By KELBY WINGERT

kwingert@messengernews.net

A former Christian missionary who was convicted of sexual abuse by a Webster County jury in April is asking for a new trial, arguing that the trial court erred in allowing improper evidence to be admitted in court and that the verdict is “contrary to law or evidence.”

Jordan Dee Andrew Webb, 30, of Fort Dodge, was found guilty on April 28 of one count of second-degree sexual abuse with persons under the age of 12, a Class B felony; incest, a class D felony; and child endangerment, an aggravated misdemeanor.

Webb was arrested in April 2022 following an investigation by the Webster County Sheriff’s Office and Webster County Attorney’s Office that was prompted by “some health concerns involving a juvenile,” the Sheriff’s Office reported at the time.

From 2019 to February 2022, Webb served as a missionary in the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia. According to a now-deleted Facebook page and website for Webb’s “Christ in the Caribbean” missionary work in St. Lucia, Harvest Baptist Church, of Fort Dodge, was the “sending church” for his mission work.

Webb’s alleged victim, who will be known as Jane Doe, was diagnosed with gonorrhea in early April 2022. The Messenger does not identify victims of sexual assault. Just days before Jane Doe was diagnosed, Webb was also diagnosed with gonorrhea, Assistant Webster County Attorney Bailey Taylor said during trial. The state alleged that Webb committed a sex act on the victim, infecting her with the STD.

In a motion for a new trial filed on Thursday, Dean Stowers, attorney for Webb, argues that District Court Judge Christopher Polking’s decision to admit statements the victim made to a nurse practitioner at the Allen Child Protection Center in Waterloo violated the confrontation clause under the U.S. and Iowa constitutions. Because the victim was not called to testify at trial, Stowers argued, statements she made were hearsay and did not fall under a medical exception to hearsay.

Stowers also argued that the victim’s statements were “fundamentally ambiguous and capable of causing the jury to speculate as to what [the victim] meant.”

In his motion, Stowers also attacked the circumstantial evidence on which the state’s case is based.

“When one looks at the evidence in this case, we have a bunch of speculative inferences and conclusions that would have to be drawn to get to the verdicts we have today,” he wrote. “The weight of the evidence does not support these verdicts.”

A sentencing hearing had been scheduled for Friday at the Webster County Courthouse, but a hearing on the defense’s motion has been scheduled in its place. If the motion is denied, a sentencing hearing will be scheduled at a later date. Webb is facing a maximum of 32 years in prison if all three counts are ordered to be served consecutively.