A Davenport woman admitted to lying under oath about seeing a man beat up another woman.
Phillip Ahrens, 23, was charged with assault resulting in serious injury after he hit and kicked a woman during an altercation July 31, 2013. The woman suffered a fractured orbit and bleeding on the brain according to Muscatine County Attorney Alan Ostergren.
While he was in jail, Ahrens and another person conspired to get 20-year-old McKenzie Powell, who witnessed the attack, to change her original story about what she saw. Powell later “made false statements in a deposition” when she retracted her previous account of the incident, and denied she had talked to Ahrens on the phone while he was in jail, Ostergren said.
Ahrens admitted to the conspiracy, and to the assault, in November 2013.
Court records show Ahrens was sentenced to five years in prison for the assault plus two more years for tampering with a witness.
Powell pleaded guilty April 14, 2014 to two counts of perjury. She was scheduled to be sentenced May 23, 2014.
“This case shows that lying by witnesses cannot be tolerated,” Ostergren said. “I am pleased with this guilty plea because it shows that McKenzie Powell has been held accountable for attempting to deceive the court system.”
