Lang
3/1/25
A local transient with a lengthy criminal history has been arrested again…this time for allegedly trying to break into an Iowa City home.
Iowa City Police were called to a residence on H Street just after 8:45 last Monday night for an intoxicated subject on the porch. Arriving officers found the suspect…identified as 56-year-old Gary Leon Duffel II…with an open container of Four Loco. Duffel allegedly showed signs of intoxication and refused breath testing.
Duffel does not live at the H Street address. Police say he had tried to gain entry to the occupied residence through the door, then broke out a window.
Duffel was taken into custody and transferred to University of Iowa Health Care on Hawkins Drive, where late Monday night he allegedly kept exiting his room and yelling loudly, disrupting the emergency room. He also reportedly threw a wall phone to the ground while yelling at UIHC staff.
Duffel was booked into the Johnson County Jail just before noon Friday and charged with 5th Degree Criminal Mischief, Public Intoxication, and Disorderly Conduct. If convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum of three months in jail.
Duffel has numerous previous arrests over the years, including for cutting down the flag outside the Iowa City VFW hall, urinating on the front porch of then-Iowa City City Councilor Mike Wright, taking his clothes off inside The Nickelodeon in Coralville while yelling about his release from the Henry County Correctional Facility, toppling and breaking the Irving Weber statue at the corner of Iowa Avenue and Linn Street, and stealing a keg off a beer truck parked at the former Benton Street Delimart. In June of 2022 Duffel was sentenced to five years in prison in a plea deal regarding an attempted sexual assault case in Coralville.