DES MOINES, Iowa — The former superintendent of Iowa’s largest school district falsely claimed to be a U.S. citizen on a federal form and knowingly possessed several firearms illegally, according to a newly returned indictment that raises the prospect of a lengthy prison term.

A federal grand jury issued the two-count indictment Thursday charging former Des Moines schools superintendent Ian Roberts with one count of making a false statement for employment and one count of unlawfully possessing a firearm while being in the country illegally. Together, the charges carry a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Roberts, who is originally from Guyana and worked for two decades in school districts across the U.S., was detained Sept. 26 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in a targeted operation that shocked the community.

Authorities said Roberts lacked authorization to work in the U.S. and fled from agents who conducted a traffic stop while he was driving his district-issued Jeep Cherokee. Roberts was later apprehended in a wooded area with help from the Iowa State Patrol. Authorities found a handgun wrapped in a towel inside his car, investigators said, along with $3,000 cash.

This photo provided by WOI Local 5 News in September 2025 shows Des Moines schools Superintendent Ian Roberts. (WOI Local 5 News via AP)

Des Moines Public Schools hired Roberts in 2023 to lead its district of about 30,000 students. Days after being detained, Roberts resigned from his job, which included an annual salary of $286,716.

The indictment alleges that Roberts made a “false attestation” on a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Employment Eligibility Verification form, known as an I-9, claiming he was a U.S. citizen when he knew he was not.

Roberts’ attorney Alfredo Parrish said his client was not surprised by the indictment and would fight the charges at trial.

“Dr. Roberts intends to enter a not guilty plea because he’s innocent of these charges,” he said. “Our immigration system, as most Americans understand, is in shambles.”

The district on Friday refused to release the I-9 form in response to a public records request filed by The Associated Press, saying it was a confidential personnel record under Iowa law and also part of the federal investigation. District officials have said Roberts also submitted a driver’s license and Social Security card as part of the verification process.

Authorities have said Roberts came to the U.S. in the 1990s and his work authorization expired in 2020. An immigration judge issued a final order for his removal last year after a hearing where Roberts failed to appear, and Roberts’ request to reopen the proceedings was rejected earlier this year. Roberts’ attorney has argued his client was led to believe by a former attorney that the appeal had been resolved in his favor.

After his detention by ICE, Roberts was transferred to U.S. Marshals custody Oct. 2 to face a federal firearms charge. Roberts, 54, remains at the Polk County Jail in Des Moines.

In addition to the one in his vehicle when he was arrested, three other firearms were found during a search of Roberts’ home, authorities said. The indictment describes the four weapons, including two pistols, a rifle and a shotgun.

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The firearms charge carries a punishment of up to 15 years in prison, while the false statement charge carries up to five years.

The Department of Homeland Security has publicized a lengthy criminal history for Roberts, including a 2020 arrest in New York state on a charge of criminal possession of a weapon, details of which have been sealed. He was cited in 2021 for a minor firearms violation in Pennsylvania related to his storage of a hunting rifle in his vehicle.

The fallout from the case has been widespread. The district filed a lawsuit alleging the consulting firm it used during the 2023 superintendent search failed to adequately vet Roberts’ background. The firm has defended its work, which included flagging a discrepancy involving a doctorate degree falsely claimed by Roberts on one resume.

State Auditor Rob Sand announced this week that his office will investigate the district’s finances in response to an outside request. The move came after the AP reported that Roberts had pushed to award district business to a firm that employed him as a consultant, despite the conflict of interest.

School Board Chair Jackie Norris ended her campaign for U.S. Senate on Thursday, citing the need to lead the district through the crisis. The district is asking voters to approve a $265 million bond referendum next month that would raise property taxes in order to support program and building improvements.

Foley reported from Iowa City, Iowa.

Tension between Indiana University and its student newspaper flared this week with the elimination of the outlet’s print editions and the firing of a faculty adviser, who refused an order to keep news stories out of a homecoming edition.

Administrators may have been hoping to minimize distractions this homecoming weekend as the school prepares to celebrate a Hoosiers football team with its highest-ever national ranking. Instead, the controversy has entangled the school in questions about censorship and student journalists’ First Amendment rights.

Advocates for student media, Indiana Daily Student alumni and high-profile supporters including billionaire Mark Cuban have blasted the school for stepping on the outlet’s independence.

