Michael Weigel’s former partner woke up last December to a stunning email from her ex.

“You will never live in peace. You will live in shame and embarrassment for the rest of your life,” the email said, according to the excerpt the woman read in Ramsey County District Court on Tuesday.

It went on to detail how Weigel had plastered naked pictures of her that the two took while they were still a couple on her new boyfriend’s Facebook page. The photos were attached in the email.

“I wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear,” the woman recounted for the court.

She spent weeks crying and panicking as she tried to navigate Facebook’s process for getting the photos removed.

She had to show the images to police officers so that criminal charges could be pursued. She worried the public exposure might cost her her job. Her new boyfriend’s family and friends, some of whom she hadn’t yet met, now had images of her naked body in their minds, she said.

In that sense, Weigel got what he wanted, the woman said.

The 39-year-old Anoka man was the first person charged in Ramsey County under a new state law that took effect during the summer of 2016 that seeks to hold people accountable for so called “revenge porn.”

As such, his ex asked Ramsey County District Judge Stephen Smith to set a precedent with Weigel’s case — ignoring his request to avoid further jail time by sentencing him in accordance with the law.

Smith ultimately did.

He sentenced Weigel to about four months in jail and three years of supervised probation on one count of felony-level nonconsensual dissemination of private sexual images.

Two additional counts of the same charge were dismissed.

His attorney, public defender John Reimer, said he believed Weigel was the first person sentenced under the new statute.

Weigel, who pleaded guilty to the charge in August, addressed the judge before receiving his sentence.

He said he relapsed on alcohol and had fallen into a deep depression after his relationship ended.

“I want to start by saying I am incredibly sorry. I have been through breakups before … but never in my life did I fall into the path that I fell into this time,” Weigel said. “I messed up. I messed up so bad and it affected so many people.”

He went on to call his former partner the “love of his life” and said he never meant to hurt her.

He added that he put himself through treatment and therapy and found a new job since he was charged.

The judge said he “appreciated” the actions Weigel has taken to turn his life around but said they couldn’t undo the impact he has had on his ex.

He also questioned Weigel’s statement that he hadn’t meant to cause harm.

“I have a hard time seeing it any other way,” Smith said.

A St. Paul man is accused of repeatedly stabbing his sister in the face, neck and chest at their mother’s home Monday.

Pierre Davonne Ramsey, 25, was charged Tuesday with one count of second-degree attempted murder and a count of first-degree assault, according to the criminal complaint filed against him in Ramsey County District Court.

His 28-year-old sister was at their mother’s house in the 2100 block of Glenridge Avenue in St. Paul about 2:40 a.m. Monday to pick up her daughters after work when her mother reminded her that she had food inside the house, charges say.

Shortly after she ran inside to get it, one of her daughters looked up and saw her uncle attacking her mother on the front steps, the complaint said.

Police arrived at the house to find blood pooled on the living room floor and the woman seated nearby with a towel pressed to her throat.

She was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where she was treated for stab wounds to her neck, face, chest and left hand, charges say. One of the cuts to her face was 5 centimeters deep.

The injuries required surgery to her trachea, esophagus and left thumb, the complaint said. She will also need cosmetic surgery.

Ramsey declined to make a statement to investigators after his arrest.

He has a lengthy criminal history and is awaiting trial for possessing a firearm as a felon.

His convictions include possessing a pistol without a permit, fifth-degree drug possession and six convictions for domestic assault.

There was no attorney listed for him in court records.

He is expected to make his first court appearance Wednesday.

A St. Paul woman found guilty of fatally stabbing her boyfriend last year is poised to get a second chance at proving her actions were in self-defense.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the conviction against Natalie Pollard after finding that the Ramsey County District Court erred in the instructions it gave to jurors in the case.

The lower court gave jurors what are referred to as “justifiable taking of life” instructions to weigh in evaluating Pollard’s guilt when it should have provided general self-defense instructions, according to the higher court’s findings.

Pollard’s conviction was vacated Monday, leaving the Ramsey County attorney’s office to decide whether it will retry her.

The state plans to do so, assuming all the same witnesses are available to testify, said Dennis Gerhardstein, a spokesman for the Ramsey County attorney’s office.

He added that it would be up to a Ramsey County judge to determine when a new trial would take place.

Gerhardstein declined to comment further on the higher court’s decision.

Pollard’s attorney, public defender Andrea Barts, did not respond to a request for comment. Reached at his home, Pollard’s father said he hadn’t heard about the development.

Pollard, 36, was sentenced in March of last year to nearly 11 years in prison after a Ramsey County District Court jury found her guilty of unintentional second-degree murder in the death of her boyfriend, Obinna Nwankpa.

She gave birth to his son while incarcerated in the case.

Pollard was arrested shortly after calling police to her home July 2, 2015, to report a break-in. Police found Nwankpa, 30, unconscious and bloody at the bottom of her basement stairs.

He died a short time later from a stab wound to his chest.

Pollard was found in the living room, her shirt covered in blood. Investigators also saw blood at the top of the basement stairs, on the stairs and in the basement near the washer and dryer.

