Lang
6/12/24
A local transient with a lengthy criminal history is back behind bars after he allegedly threw a suitcase through a window.
Iowa City Police were called to a criminal mischief complaint at the 501 Apartments on Southgate Avenue just after 4:15 Tuesday morning. An investigation determined that 56-year-old Gary Leon Duffel II had thrown a suitcase through a window, causing an estimated $700 in damage. Duffel reportedly showed signs of intoxication, admitted to drinking, and refused breath testing.
Duffel is charged with 4th Degree Criminal Mischief and Public Intoxication. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 13 months in jail.
Duffel was charged with Assault just last week after he allegedly struck another man with a stick on the 700 block of East Market Street. He was sentenced to five years in prison in 2022 after Coralville Police say he broke into a residence there and tried to sexually assault a woman inside.
Duffel has other previous convictions as well. In July of 2020 he stole a $137 stone turtle statue from Phil’s Building Supplies on Hollywood Boulevard and dropped it in the nearby Suburban BP Amoco parking lot on Keokuk Street, causing it to break. Duffel pleaded guilty to a 5th Degree Theft charge and was fined $200.
In 2018 he was arrested for cutting down the flag outside the Iowa City VFW hall.
In March of 2010 Duffel was arrested for urinating on the front porch of then-Iowa City City Councilor Mike Wright.
Duffel was arrested at The Nickelodeon on the Coralville Strip in January of that year after he took his clothes off and began yelling about his recent release from the Henry County Correctional Facility.
Duffel was convicted on Criminal Mischief charges in 2007 after he toppled the Irving Weber statue at the corner of Iowa Avenue and Linn Street, breaking off the arm and causing an estimated $12,000 in damages.
In 2014 Duffel was arrested for stealing a keg off a beer truck parked at the Benton Street Delimart.