State of Iowa v. Lima Khairi Mohammad Younes

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: February 5, 2025
• Docket: 23-1548
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 23-1548 Filed February 5, 2025

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

LIMA KHAIRI MOHAMMAD YOUNES, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Johnson County, Jason A. Burns,

Judge.

A mother convicted for aiding and abetting her son’s flight to evade

prosecution challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting her conviction,

in addition to other claims. AFFIRMED.

Thomas M. McIntee, Williamsburg, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and David Banta, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee.

Considered by Buller, P.J., Sandy, J., and Telleen, S.J.*

*Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206

(2025). 2

TELLEEN, Senior Judge.

In May 2022, the State charged Ali Younes—the 18-year-old son of Lima

and Alfred Younes—with attempted murder and other felonies in connection with

a strangling in Johnson County. Ali posted bond and was released to home

confinement at his parents’ residence in Sutherland, Iowa. Ten days before trial,

he cut off his ankle monitor and boarded a plane to Amman, Jordan. A jury found

Lima Younes guilty of aiding and abetting her son’s flight from prosecution. Lima

now appeals, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence.

I. Background

On May 6, 2023, just before 9:00 a.m., Ali Younes’s probation officer

received a tamper alert from Ali’s GPS ankle monitor. After failing to reach Ali, she

attempted to contact Lima and Alfred, with whom Ali had been living while on pre-

trial release. No one responded to the calls. And when a sheriff’s deputy visited

the Younes’ house, nobody answered the door. Law enforcement began to search

for Ali.

Using its onboard GPS system, police traced the Younes family car to a

dealership in Omaha, Nebraska. The manager explained that Lima and Alfred had

visited the dealership three days earlier and sold the car for roughly $21,000 in

proceeds. A receipt admitted at trial identified Alfred as the “customer,” but it listed

Lima as one of the vehicle’s titleholders. The check was made payable to both

Lima and Alfred. Bank records later obtained by police show that Alfred cashed

the check through the couple’s shared account one day after the sale.

The Younes’ whereabouts remained unknown until after 6:00 p.m., when

Lima and Alfred finally returned the probation officer’s calls. Lima told the 3

probation officer that she and Alfred were in Davenport and that they had left Ali at

home. Alfred alleged Ali was having a problem with his phone. The couple

promised to update the probation officer when they made it back from Davenport.

But when police tracked Alfred’s phone using cell tower data, they learned Lima

and Alfred were nowhere near Davenport. They were in northern Illinois, traveling

westbound toward Dubuque.

Investigators coordinated with Dubuque police to search for a white rental

minivan Alfred had recently driven to work. The vehicle was stopped shortly

thereafter. Lima, Alfred, and their daughter were inside. Body camera footage

admitted at trial captured Lima’s statements during the stop. She told the officer

that the Younes family was on its way back from the O’Hare International Airport

in Chicago, where they had dropped off her mother for a flight to Canada. When

asked about Ali, Lima told the officer he had stayed home. Police searched the

minivan. Finding no sign of Ali, they let the family go.

Back in Sutherland, officers executed a search warrant at the Younes

residence. They entered the house close to midnight. Ali was not there. Officers

located his ankle monitor, which had been cut at the strap, as well as a lockbox

containing passports and passport photos for each of the family members.

Two days after Ali’s disappearance, Lima and Alfred met with their

daughter’s high school principal to discuss whether she could finish high school

online. The principal testified that the Younes family informed her of their plan to

leave the country later that week. Alfred did most of the talking. On May 9, two

deposits totaling $60,000 were credited to Alfred and Lima’s shared bank account. 4

These funds were later determined to be the proceeds from high-interest personal

loans obtained by Alfred.

Meanwhile, federal authorities informed police that Ali had boarded a flight

to Amman, Jordan at O’Hare International Airport on May 6. He traveled in a seat

adjacent to his grandmother, Wafa Najim, using tickets purchased by credit card

less than one week earlier. Security camera images admitted at trial show Ali

navigating the airport alongside an older woman in a hijab.

