Robert Lankford thought if he called the Polk County Sheriff’s Office about the wads of chewing gum landing in his driveway near Ankeny, law enforcement would probably think he was nuts.
But over the last two years the 66-year-old retiree has painstakingly collected them ― in all, more than 100 pieces scraped off the concrete, photographed piece by piece and stored as evidence.
Lankford and his wife Susan also say they’ve felt threatened by their neighbor. They said Travis Hodapp, a 51-year-old local businessman and father of two, has swerved toward them in his pickup truck when driving in their woodsy neighborhood not far from Saylorville Lake. They allege he’s also given them the finger.
But the Lankfords told Watchdog they have had no reason to believe authorities would do anything to protect them, saying the Polk County Attorney’s Office let them down after something even more serious.
Four years ago, someone poured acid on the Lankfords’ new driveway, ruining it and causing more than $20,000 in damage. The couple had video surveillance footage from three cameras that night showing much of what happened.
But Polk County Judge Coleman McAllister dismissed the first-degree criminal mischief charge filed against Hodapp in connection with the vandalism. The Lankfords said a victim liaison told them the case was dropped because an assistant prosecutor working under then County Attorney John Sarcone feared two affidavits filed in the criminal case, giving Hodapp an alibi, would hinder her chances before a jury.
What began initially as a beef between the Lankfords and Hodapp over property lines continues to disrupt the peace the couple had in the otherwise idyllic neighborhood they moved to 40 years ago.
The Lankfords’ insurance company has sued in civil court to try to recoup the money spent on a new driveway after the acid incident. Hodapp is fighting that suit and countersued the insurance company.
But the couple told Watchdog they continue to feel bullied and powerless to do much about it. They can’t help but wonder when, or if, the subtle and not-so-subtle acts of intimidation will ever end.
“People like him need to be caught and held accountable,” Bob Lankford said of Hodapp. “Otherwise they can do what they want with people. That’s a reoccurring theme in our society right now.”
Travis Hodapp did not respond to multiple phone calls to his home, one of his businesses and through a lawyer seeking an interview.
Lynn Hicks, chief of staff for County Attorney Kimberly Graham, said prosecutors in 2022 decided there wasn’t enough evidence to proceed with the criminal mischief case.
“We cannot comment directly on that evidence, given the ongoing (civil) litigation” Hicks said in an email, referring to the insurance company’s lawsuit.
“County Attorney Graham empathizes with the Lankfords’ frustration, however, and encourages them to report other incidents to law enforcement,” he wrote.
The Lankfords said they believed there was good evidence, and now they’re continuing to pay for the prosecutors’ mistakes.
Property disputes fed alleged confrontations
Disputes among neighbors have flowed steadily to Watchdog over its 14 years of publication, some serious, others not. What’s different about the Lankfords’ allegations against Hodapp ― CEO of 1 Source Solar and Imperial Construction in Ankeny, as well as two Oasis car washes ― is that they are not the first accusations against him of menacing behavior.
George Bloodgood, another neighbor in the Fisher Lake area outside Ankeny, said he was forced to call the sheriff’s office in September 2007 after Hodapp pulled what looked like either a shotgun or a rifle out of his house and threatened Bloodgood.
Bloodgood said he was scheduled to go to small claims court against Hodapp over a property dispute. Hodapp, he said, had used an excavator to destroy a section of a boundary fence on Bloodgood’s property that had been there since World War II. He said he was outside taking pictures of the damage for the court case when Hodapp “came out yelling like an idiot to get off his land, but I was on my land.”
Bloodgood won the small claims case on Sept. 14, 2007, getting a $2,500 judgment, court records show. Hodapp, he said, was never charged in the gun incident. A deputy showed up, he said, and Hodapp claimed Bloodgood had trespassed.
“Both were advised of trespass and separated for the night,” a deputy’s report obtained from the sheriff’s office says.
The property disputes between the Lankfords and Hodapp started small and escalated, the Lankfords said.
Hodapp, his wife Stephanie and their two kids moved to the neighborhood after the Lankfords bought a home there, building a large wooden barn next to their house that shares a common driveway with another neighbor. The Hodapps’ property is visible through trees behind the Lankfords’ home.
An escalating feud is evident in text messages Bob Lankford preserved. In them, Lankford repeatedly asks to talk about times when Hodapp’s mowers have gone over the Lankfords’ property line.
After a land survey, Lankford erected stakes to identify the property line and stop the mowing. Hodapp texted back, saying that he expected the Lankfords to remove a buried and abandoned well on his property that the Lankfords used before the Hodapps lived there. Then Hodapp texted that he was going to start “tearing up” the hillside between their two properties.
“You want to be an a—–e I’ll do everything in my power to return the same,” Hodapp wrote one August day in 2021.
“I am not behaving badly,” Lankford texted back. “You chose not to discuss this issue with me so I took the necessary steps to understand the property lines.”
