(RepublicanNews.org) – A Minnesota Democrat senator has been charged with first-degree burglary after allegedly being caught red-handed breaking into her stepmother’s house after a dispute over her late father’s belongings and ashes.
Sen. Nicole Mitchell, a 49-year-old veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was arrested in the early hours of Monday, April 22nd, after police answered a call about an active break-in in process in the city of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. According to police reports, Mitchell was dressed all in black, with a flashlight covered by a black sock, and a backpack containing her stepmother’s laptop, which she claimed had been given to her by her stepmother sometime before. Her stepmother denied this claim.
Investigators claim that Mitchell said she had entered the house to take some items of sentimental value, including her late father’s ashes and a flannel belonging to him. Mitchell’s father, Rod Mitchell, died in March 2023. According to the police report, Mitchell was heard telling her stepmother, who had been married to Mr. Mitchell for 40 years, that she had resorted to the break-in as her stepmother refused to speak to her.
After being booked into jail, Mitchell was released by a county judge pending her trial on the condition that she have no contact with her stepmother. As well as avoiding speaking to her stepmother, her attorney has advised her to act against her instincts as a politician and former television meteorologist and to maintain silence on the subject in public. Mitchell opted instead to take to Facebook to give her side of the story, in which she claimed to have entered a relative’s home due to “grave concern” over that relative’s medical condition.
Republicans have called for Mitchell to resign, but it is not yet clear what action the Democrats, who hold a one-seat majority in the Senate, will take, if any. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy claimed that the party believed in “due process” and added that Mitchell had the right to have her defense heard in court. Her trial date is currently set for June 10th.
Copyright 2024, RepublicanNews.org
