Fired officer faced no charges after alleged vandalism and ‘threat’ to kill wife

A Muscatine police officer faced no criminal charges related to allegations that he threatened to kill his wife, had the home of his wife’s boyfriend vandalized and lied to investigators, according to newly disclosed records.

While court records indicate Juan Daniel Lopez was never criminally charged in the 2011 case, he was fired by the Muscatine Police Department — a fact that he was accused of concealing from the City of Iowa City, which hired him in October 2021.

Lopez’s conduct in Muscatine came to light only recently after he was arrested in Johnson County on a charge of possession of cocaine with intent to deliver. That charge was dropped last month as part of a plea bargain that resulted in two years of probation for a violation of Iowa’s drug-tax law.

At the time of his December 2023 arrest, Lopez was working as a construction inspector for Iowa City. Within days of the arrest, Lopez was fired from that job, in part because he had omitted from his job application any reference to his past employment with the City of Muscatine. Iowa City officials didn’t learn of his employment there until they investigated his background in the wake of the drug arrest, according to state records.

City and state records indicate Lopez worked as a Muscatine police officer from August 2008 until his discharge in December 2011.

Newly disclosed records show that Lopez was the focus of a criminal investigation in late 2011 after a Muscatine man reported someone had thrown a brick though a picture window on the front of his house.

According to police records, the victim in the case identified Lopez as the suspect. The alleged motive was an affair the victim had with Lopez’s estranged wife.

An investigation was launched at which point one of Lopez’s fellow officers, Anthony Kies, who is now the city’s police chief, reported that Lopez had threatened to choke his wife to death and had commented how funny that would be. According to the police records, Kies’ perception was that Lopez’s comments represented an “imminent threat” and so they were reported to a corporal.

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Lopez: ‘I know this makes me look f—ing horrible.’

According to the police records, Lopez wasn’t truthful when interviewed about the vandalism and admitted that he had instructed his wife not to turn over to investigators certain phone records. The police records indicate that when interviewed, Lopez told investigators he knew the vandalism incident had his “name painted all over it,” adding, “I know this makes me look f—ing horrible.”

The records suggest Lopez didn’t personally throw the brick through the window, but was aware of who had done so. In speaking to investigators, Lopez allegedly expressed regret that a small child was in the house at the time of the incident.

In police records tied to a disciplinary hearing on the matter, the city alleged Lopez was “no stranger when it comes to misdeeds in his official capacity as a police officer.”

In 2010, the records state, Lopez was suspended for two days for improper handling of a firearm when he discharged his weapon in a manner that endangered two other police officers.

The records also state that in 2011, Lopez was suspended for four days for his involvement in a barroom brawl and for instructing others not to report the incident to police. The same records indicate Lopez was given a verbal warning in 2011 for running the license plate of his wife’s alleged boyfriend for no legitimate purpose.

In October 2021, Lopez was hired by the City of Iowa City as a full-time construction inspector. He was arrested at work on Dec. 1, 2023, and was charged with felony possession of cocaine with intent to deliver.

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Police alleged that during the course of an ongoing narcotics investigation, a U.S. Postal Service inspector intercepted a package sent to Lopez’s apartment. According to police, the names of the purported sender and recipient of the package were aliases known to be used by Lopez, and the package contained 490 grams – a little over one pound — of cocaine.

Police then obtained search warrants for Lopez’s apartment and vehicles and allegedly found six firearms, several boxes of ammunition, two digital scales covered in drug residue, and numerous packaging materials consistent with drug distribution.

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Several weeks later, Johnson County prosecutors agreed to drop the felony drug charge against Lopez in exchange for a guilty plea on a charge of failing to have a tax stamp for the drugs in question. He was fined $1,025, received a five-year suspended prison sentence and was placed on probation for two years.

Johnson County Attorney Rachel Zimmermann Smith said Thursday that Lopez’s status as a former police officer played no role in the decision to offer a plea deal in the case.

She said that had Lopez been convicted of the drug charge, he would have been eligible for a deferred judgment due to his lack of prior criminal convictions. A deferred judgment typically results in probation followed by the case being expunged from publicly available court records.

Speaking to the Iowa Capital Dispatch Wednesday and Thursday, Lopez declined to comment on either his 2023 arrest or his past employment with the Muscatine Police Department.

Find this story at Iowa Capital Dispatch, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions:[email protected].

This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Former Iowa City inspector fired for concealing Muscatine PD dismissal