(Des Moines)--An Emmetsburg attorney has been publicly reprimanded for falsely claiming he had dementia in order to be excused from a case.

According to the Iowa Capital Dispatch, court records show that in December 2024, police arrested Mario Delapaz of Storm Lake on charges of harassment and domestic abuse resulting in assault or injury. Delapaz was later convicted of both charges, the records show.

Shortly after the arrest, Emmetsburg attorney Fred Blake Perkins was appointed by the court to represent Delapaz in the case.

Court records indicate that in September 2025, after the court denied Perkins’ request to withdraw from the case, he allegedly renewed his request by filing paperwork informing the judge that he was not competent to conduct legal research and was experiencing symptoms of early-onset dementia.

The Attorney Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Iowa alleges those representations were false

Records in the criminal case show that in his renewed motion to withdraw from the matter, Perkins wrote to the judge and stated that his 81-year-old father was in a nursing home with dementia and that he recognized the “early warning signs” in his own behavior. At the time, Perkins was 55 years old.