Guthrie Center City Council candidate Bill Wagner was arrested in 2008 for Indecent Contact with a Child. The charge stemmed from an incident that allegedly took place between Wagner and two 12-year-old boys in his bedroom.
He pled guilty in 2010 to a lesser charge of assault. He served a year of probation, paid a fine and attended a sexual offender evaluation course for 22 months in Des Moines. Wagner describes the purpose of the course. “It was for helping me to better understand and realize the circumstances around sexual assault, one might say.”
Wagner is not a registered sex offender, and though he admits contact with the two boys, he says it wasn’t sexual contact. “I kissed them and hugged them. We were horsing around, we fell onto my bed. There was never anything sexual in its nature.”
Wagner tells Raccoon Valley Radio that his legal troubles continued this past January when he was barred by police from ever entering the local dollar store. He says a store manager mistakenly thought he was propositioning a store clerk for sex in exchange for money. “Apparently, somehow a very great misunderstanding arose in the minds of the people at the Dollar General store that I was attempting to solicit that clerk.”
Wagner doesn’t believe his conviction should sway anybody’s vote in the City Council election. “If somebody wants to remember an incident from over seven years ago and they don’t think I’m able to have learned from the training that I went through subsequent to the incident in 2010, then they have no faith in the legal system of Iowa.”
Election day is next Tuesday, November 3rd.