Sex Offender Who Lived in Iowa for More than a Year Without Registering Sentenced to Federal Prison

 A man who moved to Iowa from Texas and failed to comply with his requirement to register as a sex offender was sentenced on December 13, 2022, to more than two years in federal prison.

Robert Lee Metz, age 61, formerly of Austin, Texas, and last living in Cedar Falls, Iowa, received the prison term after a July 20, 2022 guilty plea to one count of failure to register as a sex offender.

Information at the plea and sentencing hearings showed that Metz moved to Iowa from Texas in April 2021.  Metz was required to register as a sex offender because he had previously been convicted of two sex offenses that each required him to register: indecency with a child-contact in 1993 in Texas state court and possession of visual depictions of sexual activities by minors in 2012 in a federal court in Texas.  Between April 2021 and May 2022, which was when he was indicted by a grand jury, Metz never registered as a sex offender living in Iowa.   

Metz was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Judge C.J. Williams.  Metz was sentenced to 30 months’ imprisonment.  He must also serve a five-year term of supervised release after the prison term.  There is no parole in the federal system.  Metz is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kyndra Lundquist and investigated by the United States Marshal’s Service and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. 

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. 

The case file number is 22-CR-2030.

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