Lang
11/22/20
A local transient with a lengthy and colorful criminal history has been arrested again…this time for allegedly fighting on a bus.
52-year-old Gary Leon Duffel II was booked into the Johnson County Jail on a Public Intoxication charge just after 3:45 Saturday afternoon. Online records show Duffel was arrested after Iowa City Police received a call about a fight on an Iowa City Transit bus near the corner of Gilbert Street and Kirkwood Avenue.
Duffel has a lengthy criminal history. Last July he stole a $137 stone turtle statue from Phil’s Building Supplies on Hollywood Boulevard and dropped it in the nearby Suburban BP Amoco parking lot on Keokuk Street, causing it to break. Duffel pleaded guilty to a 5th Degree Theft charge and was fined $200.
In 2018 he was arrested for cutting down the flag outside the Iowa City VFW hall.
In March of 2010 Duffel was arrested for urinating on the front porch of then-Iowa City City Councilor Mike Wright.
Duffel was arrested at The Nickelodeon on the Coralville Strip in January of that year after he took his clothes off and began yelling about his recent release from the Henry County Correctional Facility.
Duffel was convicted on Criminal Mischief charges in 2007 after he toppled the Irving Weber statue at the corner of Iowa Avenue and Linn Street, breaking off the arm and causing an estimated $12,000 in damages.
In 2014 Duffel was arrested for stealing a keg off a beer truck parked at the Benton Street Delimart.
If convicted on the latest charge, Duffel faces a maximum of 30 days in jail.
