Questions surround Iowans for Tax Relief extortion case

Officials in Muscatine County have taken a 51-year-old Mechanicsville woman into custody on charges that she attempted to extort funds from a conservative anti-tax group. The woman, Mary Kathryn Moravek, has served as a state lobbyist and well as a commissioner on a state board for people with disabilities.

According to information first reported Tuesday afternoon by Ed Tibbets of the Quad-City Times, which has since been replaced by a report by James Lynch of The Gazette, Moravek attempted to extort $1 million from Iowans for Tax Relief and David Stanley, a resident of Muscatine and the group’s co-founder. Moravek, according to Lynch’s report, agreed to meet with undercover detectives on Tuesday afternoon that she believed were employees of Iowans for Tax Relief, who were agreeing to a “settlement.” In exchange for the alleged much-reduced $30,000 payment, Moravek was going to sign a statement indicating that she knew of no wrong-doing perpetrated by members of the conservative group.

Moravek told The Gazette on Tuesday morning she was going to file a complaint with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board alleging that Cloyd “Robbie” Robinson of Cedar Rapids, a lobbyist for the taxpayers group, was reimbursed by the group for checks he wrote to state and municipal political candidates. Moravek said she witnessed Robinson writing the checks and then cashing checks from Iowans for Tax Relief for the same amounts.

Robinson, a former Democratic legislator, and Ed Failor Jr. of Muscatine, the president for Iowans for Tax Relief, denied any wrongdoing.

According to state records, Moravek, who is registered as a Democrat, served as a lobbyist during the 2009 session for the Iowa Commission for Persons with Disabilities, a state board on which she has also served as a commissioner.

A search of Iowa electronic court records performed by The Iowa Independent Tuesday night revealed that Moravek had three past criminal convictions on theft charges. She received monetary fines for 5th degree and 4th degree theft convictions in Linn County in 1998 and 2004. She was also given a monetary fine, a suspended 30-day jail sentence and one year of probation following a 4th degree theft and trespass conviction in Linn County in 2005.

An identical search conducted Wednesday morning by The Iowa Independent of the same electronic database revealed several additional convictions. Moravek was convicted of 4th degree theft in Johnson County in 1998, and of 5th degree theft in Linn County in 2003. During 2003 she was also convicted in Linn County of assault and 5th degree theft. In January 2005, she was convicted in two separate cases of harassment by communication in Benton County. All of the convictions resulted in monetary fines ranging from $50 to $300.

Within the electronic records there is also a case against Moravek in Cedar County that was filed this week on Tuesday, Nov. 2. A spokeswoman within the Cedar County Attorney’s Office, however, said that she knew of no such case and couldn’t provide further comment. According to online records, Moravek is scheduled to make an appearance in that case on Nov. 19 at 9 a.m.

Discrepancies within the two electronic records searches were brought to the attention of state’s information technology department that maintains the court database. According to a spokesman from that office, if the cases missing from the initial search had all originated in the same county, the omission could have been due to a lack of communication between state and county information systems. Because that was not the case, the spokesman could offer no explanation as to why the search results from Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning provided differing information.

If found guilty of the extortion charge, which is a Class D felony, Moravek could face up to five years in prison and a $7,500 fine. She is currently released on bond.