ROCKWELL CITY — Former Calhoun County Sheriff Scott Anderson pleaded guilty Monday to assaulting his wife and interfering with the Manson police officer arresting him, changing his initial pleas to the charges after an explosive April arrest resulted in a petition for his removal and, ultimately, his resignation.

Through a plea bargain reached with Assistant Attorney General Scott Brown, Anderson will receive deferred judgment, informal probation and a 30-day suspended jail sentence in exchange for pleading guilty to domestic assault and interference with official acts, both simple misdemeanors.

He must also complete a domestic abusers program and pay a $65 fine — less than the cost of many common traffic citations. Interference with official acts was a reduction from the original charge of assault on persons of a certain occupation.

Heather Anderson begged Scott Anderson to stop as she cried and gasped for air, officers detailed in criminal complaints, when they came on the scene April 11 to find the then-sheriff holding his wife by her neck, refusing to release her.

It took six struggling officers, responding to a 911 call from Heather Anderson’s oldest son, about nine minutes to handcuff the belligerent sheriff before dragging him to the patrol car after he resisted arrest and refused to stand up.

Scott Anderson’s wife summarily denied all criminal and ongoing sexual harassment allegations in a subsequent video on Facebook, calling it a “witch hunt” and smear campaign in its entirety. She repeatedly asked the court in personal letters to allow them to communicate, despite the no contact order in place.

Her son, Dausin Olberding, spoke out shortly after his mother’s video started to gain attention, telling The Messenger in an exclusive interview that red flags of domestic abuse surfaced during his mother’s relationship with Scott Anderson. Olberding described his stepfather as a recovering alcoholic who is “incredibly controlling” and “very violent” when intoxicated.

Since marrying Scott Anderson, Olberding said his mother transformed from an outgoing role model into “someone I don’t even recognize.”

Following the publication of Olberding’s interview with The Messenger, Heather Anderson told The Messenger that “the only victimization that has taken place is what the media has done to me and my family.”

Following the arrest, a District Court judge granted a petition filed by Meth-Farrington to suspend Scott Anderson, an elected official, from office. The sheriff, 51, resigned hours before the court was scheduled to hear the evidence compiled for the petition to remove him from office, ending his 32-year career in law enforcement.

Explicit details in affidavits filed by nine officers recounted the demise of a man who had, slowly but surely, been overcome by the demons of alcoholism he struggled with for years. In emotional written testimony, they contrasted a formerly sober Scott Anderson to the man that verbally and physically assaulted the officers and deputies he spent the highest point in his career with.

“When looking into Scott’s eyes that night, it was just like looking into darkness,” said Deputy Kelly Moritz.

“Scott stated when he drinks, he becomes an (expletive),” said then-Deputy Jeff Feldhans, describing the scene of Scott Anderson’s arrest. “When I arrived, I met the (expletive) that Scott had called himself. … For the first time in my life I was both scared of and for Sheriff Anderson.”

They watched a grossly intoxicated man, shackled in leg cuffs to prevent him from kicking the windows out of a patrol car, verbally assaulting officers — some of whom he’d known for over 20 years — with a barrage of demeaning insults.

Manson Police Officer Israel Swanson was head-butted in the process of the arrest, the second head-butting casualty of the evening after Scott Anderson put a hole in a wall at the home. Heather Anderson defended the move, saying her husband was attempting to get a drink of water.

“It was decided to place him in my patrol car because I had a cage,” said Pocahontas County Deputy Weston Van Donge, calling the sheriff’s conduct “reprehensible.”

Recounting the night of the arrest as the last one with “my sheriff and my friend,” now-acting Sheriff Jeff Feldhans said he cried.

In the months prior to his arrest, coworkers said Scott Anderson would act as if he was above the law. In affidavits, they articulated instances of gross speeding, reporting to work four days in one month and abandoning fellow deputies in need during difficult situations.

In addition to resolving the charges stemming from the April arrest, plea documents also stipulated that the state would not pursue charges against Scott Anderson from the bigamy investigation of him in Pocahontas County.

Scott Anderson’s ex-wife, Tracey Layman, alleged that he married his second wife in Las Vegas last October before their divorce was finalized.

“He’s a sheriff. He should honestly know how divorces go,” she said. “He should know we are not divorced until a judge says so.”

In March, Meth-Farrington confirmed that her office initially looked into the allegations before turning them over to the Pocahontas County attorney. She said she could not prosecute law enforcement officers in Calhoun County due to a conflict of interest.

After the investigation was initiated, Meth-Farrington was removed from the investigation, which was then assigned to Pocahontas County Attorney Dan Feistner. Feistner declined to acknowledge whether an open case existed.

Scott Anderson denied the allegations in a March conversation with The Messenger, accusing his ex-wife of deliberately delaying the finalization of their divorce to spite him and his new wife.

The court denied a petition for relief of domestic abuse to Layman in October 2019, about six months before she filed for divorce.

“I’ve been victimized for 30 years,” Layman told The Messenger in an interview March 9 after the Calhoun County court found Scott Anderson in contempt of court for violating terms of their divorce decree, calling the experience riddled with “mind games.”

Following the March contempt hearing, Layman’s attorney, Alyssa O’Connor, approached Sheriff Anderson to sign the necessary paperwork to resolve the contempt of court finding and avoid 10 days in jail. In a phone interview the day after the hearing, Anderson told The Messenger that “I would have slammed her against the wall if I had been in my uniform,” during the interaction.

No physical altercation ensued during the interaction.

Once the guilty plea for domestic assault is finalized as a conviction, Anderson will no longer be legally permitted to possess firearms.

On July 17, Calhoun County agreed to settle a lawsuit with Tamara Swank, a former dispatcher and civil clerk for the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office, for $900,000. Swank’s complaint with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission alleged years of pervasive sexual harassment, workplace hostility and retaliation from Anderson.

*Previously, this story inadvertently stated that a plea bargain was reached with Calhoun County Attorney Tina Meth Farrington. Prosecution of the case was turned over to Assistant Attorney General Scott Brown.