'I am deeply ashamed,' man who called in bomb threat at West High says at sentencing

The man who called in a bomb threat at West High and robbed a bank last year expressed remorse at his sentencing Friday, but a judge said the seriousness of the offense made him feel the maximum sentence was appropriate.

Clifton R. Brinkmeyer, 31, of Iowa City will face seven years in prison for threat of terrorism and third-degree robbery, Sixth Judicial District Judge Paul Miller said at the sentencing at the Johnson County Courthouse. Brinkmeyer pleaded guilty to the crimes in July.

A psychological examination of Brinkmeyer found that he suffered from disorders including a gambling addiction and generalized anxiety disorder, said his lawyer, Al Willett. He was suffering from extreme stress and had mounting gambling debt at the time of the robbery, Willett said.

"My feelings are that I failed," Brinkmeyer said in court Friday. "I failed this city, I failed my friends, I failed my family, I failed our democratic system and I am deeply ashamed and sorry for that."

"The shame is at times overwhelming; there has not been a day that has gone by that I have not struggled with it," he added.

Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness said a pre-sentence statement from Brinkmeyer did not show remorse for what she called a "serious offense that impacted thousands of people."

The threat Brinkmeyer called in on Jan 19, 2016, at West High, 2901 Melrose Ave., led to the evacuation of over 2,000 students, faculty and staff that day, Principal Gregg Schoultz said in court.

Before moving the students to another building, staff gathered them in the gymnasium, which was first cleared with a K-9 unit that sniffed for explosives.

"I could see in the eyes of those students that they were terrified," Shoultz said at the sentencing. "They wanted to know what was going on."

That day was also the day of a special county supervisor election, requiring officials to move a polling place from its site at West because of the threat. Johnson County Auditor Travis Weipert said at sentencing that he received emails from people who were not able to vote because they didn't know the site had changed.

"We don’t know how many people didn’t email us either that were disenfranchised because of the acts that happened that day," Weipert said.

Twenty minutes after Brinkmeyer called in the threat, the U.S. Bank at 1117 William St. was robbed and officers arrested Brinkmeyer, who matched witness's descriptions of the robber and was carrying a fake plastic gun. In his car, detectives found a phone that they tied to the West High call.

Prosecutors and victims laid out at sentencing how Brinkmeyer entered the bank and brandished what appeared at the time to be a real gun, shouting at employees to empty the registers, open the bank vault and get on their hands and knees on the floor facing away from him as he made his escape.

"We are always trained to handle situations like that, but it's not something you ever think would happen to you," said Jessica Steines, the branch manager at the bank.

Steines was new to her position on the day of the robbery. Her first thought when Brinkmeyer entered the building, where he regularly banked, was that the whole thing was a joke.

"The biggest thing of everything was not being able to trust my customers coming in every day," she said of the aftermath of the robbery.

Willett, Brinkmeyer's lawyer, said he has been cooperative during his pretrial release and has consistently attended Gamblers Anonymous meetings. He had no prior criminal record, and several family and friends wrote letters of support for Brinkmeyer that were submitted as evidence prior to sentencing.

Threat of terrorism is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, and third-degree robbery is an aggravated misdemeanor punishable by up to two years in prison.

Brinkmeyer's defense asked for the sentences to be imposed concurrently, but Miller said the consecutive sentence was appropriate.

"The nature of the offense is the overwhelming factor in this sentencing determination," Miller said. "It overrides the good things I’ve commented on that Mr. Brinkmeyer has done since the commission of this crime. There’s just no way around the terror that Mr. Brinkmeyer caused."

Brinkmeyer will also pay $2,269 in restitution for school buses used to evacuate West and $2,855 for school lunches the Iowa City Community School District had to purchase because they could not cook food at West as usual.

Reach Stephen Gruber-Miller at 319-887-5407 or sgrubermil@press-citizen.com. Follow him on Twitter: @sgrubermiller.