Ranchers and their elected representatives have won a major battle. The federal government dropped criminal charges against Charles and Heather Maude of Caputa, South Dakota.
Ben Patterson, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Federal District Court in the Western Division of South Dakota signed a motion to dismiss the indictment against Charles Maude and Heather Maude, dated April 28.
South Dakota ranchers Charles and Heather Maude were indicted separately nearly a year ago on charges of theft of federal property stemming from a fenceline dispute about a fence built before either were born.
Wyoming Congresswoman Harriet Hageman is pleased with the news of the dismissal. “I’m excited for the Maudes. I’m very pleased that we were able to get this resolved for them and that the Trump administration and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has taken this so seriously.”
The Republican Congresswoman said the U.S. Forest Service employee’s actions last spring were designed to send a very strong message to livestock producers that the agency “was not necessarily their friends.”
“I think their actions were intended to portray their intent to reduce the amount of grazing and livestock production on national forest. I think it was a strong message that they are going to aggressively pursue enforcement actions regardless of the facts on the ground,” she said
Hageman said this week’s dismissal hopefully sends a more agriculture-friendly message that the USFS is “returning to a multiple-use philosophy” and “getting back to being partners rather than opposition.” She added that ranchers across the country have come together to show a “groundswell” of support for the Maude family.
Will the Maudes be financially compensated for expenses incurred and will the employees directly involved continue their employment with the agency? Hageman doesn’t know, but she has opinions.
“Those employees should be fired. They abused their authority. They abused their power. They conducted themselves in a highly unprofessional manner. They do not belong in this administration.”
Hageman said most local USDA employees including USFS staff are helpful and supportive of local producers. “This was a rogue employee that wanted to make an example of the Maudes. Everyone knows the surveying out west isn’t perfect. There are solutions for situations like this.”
USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, in an official news release, called the Maudes a hard working family and said they are not criminals.
“A politically motivated witch hunt was launched against the Maude family over a fence line and planting dispute with a small family farm which has cultivated land near federal grasslands since the early 1900s.”
What happened?
According to a June, 2024 letter from South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds to then U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, on March 29, 2024, special agent Travis Lunders and U.S. Forest Service patrol captain Jeff Summers told the Maudes they received a complaint from a hunter that a no trespassing sign was posted on a fence not built upon the correct boundary. The Maudes removed the sign from the fence. The family has owned the property adjacent to the U.S. Forest Service-managed Buffalo Gap National Grasslands since 1910.
The fence assumed to be in question was accepted as the property boundary by the USDA annually through the certification of acres by the USDA Farm Service Agency every year since Buffalo Gap National Grasslandswas established in 1960.
The Maudes met on May 1 with Lunders and USFS district ranger Julie Wheeler. The conclusion reached that day was a land survey would be the first step, and that would take up to a year according to Wheeler. The Maudes scheduled a meeting at the allotment so Wheeler could see the fence and move toward a resolution. Five days later, without informing Maudes, Lunders arrived with a survey crew to complete the survey on both the Maudes’ private property and the public property. Neither the survey nor the original complaint allegedly made by a hunter has been made available to the press or to Maudes.
Lunders arrived unannounced at the Maudes’ home on June 24, 2024, armed and in tactical gear, to serve the couple with separate federal indictments. The indictments were for the alleged theft of government property stemming from the placement of a fence built at least 75 years before. The Maudes each faced 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines over the 50 acres in question and were ordered not to speak to one another about the case.
South Dakota state elected officials weigh in
South Dakota representatives visited the allotment in question last week with Tom and Randi Hamilton and Marion and Jackie Maude – the couple’s parents – and saw the fenceline in question.
“Well, when you look out at this ground, and of course you’ve probably seen some of those pictures, but it’s, it’s a small parcel of ground that we’re dealing with here,” Representative Karla J. Lems (R-Lincoln, Turner, Union Counties) said in an interview. “You kind of ask the question, how did we get to this point with a criminal indictment over land that literally is maybe worth like $15,000. And why couldn’t this have been settled over a cup of coffee and an agreement to work together going forward?”
The square-shaped segment on the right-hand side of the photo is an approximation of the Maude property fenced into a USFS allotment. The USFS has managed this land for decades and continues to do so. Although this image makes it difficult to see due to distortion from the high viewpoint, the size of the USFS parcel and the Maude parcel are very similar – within 5 acres of each other. Carrie Stadheim | For Tri-State Livestock News
The group pleaded with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins and others in D.C. to dismiss the charges. The U.S. attorney who signed the summons, Alison J. Ramsdell, a Biden-appointee, is expected to soon be replaced by Ron Parsons, who served under the first Trump administration. He awaits Senate approval, but is expected to take place without issue.
The indictment, according to court records, is dismissed without prejudice. The Maudes will be in Washington, D.C. to meet with Secretary Rollins this week.
Lems said dismissing the charges is the right thing to do.
“The other piece of this, it’s not just that you’re being criminally indicted,” Lems said. “It’s not just that you both have to get your own lawyer and that you’re under a gag order and all of the money and time and effort that you’ve spent in this kind of very reminiscent of what we saw with the pipeline fight. But it’s not that land that you were counting on using for your operation, you had to take that whole piece of land out of your piece of your puzzle that you used to run your business. They are very strategic out there about using every blade of grass, every piece of dirt to make it work for operations out there. And when you take something like that out, it, it greatly can affect your ability to continue on doing the work that you have set out to do and, and, and can affect your bottom line.”
Lems said actions like this are an attack on the bottom line of agriculture operations.
“You do kind of wonder too, if this is what they’re really wanting, not only the stress on your family and your mental ability to walk through all of these things, but also your bottom line of your bank account,” she said. “You hope that that’s not the case, but so often, when we see things like this happening, whether it’s the carbon pipeline, or now with the Maude case and other neighbors we’re hearing of. When you start connecting the dots to the FACA, the Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance, and the things that are going on there and all of the federal money that they are getting through the USDA, you just start connecting the dots. We’re still trying to get all the facts, but we also don’t want to be naive that some of these things are actually happening to hurt farmers and ranchers, and to get them off the ground.”
Lems said criminalizing ranchers over a simple dispute isn’t supporting agriculture producers.
“I said that this is three words, it’s wrong, wrong, wrong,” Lems said. “So, let’s get it right.”
Share this story
