State of Iowa v. Martell Guider

── State of Iowa v. Martell Guider ── Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa Date: May 13, 2026 Category: General IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA _______________ No. 24-1675 Filed May 13, 2026 _______________ State of Iowa, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Martell Guider, Defendant–Appellant. _______________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Washington County, The Honorable Michael Carpenter, Judge. _______________ AFFIRMED _______________ Martha J. Lucey, State Appellate Defender, and Melinda J. Nye (argued), Assistant Appellate Defender, attorneys for appellant. Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Louis S. Sloven (argued), Assistant Attorney General, attorneys for appellee. _______________ Heard at oral argument by Schumacher, P.J., Chicchelly, J., and Bower, S.J. Opinion by Schumacher, P.J. 1 SCHUMACHER, Presiding Judge. Martell Guider appeals his conviction of sexual exploitation of a minor in violation of Iowa Code section 728.12(1) (2024), asserting there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction, knowledge of a victim’s age is an element of the charge per United States Supreme Court precedent, and his sentence qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment. Upon our review, we affirm. I. Background Facts & Proceedings Guider was a thirty-six-year-old contracted nursing assistant working at an Iowa nursing home. J.W., a seventeen-year-old high school student, was a nursing aide working at the same nursing home. The two developed a friendship while working, and J.W. added Guider on Snapchat, where they would communicate. The relationship turned “flirtatious,” with Guider telling J.W. he was twenty-eight-years old, and that he wanted to take J.W. on a date. Guider asked J.W. how old she was, and she informed him that she was seventeen. J.W.’s date of birth was also listed on her Snapchat profile. After learning J.W.’s age, Guider continued to communicate with J.W. According to J.W.’s testimony, Guider would “go out of the way” to run into her while working and “brush up against” her. Guider told J.W. that he wanted to see her wearing tighter work clothes. At some point, Guider requested J.W. send him a nude photo “[b]ecause he wanted to pleasure himself with [it], and he wanted to look at [ J.W.] and get closer connected with [ J.W.]” J.W. complied and sent a photo on Snapchat of her nude buttocks with a text caption stating, “hard at work.” Guider “screenshotted” the image, allowing him to save it to his phone. There were also other photos sent by J.W. where she was clothed. 2  Around a week after that message was sent and saved, another nursing home employee notified management “that things weren’t going well with [Guider] with one of the other workers.” Management contacted the account manager who handled Guider’s employment contract, Bergmeier. After this notification, Bergmeier requested Guider to call her. Guider stated that he did converse with J.W., but as soon as he found out that she was underage, he cut off all conversation with her. Guider later texted Bergmeier stating “he didn’t like to have his name tarnished and that he wanted to make a rebuttal that she had sent nude pictures of her” and sent the photo to Bergmeier. Bergmeier testified that they had not discussed any photos during the phone call, and Guider sent the photos in a subsequent text, unprompted. Bergmeier then sent the nude photo to staff at the nursing home, where they confronted J.W. about it. After J.W. learned that other people had seen the photo, she felt “scared and exposed.” Nursing home staff