Eventually, Lankford informed Hodapp he was erecting a fence at the back of the Lankford property.
“You want my attention put that fence up!” Hodapp texted. “Gloves will be off and I’ll come at you with everything I’ve got! My attorney of which is on my payroll has informed me he will make this the most miserable fight you should have never started! I’m ready to fight and I’ll make sure this is as financially and emotionally damaging as I can make it!”
Midnight vandalism coincides with couple’s return from country club
Here’s what a jury might have seen in 2022 if the Lankfords’ case made it to trial: Video from three cameras mounted on the front and back of the Lankfords’ home showing a white pickup pulling onto the long driveway that leads to the Hodapp home just after midnight on March 6, 2022. Minutes later, the lights go on in the Hodapp barn. A person walks down the long driveway toward the Lankfords’ home. At 12:14 a.m., the Lankfords’ front surveillance camera captures the image of a person with two containers pouring a substance all over the Lankfords’ new, sloping driveway, from the top near the garage to the bottom.
A few minutes later, the same figure is seen walking down the long shared drive again that leads back to the Hodapp home. The figure stops to talk with someone in what looks like a Chevrolet Tahoe. At 12:21 a.m., the lights go out on the Hodapp barn. The vehicle leaves.
The next day, Bob Lankford discovered the substance on his brand new driveway and tried to remove it. After studying the surveillance footage, he called the sheriff’s office, reporting what turned out to be more than $20,000 in damage.
“I called Travis and asked him about his whereabouts overnight and if he had been on Robert’s property,” Deputy Kelli Spring wrote in an incident report filed with a criminal complaint against Hodapp. “Travis said he had not been on Robert’s property and had someone who could vouch for him all night. Travis said he has been having a problem over property with Robert for over 15 years. Travis said he did not want to meet with me in person.”
Hodapp was charged with felony criminal mischief. Later in March 2022, he was arrested in Detroit as he was flying home from a family vacation and jailed.
Drop the charges and I’ll pay for repairs, wife says
Not long after Hodapp’s arrest in 2022, Stephanie Hodapp approached Bob Lankford at his home. He recorded the conversation that ensued. She can be heard asking what her husband did, informs Lankford of her husband’s arrest in Detroit, breaks down crying and tells him frantically that she can’t get a copy of the charges.
Eventually, she says: “Well, I guess, would you drop the charges and I’ll pay to have your stuff redone? That’s the only way this is going to go away.”
Lankford said he was not willing to do that until he knew what was going on.
Stephanie Hodapp and a man named Keith Wesack eventually provided affidavits in the lead-up to the criminal trial. Hodapp wrote that she and her husband left Ankeny Golf and Country Club together just before midnight on the night of the acid incident. She said, under penalty of perjury, that they stayed “in the bedroom together until the following morning.” She also said she saw a screenshot of the person who committed the vandalism and “I am confident that individual is not Travis,” the affidavit said.
Wesack signed an affidavit saying he was with the Hodapps at the country club that night, and that, as Stephanie Hodapp recounted, they left just before midnight.
In October that year, the Lankfords received the word through the victim liaison that the case had been dismissed. Since then, the three-year statute of limitations on the criminal mischief charge has run out.
Lankford said it’s more than frustrating to have a neighbor like Hodapp. But it’s quite another to be let down by folks who are supposed to bring you justice.
Now the dismissed criminal charge is part of Hodapp’s defense in the civil insurance case filed in Polk County.
American Family Insurance, which paid the Lankfords’ claim, sued Hodapp, attempting to collect. That lawsuit, filed in October 2024, alleges Hodapp “through intentional acts” poured the acid on the driveway. The case was scheduled for a three-day trial in March but now is delayed until Nov. 2.
Hodapp, in his response to the lawsuit, denied the allegations, and countersued for abuse of process and malicious prosecution. He alleged the insurance company sued primarily to intimidate and harass him and attempt to collect a debt he was not liable for.
Kevin Abbott, an attorney for the insurance company, did not respond to a message seeking comment.
The Lankfords contacted the sheriff anew in mid-February to finally make a report of the gum incidents and others, including Hodapp’s truck allegedly swerving toward them and him giving the finger. Hodapp has not been charged with any crime in these incidents.
The Lankfords said the only thing they’ve learned thus far is that victims have no influence in the way cases play out.
They said they weren’t notified when Hodapp was arrested in Detroit, they weren’t told there was any problem with the criminal case, and they feel hopeless now.
“It seemed like we should have been able to get justice easily in this case,” Sue Lankford said. “But it hasn’t been that way at all.”
Lee Rood’s Reader’s Watchdog column helps Iowans get answers and accountability from public officials, the justice system, businesses and nonprofits. Reach her at lrood@registermedia.com, at 515-284-8549, on Twitter at @leerood or on Facebook at Facebook.com/readerswatchdog.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Years after Polk drops criminal case, couple says they’re still paying
Reporting by Lee Rood, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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