By Nick Hytrek
Sioux City Journal, Iowa
SIOUX CITY, Iowa — A former Woodbury County correctional officer has been sentenced to jail for assaulting an inmate.
In a sentencing order filed late Thursday, District Associate Judge Mark Cord sentenced Austin Svendsen, 31, of Sioux City, to 10 days in jail. Five of those days were suspended, and Svendsen was given the option of serving 10 days on electronic monitoring in lieu of the jail time. He also must pay a $430 fine and serve one year on informal probation to the judge, rather than the Iowa Department of Corrections.
In his order, Cord said when reaching his sentencing decision he considered Svendsen’s “abuse of his position of trust and custodial authority, the extended and gratuitous use of force” after the inmate was restrained and the inmate’s significant injuries.
As a condition of probation, Svendsen must successfully complete a court-approved anger management course. Cord will review the case in a year.
Svendsen stood trial in June in Woodbury County District Court on one count of assault causing bodily injury or mental illness and announced his guilty verdict in September.
Cord found Svendsen guilty of punching inmate Caleb Root in the head five times during a Feb. 14, 2025, altercation while other corrections officers held Root face down on the floor. The incident had begun when Root called Svendsen a profane name. Cord ruled Root posed no physical threat to Svendsen, and his hands were full when he was taken to the floor and assaulted.
Root was diagnosed with a concussion in addition to head trauma that included a bruised right ear and a knot on the back of his head.
The assault charge is a serious misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail. At a hearing Tuesday, Svendsen’s attorney, Jacklyn Fox, had argued for a deferred judgment, in which the case would have been expunged from Svendsen’s record upon successfully completing probation.
Assistant Woodbury County Attorney Drew Bockenstedt spoke against a deferred judgment, but made no other sentencing recommendation.
Svendsen on Tuesday declined his right to make a statement to the court.
The defense had argued Svendsen’s use of force was justified as officers were gaining control of an inmate who was argumentative, noncompliant and was resisting efforts to restrain him.
A first trial in the case ended in February with a mistrial.
Root, from Michigan, was in federal custody, awaiting trial in federal court in Sioux City at the time of the assault. He was later convicted of gun and drug charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was serving his sentence in a federal prison in Indiana in February when he was found unresponsive and died at age 45.
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