Government drops charges against South Dakota ranch family
The Trump administration has dropped criminal charges against Charles and Heather Maude, a South Dakota family who has a small cattle and hog operation.
The case involved more than 50 acres of federal land and that led to the involvement of the Biden administration. In a news release issued April 30 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, it said government resources for prosecution should be focused on true criminals, not a family farm trying to make ends meet.
The Maudes were alerted by the United States Forest Service that fencing on their property blocked access to the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands and in good faith agreed to a survey of the property lines. After the survey was completed, the Maudes lives were turned upside down by the Biden administration where a simple civil dispute turned into what Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rolllins said was an unnecessary criminal prosecution.
The Maudes were indicted on federal charges of “theft of federal property,” as the result of a disputed fence line with the U.S. Forest Service and a small parcel in the family’s pasture that had been managed the same way since the early 1900s, according to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
Despite the Maudes engaging in good faith with USFS to address the boundary dispute, USFS diverted from normal protocol, the NCBA said. Armed federal agents served the Maudes with federal summons where Charles and Heather were charged separately, requiring them to each retain their own attorney and subjecting each to penalties of up to 10 years in federal prison and fines up to $250,000.
“The Maudes are not criminals. They have worked their land since the early 1900s and something that should have been a minor civil land dispute that was over and done with quickly turned into an overzealous criminal prosecution on a hardworking family that was close to losing their home, children and livelihood,” Rollins said.
U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said the Department of Justice needs to spend its resources and efforts on prosecuting criminals and getting drugs off the streets.
The decision was commended by livestock organizations.
NCBA and the Public Lands Council commended Rollins in a news release for ending the overzealous criminal prosecution of the Maudes.
Family ranchers across the West also had feared heavy-handed legal pressure from the last administration. This announcement is a fitting culmination to the last year of work NCBA and PLC have done in Washington to find a reasonable end to this unnecessary situation. The support of grassroots cattle industry leaders from around the country was also crucial to achieving this victory.
“No family farmer or rancher should have to go through what the Maude family did,” said NCBA President Buck Wehrbein, a Nebraska cattleman. “The targeted prosecution of the Maude family was way out of line for the U.S. Forest Service, and this was a clear example of government overreach that had direct, catastrophic impacts for a hardworking fifth-generation ranching family.”
The Maude family will visit Washington, D.C. on April 30 for an in-person press conference where further updates on this case and actions being taken by the Trump administration to limit government regulation by prosecution will be shared.
Dave Bergmeier can be reached at 620-227-1822 or [email protected].