Through a constellation of vehicle data and surveillance footage, police

reconstructed the Younes family’s path on May 6. Their rented minivan was filmed

by a gas station camera leaving their Sutherland driveway just after 9:00 a.m. It

traced a roundabout journey through Minnesota and Wisconsin before turning

south toward Illinois, where it was photographed entering and exiting an airport

parking lot at O’Hare. It then made a due-west return to Sutherland via Dubuque.

Images from an Illinois toll booth captured Lima riding in the front passenger seat

of the vehicle as Alfred drove them home.

Police arrested Alfred in Omaha on May 9. He was preparing to board a

flight to Jordan, carrying over $16,000 in cash. Lima was arrested as she returned

from taking Alfred to the airport. The State charged both parents with aiding and

abetting Ali’s flight from felony prosecution in violation of Iowa Code

section 719.4(4) (2023).1 At trial, Lima moved for judgment of acquittal, objecting

to the venue of her trial and arguing the evidence was insufficient to support her

1 Alfred pled guilty to his charge, and his sentence was affirmed on a separate

appeal. See State v. Younes, No. 23-1950, 2024 WL 4615753, at *1–2 (Iowa Ct. App. Oct. 30, 2024). 5

conviction as an aider and abettor. The district court denied the motion, and the

jury found her guilty. Lima received an indeterminate sentence of five years’

imprisonment. She now appeals.

II. Sufficiency of the Evidence

We review a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence for correction of

errors at law. State v. Crawford, 974 N.W.2d 510, 516 (Iowa 2022). The jury’s

verdict must stand if it is supported by substantial evidence. State v. Cahill, 972

N.W.2d 19, 27 (Iowa 2022). We view the evidence “in the light most favorable to

the State,” asking whether it could “convince a rational jury that the defendant is

guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Sanford, 814 N.W.2d 611, 615

(Iowa 2012). Lima does not challenge the State’s proof as to the elements of Ali’s

principal offense. However, she argues the record is insufficient to support her

liability as an aider and abettor.

The district court properly instructed the jury that aiding and abetting means

to “knowingly approve and agree to the commission of a crime, either by active

participation in it or by knowingly advising or encouraging the act in some way

before or when it is committed.” Accord State v. Cook, 996 N.W.2d 703, 708–09

(Iowa 2023). Mere awareness of the crime or proximity to the scene is not enough

to convict on an aiding and abetting theory. State v. Brimmer, 983 N.W.2d 247,

256 (Iowa 2022). That said, a defendant’s participation “can be inferred from

circumstantial evidence including presence, companionship and conduct before

and after the offense is committed.” State v. Miles, 346 N.W.2d 517, 520 (Iowa

1984) (cleaned up). 6

According to Lima, the State failed to show she was anything more than a

bystander in her son’s offense. She asserts there is no evidence to suggest she

cut Ali’s ankle monitor, purchased his airline ticket, or drove the minivan to O’Hare.

Lima is right about those aspects of the record. However, the State was not

required to prove she personally carried out all—or even any—of the steps that

facilitated Ali’s escape. It needed only to show that Lima “actively participat[ed]”

in those acts or “encouraged [them] in some way.” Brimmer, 983 N.W.2d at 248.

Viewing the record in the light most favorable to the verdict, we find substantial

proof that she did.

Ali’s flight to Jordan was a family effort. Lima was not merely a passenger

in a van. On May 3, she traveled to Omaha with Alfred to sell their jointly owned

vehicle. The check was made out to both parents and cashed out of their shared

account. A rational juror could infer that Lima and Alfred agreed to use these

funds—along with the loans Alfred would later collect—to restart their family’s life

in Jordan. Lima’s participation continued on May 6, when she told multiple

authorities searching for Ali that he remained at home in Sutherland. The jury was

entitled to conclude these statements were lies intended to stop police from

apprehending Ali before he boarded his plane. See State v. Hearn, 797 N.W.2d

577, 581 (Iowa 2011) (citing a defendant’s interference with a police pursuit as one

fact supporting his conviction for aiding and abetting a carjacking); State v.

