The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation has released information that errors by an employee may impact one or more criminal cases pending in Marion County. One of the cases is confirmed to be a Pella case. The employee has been terminated. Pella Police Chief Robert Bokinsky says that 9 cases overall were impacted by these errors. Bokinsky says that it wasn’t an issue of a false accusations based on the fingerprint analysis. The employee declared fingerprints in these cases as unsuitable for identification, which means they were not used to identify likely suspects. A later internal audit found the fingerprints to be of use in these cases. KNIA/KRLS will bring you more information on this story as soon as it becomes official.

Marion County Attorney Ed Bull calls the incident disappointing, but says it doesn’t undermine his trust in and respect for the DCI. He says his biggest concern is how it’ll affect the attitude the public has toward the organization. Bull says that DCI does an outstanding job in assisting law enforcement and there needs to be a wait-and-see approach to how this impacts any pending cases. He explains it’s concerning, but not anything anyone in Marion County should lose sleep over.