Hunter
11/30/22
The trial of a former University of Iowa School of Music professor on meth and child porn charges has been postponed.
The Daily Iowan reports that 65-year-old John Muriello’s trial was originally set to begin next week, but has now been rescheduled to February 6th.
Muriello, of Iowa City, allegedly bought drugs from a supplier in California and sold it to another man on a regular basis. The man, 49-year-old Eric Hojka, in turn provided it to a person who injected it and died in May 2021. An autopsy found the victim died from meth intoxication.
Both Hojka and Muriello had obtained ice meth on multiple occasions from the California supplier. The supplier was investigated in July 2021 on an unrelated matter and learned that they had been mailing packages to Muriello and Hojka beginning in 2020.
Muriello was already under investigation after the U of I received an anonymous email in April 2020 from a reported parent of a freshman student who said he attended a party at Muriello’s home. Partygoers were allegedly provided with the “date rape” drug so that Muriello could have sex with them and record sex acts. Muriello also reportedly possessed an extensive child pornography collection on multiple devices at the home.
Iowa City police obtained a search warrant in May 2021 and seized a number of devices, along with packages containing meth.
One of the hard drives seized was password protected but was opened by investigators. There they reportedly found over 18,500 photos and nearly 3200 videos. Nearly all of them were pornographic, and about 12,000 files featured minor boys.
Muriello is in the Muscatine County Jail being held without bond. The trial will take place in Davenport.
