State of Iowa v. Demetrius S. Rimmer v. Rona Murphy v. Melonicka Thomas

WATERMAN, Justice.

Can criminal defendants avoid prosecution in Iowa if they were unaware that their, scheme was being perpetrated, in part, on persons located in Iowa? This appeal presents questions of first impression regarding the State of Iowa’s territorial jurisdiction to prosecute multistate insurance fraud. The defendants, who live in Wisconsin and Illinois and had never set foot in Iowa before their extradition here, allegedly staged an auto accident in Chicago to collect on false insurance claims. The victim was a Wisconsin insurance company that paid claims through its Wisconsin bank…