Mason City man gets 10-year sentence on drug charge

MASON CITY, Iowa (AP) - A 31-year-old man from Mason City has been sentenced to 10 years in prison on a drug charge.

The Mason City Globe Gazette (http://bit.ly/1yaWRBf ) reports Kenneth S. Neilsen also was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine.

He entered an Alford plea to the manufacture, delivery or possession with intent to manufacture or deliver methamphetamine charge. An Alford plea says that the defendant doesn't admit the crime but acknowledges that prosecutors likely can prove the charge.

Neilsen also was sentenced to five years in prison for violating his probation on a 2014 conviction for second-degree theft. He received another two years for a probation violation on a 2014 criminal mischief conviction.

Those sentences will run concurrently to the 10-year sentence from the drug conviction.

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Information from: Globe Gazette, http://www.globegazette.com/