CEDAR RAPIDS FELON AND DOMESTIC ABUSER SENTENCED TO SIX YEARS FOR POSSESSING A GUN
Contact: Peter Deegan
A Cedar Rapids man who pawned a shotgun was sentenced on March 3, 2011, to almost six years in federal prison.
Rusty Lynn Bowles, 43, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, received the prison term after an October 18, 2011, guilty plea to being a felon and domestic abuser in possession of a firearm.
At the guilty plea, Bowles admitted he pawned the shotgun. Bowles also admitted he knew he could not possess the shotgun because of his criminal history, that included an Iowa conviction for misdemeanor domestic abuse and felony convictions for second degree forgery and second degree burglary, in Colorado.
Bowles was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade. Bowles was sentenced to 71 months’ imprisonment and fined $1,000. A special assessment of $100 was imposed. He must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system. The court based the sentence, in part, on a very significant criminal history of assaults, burglary, attempted rape and sexual abuse of children. The court found defendant had a high rate of recidivism based on his repeated criminal offenses starting as a teenager, and continuing to as recently as January, 2011.
Bowles is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Marti Sleister as part of Project Safe Neighborhoods, a cooperative local, state, and federal program aimed at the enhanced prosecution of gun crimes. The case was investigated by the Cedar Rapids Police Department.
Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is CR 10-79.
