Iowa Not liable for Sex Offender Raping Women at Care Center, Court Rules

Even though state administrators helped arrange the transfer of a habitual sex offender from a state institution into a private nursing home, Iowa can't be sued by the family of a woman he molested there, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday.

 The victim's daughter, Becky Rassler of Rembrandt, was stunned to hear about the ruling: "I just can't believe it."

Rassler's mother, Mercedes Gottschalk, was sexually assaulted in 2011 by William Cubbage at the Pomeroy Care Center.

Cubbage previously had been convicted four times of sex crimes, and he'd spent many years in state prisons and institutions.

Yet, the nursing home's residents and their families were not warned about his past when he was transferred to the center under a 2010 court order.

The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-2 decision Friday that the Iowa Department of Human Services wasn't legally liable for the attack on Gottschalk, because one judge ordered Cubbage's release from the state institution and another judge committed him to the nursing home.

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Iowa Not Liable for Sex Offender Raping Women at Care Center, Court Rules