Stating that there was no evidence presented and no authority in the court to do so, a district court judge has overturned an application for sanctions by an attorney with the Iowa Public Defender's Office against the Story County Attorney's Office.

Judge Gary McMinimee ruled against sanctioning the County Attorney in an order filed Monday.

Assistant Public Defender Annette Boehlje filed for sanctions against the county attorney's office for its actions in the case of Eddie Williams, who was arrested and charged with burglary, false imprisonment and assault. The charges stem from an incident Dec. 13 at the Comfort Inn in Story City in which Williams and another woman were accused of assaulting a woman at the hotel and keeping her from leaving the room.

Boehlje said the state let her waste several hours preparing for the trial by failing to notify her that prosecutors had decided to dismiss the case.

In a hearing Aug. 18, Boehlje was unable to cite a specific legal authority providing for a district court judge to issue a sanction against the county attorney's office. Moreover, county attorney Keishea Cretsinger, who prosecuted the case against Williams, said Boehlje's complaint that her time had been wasted by the state on a case that they'd known was never going to go to trial was a common aggravation among lawyers on both sides.

"Essentially, what appears to be Mrs. Boehlje's complaint is that she spent several hours preparing for a case that never came to fruition," said Cretsinger. "That's part and parcel with the legal profession."

Cretsinger admitted that her office hadn't supplied Boehlje with the written statement in which the woman who said she was assaulted recanted her story, but said also that the document had never been sent to the county attorney's office by the Story City Police Department. They had, however, given Boehlje a tape of the spoken recantation on April 15, and the minutes of testimony in the case included officer's admissions of the recantation.

Cretsinger also said that the case had remained open until shortly before trial because they had been looking into other information that the victim in the case had been abused by Williams in the past, and that she had recanted her complaint under threat of future violence from Williams.

Story City Police Chief Brian Haffner said investigators were unsure what prompted the women to tell one story one day and another story two days later, but said he knew of no indication that she'd been threatened by Williams into recanting the story.

Luke Jennett can be reached at 232-2161, Ext. 343, or ljennett@amestrib.com.