TOLEDO — The saga of the former Elberon Public Library director who has been convicted on two felony charges stemming from events that unfolded at the facility on her final day of work there took another strange turn during Thursday morning’s sentencing hearing as defense attorney Scott Hunter raised questions about a social media friendship between one of the jurors in the case and Tama County Attorney Brent Heeren.

A Tama County jury found Bailey Anne Jenkins, 34, guilty of solicitation to commit a felony and second degree criminal mischief back in January after a group of children vandalized and ransacked the library on May 22, 2024, her last day of work there, and caused nearly $18,000 in damages. On Thursday morning, Hunter told Judge Mark Fisher he had time to do research after the conclusion of the trial and felt that evidence of prosecutorial and juror misconduct had been unearthed.

As he explained, attorneys on both sides of a case typically ask potential jurors if they know any of the parties involved during jury selection, and if they did, it would typically lead to further questions about the nature of their relationship. Hunter said Heeren had a “long-going, undisclosed friendship” with one of the jurors and cited Facebook posts that show him wishing the juror a happy birthday on multiple occasions — January of 2024, January of 2020 and January of 2018 — as proof.

“Not only did the juror who was sworn to answer truthfully not disclose this friendship, the county attorney, who is a sworn officer of this court, failed to advise the judge — you — that he had a friendship, a long-going friendship, with one of the jurors who ultimately was seated,” Hunter said. “We think that, your honor, is sufficient for a new trial. The jury rendered a verdict that cannot be considered impartial. It cannot be considered fair. A friend of the prosecutor sat on that jury, and it was not disclosed.”

Hunter went on to make more customary motions for an arrest of judgement and a new trial by arguing 1) that the jury’s verdict was contrary to the evidence presented and 2) that one of the jury instructions was “confusing.” He concluded by contending that Heeren had “a buddy on the jury” before Assistant Tama County Attorney Geneva Williams responded on behalf of the state and resisted the motions as Heeren himself was not in attendance.

Williams described social media as “not real life” and “not a real place” before noting that most people have hundreds and even thousands of Facebook friends — some of whom they don’t even know personally.

“Mr. Hunter has presented not a scintilla of evidence other than an annual ‘Happy Birthday’ wish or salutation with no other evidence that Mr. Heeren or (the juror) have any type of relationship outside of the illusory world of social media,” Williams said. “I think that is an unfair characterization of them having some long, close friendship that could’ve been disclosed. Neither one of them may have even known that the other is Facebook friends.”

The state also resisted the other two points of contention before Hunter offered his retort. In his view, the issue wasn’t how good of friends the two were but the fact that it was never disclosed during jury selection.

“These are letters typed in by Brent and sent to (the juror) on (the juror’s) Facebook page, so I think the lack of a scintilla of evidence is a little overstatement. Clearly, this is evidence of some relationship,” he said. “Clearly, we’re broadsided now. It sounds like (the juror) was his buddy, and he was (the juror’s) buddy. And (the juror) was on the jury, and we didn’t know it. And I would say that is sufficient for a new trial.”

In a clarification, Williams said the posts that had been discovered were not even technically annual, and Facebook has all but automated the process of wishing a friend a happy birthday on the site. Fisher quickly denied the defense’s claims on the sufficiency of evidence and jury instructions, but he did find it necessary to consider the allegation of prosecutorial misconduct against Heeren — though he felt the court was “somewhat handicapped” without the county attorney in attendance.

“In fairness to the state, it was not made apparent, at least to the court, that that was going to be the primary argument put forth to the court today, and certainly the exhibits were not filed in advance to put the state on notice of that argument,” Fisher said. “The motion set forth by the defense, there was no, necessarily, criticism of it, but it was fairly generic in its allegations and consistent with what the court would see in many of these circumstances.”

The judge opted to allow the parties to submit written filings and reset the hearing regarding sentencing and the motion for a new trial on the one remaining ground, which has been scheduled for Thursday, June 19, at 9 a.m.

“The court will expect Mr. Heeren to be personally present,” Fisher said.

At presstime, Heeren had not responded to a request for comment. After the hearing, Jenkins told the newspaper she thought the juror in question “looked familiar” and found the juror on Facebook after the trial, where she noticed one of the posts from Heeren.

“I will tell you, it took me probably eight hours of work to find all of the connections between everybody, and while Facebook, I know, is a virtual space, when you have 100 friends on Facebook, the argument (that) you didn’t know Brent was your friend is kind of a moot point,” she said.

Jenkins has filed two complaints with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission that are currently pending — one against the Tama County Sheriff’s Office alleging that her initial interview with Deputy Cole Savage on June 28, 2024 was delayed due to her memory issues and another accusing the city of Elberon and the library board of discrimination based on her gender identity, which was filed before Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law removing protected class status for transgender Iowans earlier this year. The status of the latter complaint is unclear as a result.

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.