State of Iowa v. Devin Cornelius Gregory

Court of Appeals of Iowa·Decided October 1, 2025·No. 23-1816·Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 23-1816

Filed October 1, 2025

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

DEVIN CORNELIUS GREGORY, Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Washington County, Joel D. Yates, Judge.

A defendant appeals his convictions for sexual abuse in the third degree, sexual exploitation of a minor, and supplying alcohol to persons under the legal age. AFFIRMED.

Martha J. Lucey, State Appellate Defender, and Bradley M. Bender and Michelle E. Rabe, Assistant Appellate Defenders, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Joshua Henry, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Considered without oral argument by Tabor, C.J., Ahlers, J., and Potterfield, S.J.* *Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206 (2025).

TABOR, Chief Judge.

After hearing testimony about his interactions with a sixteen-year-old girl, a jury convicted Devin Gregory of four crimes: third-degree sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of a minor, and two counts of supplying alcohol to persons under the legal age. He appeals those convictions, raising five claims. First, he argues the district court should have struck for cause a juror whose daughter had experienced sexual assault. Second, Gregory contends the court should have granted a mistrial based on his health issues. Third, he alleges the State offered insufficient evidence for his convictions. Fourth, he contests the court’s lack of reasons for denying his motion for new trial. And fifth, Gregory challenges his sentence.

Because the district court properly exercised its discretion in denying Gregory’s motion to strike the juror, his motion for mistrial, and his motion for new trial, we reject those claims. The record also shows substantial evidence supporting the verdicts and a proper rationale for his sentence. So we affirm.

I. Facts and Prior Proceedings A.F. started working at Walmart in the summer of 2022. She grew close to her coworker Andrea.1 Then sixteen, A.F. recalled Andrea “took me under her wing,” offering “tips and tricks” about the job. “She was like my work mom.” On August 3, Andrea invited A.F. to her home for a barbecue and introduced the teenager to her husband, Devin Gregory. Gregory was forty-four years old.

A.F. returned to the Gregory home for a second barbecue on August 9. This time, her eighteen-year-old boyfriend, T.W., came along. Andrea gathered bottles

1 Andrea’s full name is Karolla Andrea Gregory. A.F. called her Andrea, as will we in this opinion. We will use the last name, Gregory, for the defendant on appeal.

of alcohol on the dining room table. And both she and Gregory offered alcohol to the teenaged guests. Both intoxicated, A.F. and T.W. had sex in a guest bedroom after the Gregorys encouraged them to do so. During their visit, Gregory showed his collection of guns and bows and arrows to A.F. and T.W.

A third invitation came the next day. So A.F. and T.W. returned to the Gregorys’ home on August 10. As they were hanging out, the hosts took the teenagers into a guest bedroom to show them a massage table. Gregory said he could massage A.F.’s “back and legs because that’s what’s appropriate.” After T.W. left the room, Gregory told A.F.: “I can massage more than just your back and legs.” She “gave him a look,” and he returned to the living room.

But later during the same visit, Gregory hugged A.F. from behind and started “swaying” with her. She told him: “Stop, can you get off.” But he ignored her wishes, put his hands under her shirt, and started fondling her breasts. A.F. turned to Andrea, saying: “Help. He’s your husband.” Andrea replied: “I’m sorry. He gets a little handsy sometimes. He has a mind of his own.”

After that, Gregory put his hands down A.F.’s shorts, rubbing her clitoris and trying to “stick his fingers inside of [her].” A.F. recalled that Gregory eventually stopped, hugged her again, “slapp[ed her] butt,” and walked out.

A.F. then left with T.W., who had to work. But A.F. returned alone to confront Andrea about why she didn’t help. Andrea told A.F. that Gregory had “needs and wants that [Andrea] can’t fulfill.” Then, as if on cue, Gregory came into the room and started rubbing A.F.’s back and shoulders. He asked if A.F. was “okay with what [he] was doing earlier.” She replied: “No, actually, I wasn’t okay with what you were doing.” But Gregory persisted, asking, “Why can’t we have a

little fun?” He also lifted her shirt and asked to “suck on” her breasts. She pushed his head away and refused. He then said: “if you’re not going to have sex with me, can I at least get photos of you?” He asked A.F. to take nude photos and send them to Andrea. A.F. declined.

A.F. later told her counselor what happened, and the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services reported the interactions to police. After the police investigation, the State charged Gregory with sexual abuse in the third degree, a class “C” felony in violation of Iowa Code sections 709.1 and 709.4(1)(a) (2022); sexual exploitation of a minor, a class “C” felony in violation of sections 728.12(1) and 903B.1; and two counts of supplying alcohol to a person under age, serious misdemeanors in violation of section 123.47(1) and (5).2 A jury heard the case in August 2023 and returned guilty verdicts on all four counts.

The court sentenced Gregory to prison terms not to exceed ten years on the felony convictions; those sentences were to run consecutively. The court imposed one-year sentences on the misdemeanors, to run concurrently with each other and concurrently with the felony counts. In the end, he faced an indeterminate twenty-year term. Gregory appeals his convictions and sentence.

II. Analysis

A. Did the district court abuse its discretion in not striking a potential juror for cause?

Gregory alleges the district court should have granted his motion to strike Juror 2 because she “expressed concerns about her potential ability to be fair and

2 The State also charged Andrea for sexual abuse as an aider and abettor and two

counts of supplying alcohol to a minor. The jury convicted her as charged, but she is not a party to this appeal.

impartial” given her experience with the sexual abuse of her daughter. The issue came to the court’s attention when the potential juror noted on a jury questionnaire that she had a family member that’s been affected by sexual abuse. During individual voir dire, Juror 2 revealed that her then twenty-year-old daughter had been sexually abused at age thirteen by “a stranger on the street.” Juror 2 explained: “She’s healing. She’s been through counseling, yeah, but it’s going to affect her for a while.” In response to a question from the judge, the juror acknowledged that “the defendants had nothing to do with [her] daughter’s situation.” When asked if she could put aside what happened to her daughter and be fair to Gregory, Juror 2 replied: “I think so. I will try my best, yeah.”

As a follow-up, defense counsel probed:

My question is if you hear in evidence that the accuser in this case was sixteen years old at the time, is that going to cause you to sort of start identifying the evidence that you’re hearing in this case with what your daughter went through? I think you can understand why I’m concerned about that.

Juror 2 acknowledged counsel’s concerns and replied:

So I’m a pastor’s wife. I hear a lot of things. I hear things from both sides lots of times, and I try to put myself in their shoes at the moment. So I do my best, but I—I don’t know, to be honest, but I will—before the Lord and before the court, I have sworn that I will be fair and listen to the evidence, and so I will do my best, and I promise to do that.

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