Friedley, No. 01-1580, 2003 WL 1523343, at *4 (Iowa Ct. App. Mar. 26, 2003)

(finding defendant’s misrepresentations to a loan officer demonstrated his

knowledge of corporate theft and supported his conviction for aiding and abetting). 7

Lima contends there was “[n]o evidence Ali was in the van which

transported Wafa” to the airport and so the jury could not rationally conclude she

lied to police about her son’s whereabouts. We disagree. Although Ali was not

photographed with the white minivan, the circumstantial proof placing him inside

the vehicle is more than substantial. See Brimmer, 983 N.W.2d at 256 (noting

direct and circumstantial evidence are equally probative of an aider and abettor’s

involvement). The minivan was filmed leaving the Younes’ driveway just minutes

after Ali’s probation officer received a tamper alert from his ankle monitor. Some

nine hours later, security footage recorded Ali entering the airport at the same time

as his grandmother. And the minivan’s circuitous route through adjacent states—

which Lima and Alfred did not follow on their return trip from Chicago—is consistent

with a plan to keep a wanted passenger beyond the reach of Iowa authorities.

Lima also argues that Alfred was the primary accomplice in Ali’s escape and

that the jury improperly imputed Alfred’s conduct to her. We are mindful of the

evidence of Alfred’s greater culpability in the Younes family’s scheme. However,

as the district court correctly instructed the jury, “[t]he guilt of a person who aids

and abets the commission of a crime must be determined upon the facts which

show the part the person had in it, and does not depend upon the degree of another

person’s guilt.” Iowa Code § 703.1. For the reasons discussed, substantial

evidence of Lima’s own participation in Ali’s offense supports her conviction.

III. Lima’s Other Claims

Lima’s appellate brief raises several other issues, none of which are

properly before us. First, she challenges the venue of her Johnson County trial—

an argument first raised in her attorney’s oral motion for acquittal at the close of 8

the State’s evidence. The district court found that objection waived, and we agree.

See Iowa Code § 803.2(3) (“All objections to venue are waived by a defendant

unless the defendant objects thereto and secures a ruling by the trial court on a

pretrial motion for change of venue.”); State v. Smith, 585 N.W.2d 753, 754 (Iowa

Ct. App. 1998) (“Venue is not a jurisdictional issue. A defendant must object to

improper venue before trial or the issue is waived.”).

Second, Lima argues that she is entitled to a new trial under Iowa Rule of

Criminal Procedure 2.24(2)(b)(7) because the jury’s verdict is contrary to the

weight of the evidence. We review that claim under a different set of standards

than a sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge. See State v. Ary, 877 N.W.2d 686,

706 (Iowa 2016). But as Lima concedes, she never asked the district court for a

new trial based on the weight of the evidence. So, the issue is not preserved for

our review. See State v. Kucharo, No. 22-1881, 2024 WL 2842307, at *1 n.1 (Iowa

Ct. App. June 5, 2024); State v. Kramer, No. 16-2048, 2018 WL 346454, at *7

(Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 10, 2018).

Finally, Lima argues that her conviction should be vacated because she

received ineffective assistance from trial counsel due to counsel’s failure to seek

suppression of her statements to Dubuque police, among other asserted

deficiencies. The law is clear that such a claim must now await postconviction

proceedings. See Iowa Code § 814.7 (stating an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel

claim “shall not be decided on direct appeal from the criminal proceedings”);

accord State v. Tucker, 982 N.W.2d 645, 653 (Iowa 2022). We decline to consider

her ineffective-assistance arguments. 9

IV. Conclusion

Substantial evidence supports the jury’s verdict finding Lima Younes guilty

for aiding and abetting her son’s flight to avoid prosecution. We reject her

remaining claims of error as waived, premature, or unpreserved, and we therefore

affirm her conviction and sentence.

AFFIRMED.