Man gets suspended sentence in assault of former US senator in Iowa park

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa -- A judge gave a man probation and a suspended sentence Thursday after he pleaded guilty to attacking a former U.S. senator as she was running along a riverside park in western Iowa.

Dominic Henton, 26, was given the suspended sentence and probation for the Nov. 8, 2023, assault of Martha McSally, a former senator from Arizona.

McSally, who served in the Senate from 2019 to 2020, had been running in a park along the Missouri River in Council Bluffs, Iowa, when a man assaulted her, she said in an Instagram video posted that day. McSally said the man followed her across a pedestrian bridge and then grabbed and attempted to grope her, but she was able to fight him off and chase him into a thicket.

Helped by security camera footage, investigators identified her attacker and arrested Henton the next day in Omaha, Nebraska, across the river from Council Bluffs.

Henton pleaded guilty and was released from jail after serving about 90 days. He was given a suspended one-year jail sentence as well as two years of probation.

Henton will go to a residential treatment center in Council Bluffs and participate in a sex offender treatment program, Pottawattamie County Attorney Matt Wilber told the Omaha World-Herald.