted the couple’s customers claiming they were being scammed and defrauded. In early November 2023, the criminal case against the Waglers was dismissed by Henry County Attorney Darin Stater, the lawsuit states.
According to the lawsuit, Stater said in a letter tied to his decision to dismiss the case that “my office was left scrambling to determine the legitimacy of 30 felony charges without a single report or any type of notification that Deputy Lopez intended to take any of these actions … After I informed Deputy Lopez that I didn’t approve the theft charges, a press release was distributed by the Henry County Sheriff’s Office stating that the Waglers had been arrested and charged with ongoing criminal conduct and falsely stating that they had each been charged with nine felony thefts.”
The prosecutor’s letter allegedly goes on to say that “it turns out that my decision to dismiss the charges was the right thing to do. Not only did Deputy Lopez’s report fail to include evidence in support of criminal charges, but there is information showing that at least one of Deputy Lopez’s sworn affidavits contains a false statement. To date, my office has not been presented with any evidence to support any criminal charge on any of the Waglers.”
In December 2023, Stater placed Lopez on the county’s Brady-Giglio list, citing the April 21 incident. Since then, the lawsuit claims, the sheriff’s office has publicly claimed the Waglers are being “actively investigated” and has continued to imply they are engaged in criminal activity.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for unlawful arrest, illegal search, assault, battery and malicious prosecution. The county has yet to file a response to the allegations, and Sheriff McNamee declined to comment on the case. In addition to the county, the sheriff and Deputy Lopez, the lawsuit names as a defendants Deputy Chad Doak and county employee Zach White.
Court records show that the search warrant application filled out by Lopez suggests the criminal investigation into the Waglers stemmed from at least six complaints filed by individuals and various companies who alleged they’d each paid $3,000 to $54,000 for wood products that were never delivered.
Search warrant records from 2017 show that the Henry County Sheriff’s Office began investigating Curtis Wagler that year for the suspected theft of employee wages. In 2020, Wagler was charged with perjury for allegedly giving false testimony in a case about a forged document. Henry County prosecutors later dismissed that charge at the state’s expense.
In Curtis and Lori Wagler’s 2021 bankruptcy case, one bank that acted as a lender to the couple alleged the Waglers had reorganized a failed business, Wagler Manufacturing, as the newly formed Outdoor Tradition, which the bank said was owned largely by the couple’s children, two of whom were minors.
The bank characterized that reorganization as an attempted “end-run” around bankruptcy laws, made in an alleged effort to shield assets “with the intent to defraud” the Waglers’ creditors. The Waglers subsequently agreed to consider themselves 100% owners of Outdoor Traditions for purposes of the bankruptcy case, which remains open.
In a 2024 bankruptcy filing, the couple listed $133,000 in assets and $3.5 million in debts and liabilities.