A woman who escaped from custody was sentenced March 8, 2023, to more than one year in federal prison.
Karen Rose Merrick, age 39, from Sioux City, received the prison term after a Dec. 13, 2022, guilty plea to one count of escape from custody, and revocation of her supervised release.
At the guilty plea, Merrick admitted that on Aug. 2, 2022, she signed out of Dismas Charities Residential Reentry Center (RRC) to report for work at a company in Sioux City. RRC staff called the company to verify Merrick had arrived at work on August 1 and 2, 2022. The company advised she had not arrived at work. She did not return to the RRC on Aug. 2, 2022, or after. Defendant’s whereabouts were unknown until her arrest on September 9, 2022, by the Minneapolis, Minnesota, Police Department.
In January 2020, Merrick was convicted of Accessory After the Fact to Bank Robbery in the United States District Court of the Northern District of Iowa, where she was sentenced to 30 months in prison and a term of supervised release of 2 years after her term of imprisonment. On Jan. 27, 2021, defendant started her original supervised release term. In July 2022, she was placed at the RRC located in Sioux City for a period of 90 days.
Merrick was sentenced in Sioux City by United States District Court Chief Judge Leonard T. Strand. Merrick was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment. She must also serve a 1-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.
Merrick is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until she can be transported to a federal prison.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kevin C. Fletcher and investigated by United States Marshal’s Service.
Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.
The case file number is 22-CR-4088.
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Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys