Editor’s note: This story contains language that may be offensive to some readers.

Wapello County’s top criminal prosecutor, facing a potential suspension of his law license for referring to judges as “bitches” and making sexually charged comments to his staff, says his actions are protected by the U.S. Constitution.

In August 2022, the Attorney Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Iowa filed charges against Wapello County Attorney Reuben Neff. According to the board, Neff “regularly made inappropriate and sexually charged comments in the presence of his staff.” The board says Neff’s “frequent, sexualized commentary had no legitimate purpose in a legal setting.”

Specifically, the board alleges he often made disparaging comments about judges and magistrates with whom he disagreed and referred to female magistrates, including Magistrate Sarah Wenke and District Court Judge Lucy Gamon, as “bitches.”

In 2019, while conversing with his staff, he allegedly referred to District Court Judge Shawn Showers as a “limp d—-” after Showers presided over a criminal trial in which the defendant was acquitted.

He also is alleged to have told colleagues about a call he received from someone about his predecessor as county attorney, repeating the caller’s description of the previous county attorney as a “f——,” a derogatory epithet typically aimed at gay men.

Neff also is alleged to have told employees of the county attorney’s office about a private, sexual encounter he once had with a woman and provided “graphic details” about the encounter. The remarks were made at the county attorney’s office, the board alleges.

Neff also was accused of telling the two women of an incident in college that involved a male classmate’s penis falling out of the pajama pants the classmate had worn to class that day.

Neff also is alleged to have made sexual comments about criminal defendants his office was prosecuting, and once signaled to his employees that a defendant was likely to be sodomized in prison by forming a circular shape with his hands and stating the man’s “—hole” would be “this big” by the time he left prison.

On another occasion, Neff allegedly told his employees he wished a newly acquitted criminal defendant would be “raped by antelopes and mauled by lions at the same time.” He also is alleged to have told an employee that the opposing counsel in a case headed for trial should “lube up” and “grab his ankles.”

Neff: No attempt to ‘degrade or demean women’

In his response to the charges, Neff argued, among other things, that the Iowa Rules of Professional Conduct for lawyers infringe on his First Amendment right of free speech. The matter recently went before the Grievance Commission of the Supreme Court of Iowa, which opted to leave the question of constitutionality for the Iowa Supreme Court to address.

According to the commission, Neff at one time told two female employees of his office about a false accusation of sexual assault that was lodged against him while he was in college. He provided the two workers with details of the allegations, which included claims of “slapping and scratching Neff’s stomach to the point of bleeding through his shirt,” according to the commission.

The commission found that while Neff initially filed an answer to the board’s charges “denying numerous important allegations,” he later stipulated to having made several of the alleged comments, including calling members of the judiciary “bitches” and using the word “f—–” more than once. The commission recommended that Neff’s license be suspended for 60 days and that the court order Neff and his staff to attend sexual harassment training.

In response to that recommendation, Neff’s attorney, Matthew Sease, recently filed papers with the Iowa Supreme Court arguing “there is no evidence or indication that Neff’s statements were an attempt to degrade or demean women (or) to maintain gender hierarchy.” Sease also argued it would be improper to require Neff to attend sexual-harassment or hostile-workplace training.

In addition, Sease objected to what he said was the board’s attempt to characterize “every cuss word, off-color statement or reference of an individual’s anatomy” made by Neff as some form of sexual harassment.

The Attorney Disciplinary Board has responded by arguing that with regard to Neff’s comments about criminal defendants, “Neff is permitted to feel about criminal defendants any way he wishes, may express this ill will, and may even express himself in this exact manner — outside the practice of law. When he is in the practice of law, however, he may not subject his employees to crude comments that would evoke pornographic imagery; even less may he vocalize a wish for sexual violence upon a defendant.”

As for Neff’s comments about judges, the board stated Neff’s remarks were “not a commentary on the judges’ reasoning but instead attack the judges personally on the basis of gender.” The board argued Neff has abused the power dynamic in his office “to create an environment wherein he has been allowed to tell inappropriate stories, voice a wish of forced sodomy and bestiality upon criminal defendants, and use gendered insulting language.”

Neff, a Republican who has served as the Wapello County attorney since January 2019, declined to comment on the matter when contacted by the Iowa Capital Dispatch.

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