Court dismisses lawsuit against Henry County and Mt. Pleasant chief of police

A lawsuit against Henry County and Mt. Pleasant officials has been dismissed because the plaintiff — a lawyer who claimed his rights had been violated — missed a filing deadline.

Last November, attorney Beau Bergmann and the Bergmann Law Firm filed a federal lawsuit against Henry County, Henry County District Court, Henry County Attorney Darin Stater, and Mt. Pleasant Chief of Police Lyle Murray.

The lawsuit claimed Bergmann and his law firm maintained a lawyer trust account for depositing client funds at Wayland State Bank in Mt. Pleasant. According to the lawsuit, in August 2023, Murray and Stater initiated a search warrant application for account information at Wayland State Bank. The warrant application allegedly sought access to financial statements for accounts controlled by Bergmann or the law firm.

As part of the warrant application, according to the lawsuit, Murray provided the court with an affidavit stating that Bergmann had illegally taken $20,000 from a mentally incapacitated person and would not return the money. Additional references were made to $9,500 paid to Bergmann by a different client.

Murray’s affidavit, according to the lawsuit, alleged that “Bergmann either stole or fraudulently obtained money from the two victims.” The affidavit allegedly cites “two suspicious checking accounts,” without offering any explanation as to why the accounts were deemed suspicious.

Based upon Murray’s affidavit, District Associate Judge Jonathan Stensvaag then approved the warrant application and signed a search warrant in the case, the lawsuit alleges.

Bergmann sued, arguing the court was aware, or should have been aware, there was probable cause that a criminal offense had been committed. The lawsuit sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for alleged civil rights violations related to the improper issuance of search warrants and invasion of privacy.

On March 2, March 3 and April 1, 2026, the defendants in the case filed motions to have the case dismissed. Court rules stipulate that a party in a lawsuit has 14 days to file a resistance to such a motion, and that no resistance was ever filed by Bergmann. On April 23, with the deadline having passed, all of the defendants sought immediate dismissal of the case, citing Bergmann’s lack of response.

The next day, on April 24, Bergmann filed a motion seeking permission to file resistance briefs under seal. According to the court, that motion “did not acknowledge that the deadlines to resist the underlying motions had passed” and did not explain why Bergmann had failed to seek an extension.

On April 28, the court ordered Bergmann to show cause as to why the motions to dismiss shouldn’t be granted. According to the court, Bergmann failed to respond to that order, and so the court granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss the case.

The Iowa Capital Dispatch was not able to reach Murray, the Mt. Pleasant police chief, by phone on Thursday about the court’s decision, but in a Facebook post Murray said he planned to meet with attorneys about pursuing a case for slander and defamation.

Murray wrote that the city’s attorney had contacted Bergmann and the Bergmann Law Firm “and asked them pointed questions for clarification,” but the questions were never answered. “I then was advised by four different state agencies that they had received a complaint on me for failure to do my job correctly,” he wrote, adding that all of the agencies later agreed no crime was committed.