The Daily Student is routinely honored among the best collegiate publications in the country. It receives about $250,000 annually in subsidies from the university’s Media School to help make up for dwindling ad revenue.

On Tuesday, the university fired the paper’s adviser, Jim Rodenbush, after he refused an order to force student editors to ensure no news stories ran in the print edition tied to the homecoming celebrations.

“I had to make the decision that was going to allow me to live with myself,” Rodenbush said. “I don’t have any regrets whatsoever. In the current environment we’re in, somebody has to stand up.”

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IU says student journalists still call the shots

A university spokesperson referred an AP reporter to a statement issued Tuesday, which said the campus wants to shift resources from print media to digital platforms both for students’ educational experience and to address the paper’s financial problems.

Chancellor David Reingold issued a separate statement Wednesday saying the school is “firmly committed to the free expression and editorial independence of student media. The university has not and will not interfere with their editorial judgment.”

It was late last year when university officials announced they were scaling back the cash-strapped newspaper’s print edition from a weekly to seven special editions per semester, tied to campus events.

The paper published three print editions this fall, inserting special event sections, Rodenbush said. Last month, Media School officials started asking why the special editions still contained news, he said.

Rodenbush said IU Media School Dean David Tolchinsky told him earlier this month that the expectation was print editions would contain no news. Tolchinsky argued Rodenbush was essentially the paper’s publisher and could decide what to run, Rodenbush said. He told the dean that publishing decisions were the students’ alone, he said.

Tolchinsky fired him Tuesday, two days before the homecoming print edition was set to be published, and announced the end of all Indiana Daily Student print publications.

“Your lack of leadership and ability to work in alignment with the University’s direction for the Student Media Plan is unacceptable,” Tolchinsky wrote in Rodenbush’s termination letter.

The newspaper was allowed to continue publishing stories on its website.

Student journalists see a ‘scare tactic’

Andrew Miller, the Indiana Daily Student’s co-editor-in-chief, said in a statement that Rodenbush “did the right thing by refusing to censor our print edition” and called the termination a “deliberate scare tactic toward journalists and faculty.”

“IU has no legal right to dictate what we can and cannot print in our paper,” Miller said.

Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel at the Student Press Law Center, said First Amendment case law going back 60 years shows student editors at public universities determine content. Advisors like Rodenbush can’t interfere, Hiestand said.

“It’s open and shut, and it’s just so bizarre that this is coming out of Indiana University,” Hiestand said. “If this was coming out of a community college that doesn’t know any better, that would be one thing. But this is coming out of a place that absolutely should know better.”

Rodenbush said that he wasn’t aware of any single story the newspaper has published that may have provoked administrators. But he speculated the moves may be part of a “general progression” of administrators trying to protect the university from any negative publicity.

Blocked from publishing a print edition, the paper this week posted a number of sharp-edged stories online, including coverage of the opening of a new film critical of arrests of pro-Palestinian demonstrators last year, a tally of campus sexual assaults and an FBI raid on the home of a former professor suspected of stealing federal funds.

The paper also has covered allegations that IU President Pamela Whitten plagiarized parts of her dissertation, with the most recent story running in September.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Damage to remote Alaska villages hammered by flooding last weekend is so extreme that many of the more than 2,000 people displaced won’t be able to return to their homes for at least 18 months, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said in a request to the White House for a major disaster declaration.

In one of the hardest hit villages, Kipnuk, an initial assessment showed that 121 or homes — or 90% of the total — have been destroyed, Dunleavy wrote. In Kwigillingok, where three dozen homes floated away, slightly more than one-third of the residences are uninhabitable.

In this photo provided by the Alaska National Guard, Alaska Air National Guard Staff Sgt. Angel Reyes distributes hearing protection to passengers while evacuating Alaskans displaced in the aftermath of Typhoon Halong out of Bethel, Alaska, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. (Alaska National Guard via AP)

The remnants of Typhoon Halong struck the area with the ferocity of a Category 2 hurricane, Dunleavy said, sending a surge of high surf into the low-lying region. One person was killed, two remain missing, and rescue crews plucked dozens of people from their homes as they floated away.

Officials have been scrambling to airlift people from the inundated Alaska Native villages. Hundreds of evacuees have been flown to Anchorage on military transport flights, with additional flights planned Friday and Saturday. Dunleavy said he expects more than 1,500 people to be relocated to major cities in the state.

