Sex charge dismissed against fired professor who also wins claim for jobless benefits

A former University of Dubuque associate professor, fired from his job shortly before a sex-related criminal charge against him was dismissed, is entitled to collect jobless benefits, a judge has ruled.

Court records show that on March 15, 2026, University of Dubuque Associate Professor of Psychology Nathan Hough was criminally charged with the felony offense of grooming. The next day, the university fired Hough, citing concerns with student safety.  Hough had worked at the university since August 2025.

In the criminal case, Manchester police alleged an undercover officer, Joshua McCraney, posed as a 16-year-old boy on the dating app Grindr. McCraney’s dating profile showed his age to be 18, but also used an AI-generated photo so the officer appeared to be around 16 years old.

According to police records, Hough messaged McCraney and asked how old he was, to which the officer replied 16, adding that he hoped that was OK with Hough. According to police, Hough replied, “That is OK, ” then stated, “Maybe I should come visit you sometime. Hang out for a bit while your dad is gone. Lol … Even getting naked and seeing what kind of fun we could have?”

When McCraney suggested he might be bad at such activities, Hough allegedly replied “Haha, you will be good! I will coach you through it all,” and then suggested the two engage in sex. According to McCraney’s written report, Hough messaged the officer throughout “the entire day, asking what type of sex I might like to have and how I wanted to have sex.”

Police allege Hough asked McCraney whether he’d be willing to urinate on him and also sent three nude photos of himself. Eventually, the two arranged to meet on March 15, 2026, at a park in Manchester, with Hough indicating he’d be driving a white Ford Explorer. When Hough arrived for the meeting, he was met by two Manchester police officers and three Iowa State Patrol troopers and was placed under arrest, according to McCraney’s report.

Police allege Hough stated he was at the park to meet with a 16-year-old male to “have sex with.” He was charged with grooming and with the dissemination of obscene material to a minor.

State records show Hough was fired the next day, on March 16, 2026, and that he then applied for unemployment benefits. On June 8, 2026, with the criminal case still pending, a hearing on the unemployment issue was held before Administrative Law Judge Jamie West.

West ruled recently that Hough was entitled to unemployment benefits given the lack of a criminal conviction in the case.

“An employer may discharge one of its employees for any reason it chooses, provided that reason is not illegal or contrary to public policy,” West noted in her ruling, adding that the university may have had “specialized considerations such as ensuring the safety of students” at the school.

However, she stated, the university had not presented sufficient evidence to demonstrate that Hough “engaged in any actual misconduct. The employer relied solely on the claimant’s arrest. Being arrested and charged with a crime, regardless of the type, is not the same as a conviction.”

Prosecutor cites statutory defect in grooming law

Meanwhile, in the criminal case, Delaware County prosecutors had cited only the grooming offense in their formal “trial information” that was filed with the court, with no mention of the Manchester Police Department’s charge of disseminating obscene material to a minor. That meant Hough was only being prosecuted on the grooming charge.

On June 12, 2026, Hough’s public defender filed a motion to dismiss the grooming charge, noting that Iowa law establishes 16 as the general age of consent, and the grooming law requires the charge to be based on an underlying attempt to commit some form of “unlawful sexual conduct.”

“Under the circumstances,” Hough’s public defender argued to the court, “consensual sexual activity with a 16-year-old would not otherwise constitute a criminal offense.”

Two weeks later, on June 30, 2026, Delaware County Attorney John W. Bernau filed his own motion to dismiss the case, citing what he called a “lack of evidence” to support the grooming charge.

Bernau said Thursday the dismissal really was the result of the police officer telling Hough he was 16, which is the age of consent in Iowa.

“It really kind of fell on what I would consider to be a statutory defect,” Bernau said. “The (grooming law) talks about a child under the age of 18, but there has to be an unlawful sexual act that is involved. And so there’s a little bit of a defect there with this question of whether there really would have been any unlawful sexual act since the person (Hough) thought he’d be meeting up with was 16.”

The Iowa Capital Dispatch was not able to reach Hough or his public defender, Leigha L. Lattner, for comment.

Iowa’s felony-level grooming statute was approved by the Legislature in 2024. The law defines the act of grooming as the use of digital or written communication to entice “a child, or a person believed to be a child, to commit any unlawful sex act or to otherwise engage in unlawful sexual conduct.”

The grooming statute goes on to define a “child” as an individual under the age of 18, setting up the conflict with Iowa’s age-of-consent law that speaks to individuals who are 16 or older.