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In this photo provided by Jacqui Lang, volunteers help collect dogs in Kipnuk, Alaska, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, to evacuate to an animal shelter in Bethel, Alaska, as their owners had evacuated. (Jacqui Lang via AP)

“For older New Yorkers, these changes would be transformative. People are living longer than ever before, but our housing policies have not kept up.”

An early evening games of dominoes at Serviam Gardens, an affordable housing complex for seniors in the Bronx. (Adi Talwar)

Older New Yorkers deserve a safe, affordable place to live. Across New York City and State, our member organizations work daily with people living in homes they can no longer maintain—row houses and duplexes that feel impossibly large once children have grown or partners have passed away.

Meanwhile, younger families can’t find an affordable place to live. Someone in Kingsbridge told me recently that they wish they could move into a small apartment nearby to leave their house to a family that needs it, but they couldn’t find anything affordable. These are people who want to downsize, but who are stuck in place because there is nowhere else in their communities for them to go. This story is not unique. It is the story of tens of thousands of older New Yorkers.

The numbers are staggering: over 500,000 older New Yorkers are on the waiting list for affordable housing, with average waits stretching beyond a decade. For many, a decade is longer than they can afford to wait. Behind each number is a person facing the daily uncertainty of where they will live out their later years—whether they can age with dignity, or whether they will spend their final chapter in limbo.

This November, New Yorkers will have the chance to vote on a more stable, affordable future for housing in New York City. On the ballot are several proposals to reform our City Charter (essentially New York City’s constitution) that could accelerate the production of affordable housing. These changes won’t solve every problem overnight. But by voting yes, New York voters are taking an important step that cuts out the red tape that keeps desperately needed housing from being built.

Question 2 would fast track affordable housing. This measure would streamline approvals for publicly financed affordable housing. Right now, even projects with broad community support can spend years winding through a slow and cumbersome land use process. By moving applications through faster channels, this proposal would get homes built more quickly and ensure they are spread across every neighborhood.

Question 3 would speed up small-scale projects. In too many cases, modest housing developments, like small apartment buildings in lower-density neighborhoods, never get off the ground because the costs and delays of the review process are simply too high. This proposal would allow those smaller, much-needed projects to move forward, while still preserving opportunities for community input.

Question 4 would establish a housing appeals board. Too often, affordable housing proposals are sunk by politics. A mayoral veto or a single councilmember’s opposition can stop homes from being built, even when the need is obvious. This measure would create an Affordable Housing Appeals Board to ensure that good projects get a fair shot and aren’t derailed by political maneuvering.

For older New Yorkers, these changes would be transformative. People are living longer than ever before, but our housing policies have not kept up. Our seniors want to remain in their communities—close to friends, neighbors, faith institutions, and the neighborhoods that they call home—but they need affordable, accessible housing options to do so. Without that, they face choices no New Yorker should have to face: remain in unsafe or unmanageable housing, or leave behind the communities that sustain them.

Of course, building more affordable housing also benefits the city as a whole. When an older adult can move into a safe, affordable apartment, a family can move into the larger home they leave behind. That’s how we create a healthier housing pipeline that works across generations. 

Of course, production alone is not enough. We still need targeted investments for older New Yorkers. Despite 20 percent of our city’s residents being over 60, housing funding does not adequately address older New Yorkers’ needs. Programs like the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE) are lifelines that keep older adults in their homes, and LiveOn NY is actively working to maximize the program’s potential to benefit older New Yorkers, but even the best SCRIE programs will always fall short of our demand.

Our city government must continue to work to ensure that our housing budget serves older New Yorkers, and as we rethink our charter, we must also commit to equity in resource allocation.

But here is the truth: none of those supports matter if there are no homes available in the first place. The first and most urgent step is to unlock more affordable housing, faster. Questions 2, 3, and 4 will help us do exactly that.

Our community doesn’t want special favors. New Yorkers want fairness, dignity, and the ability to remain part of the communities we built as we age. We want the security of knowing they will not spend the last decade of their lives on a waiting list. 

This November, I urge every New Yorker to vote yes on Questions 2, 3, and 4. A vote for these proposals is a vote to cut red tape, unlock affordable housing across neighborhoods, and give all of us the dignity of a home that we can count on, today and tomorrow.

Allison Nickerson is the executive director of LiveOn NY, a not for profit focused on senior services and aging in New York City and throughout New York State. 

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