Pollard’s children were home at the time.

She argued at trial that she acted in self-defense after Nwankpa broke into her house.

She told investigators he came in through a window and started fighting with her. She followed him to the basement and picked up a knife on the way.

Downstairs, he came at her and the two fought again, she told police. At some point, she said, she swung the knife at Nwankpa and cut or stabbed him.

She told police her boyfriend had physically abused her in the past but she had never reported it.

When police told her he’d died, “she cried and said ‘I’m sorry, God.’” 

Before his death, Nwankpa was charged in Anoka County with domestic assault against another woman who called him her boyfriend at the time.

He also pleaded guilty to a charge of interfering with a 911 call and was convicted in 2011 of domestic battery in Illinois.

Pollard’s criminal history includes traffic violations and a disorderly conduct conviction in 2004, which was dismissed when she met conditions in the case.

She was transferred from prison in Shakopee to the Ramsey County Jail following the state Supreme Court’s decision.

A hearing in her case is set for Thursday.

Nwankpa’s family could not be reached for comment about the development.

A student in the midst of a mental health crisis who assaulted three St. Paul high school staff members last month now faces criminal charges.

The 16-year-old was charged with third, fourth and fifth-degree assault for his alleged conduct, according to the juvenile petition filed against him in Ramsey County District Court.

Police were called to Johnson High School at 10 a.m. on Sept. 11 after a report of a student in emotional distress, and paramedics transported him to the hospital, police said at the time.

Officers were then notified that the teen had assaulted three staff members who attended to him during the episode.

One staff member sustained a head injury after getting “sucker punched” by the student, the petition said.

Another suffered a concussion after the student threw the staff member to the ground, the petition said.

And a third suffered injuries after the teen placed his hands around her neck, the petition said.

None of the staff members nor their positions were revealed in court documents.

The student’s mother said the teen has autism and struggles with mental health issues.

“He is not well enough to make wise decisions, especially when he is upset,” she said.

A 19-year-old was placed on 15 years of probation and told to stay away from Facebook and underage girls after raping a 12-year-old at a friend’s house last year in St. Paul.

Ramsey County District Judge Gary Bastian also sentenced Steven Pierre Williams to 354 days in jail but gave him credit for the 354 days he served in the case following his arrest, according to court records.

Williams’ probation comes with a long list of conditions, including registering as a sex offender, undergoing counseling or treatment services recommended by probation, and avoiding contact with minor girls unless supervised or approved by the court.

He also is banned from visiting pornographic websites and from using online dating services or social media unless he obtains written approval from his probation officer.

Williams pleaded guilty in July to one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct after DNA evidence connected him to the rape of a 12-year-old girl at a St. Paul home in April 2016. 

A 17-year-old also was charged in the case and later convicted and sentenced.

The girl, now 14, was sexually assaulted after she was driven to a house on Albemarle Street in St. Paul and taken to the basement, described as “messy” and strewn with beer cans and cigar wrappers, according to the criminal complaint.

Once there, the girl told police that the 17-year-old’s friends pulled her pants down and he raped her.

Williams, whose DNA profile matched that of a sample collected during the victim’s sexual assault examination, told police he was at the house for a “get-together” that evening and asked the girl for oral sex but she refused, the complaint said.

He initially claimed he didn’t touch the girl but later said he “had sex with her for eight seconds … and went back upstairs where he shot dice,” but that she “was OK” with it, charges said.

The victim said the assault continued until a woman came downstairs, began yelling at the males and walked her out of the home before instructing her to call the police.

The other teen was sentenced to 12 to 18 months at the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Red Wing for male juveniles.

Months after his mother and twin brother died, a White Bear Lake man sent out a Christmas card saying the two were still alive but in bad health.

He also wrote that his mom didn’t want visitors at the home the three shared together and that neither of his family members could hear the phone ring.

It appears his letter was meant to keep people from stopping by their house, where Robert Kuefler was living alongside their decaying bodies, according to a criminal complaint filed against him in Ramsey County District Court this week.

The 60-year-old faces one charge of interference with a dead body or scene of death for neglecting to tell authorities about their deaths of natural causes.

Police discovered their bodies in September 2016 after a neighbor reported that the Kueflers’ lawn had grown unruly and that she hadn’t seen activity at the house for some time.

When officers responded to the scene, they saw what appeared to be a dead body through a window and forced entry into the house, charges say.

Police found 94-year-old Evelyn Lucille Kuefler deceased in an upstairs bedroom. Her body was “severely decayed and mostly a skeleton,” the complaint said.

Robert Kuefler’s twin, Richard Kuefler, was found in the basement, his body “mummified,” charges say.

A medical examiner later determined that both died of natural causes about a year earlier.

Robert Kuefler was inside the house when police arrived.

In an interview with investigators, he admitted that his mother had died around August of 2015. He said he knew she was dying and didn’t want to witness it so he drove around for a couple of hours. When he returned, she was dead in her bed, he told police, according to the criminal complaint.

He said his brother had died before his mother. He found him in “his chair,” and eventually moved him into the bathroom because his body was “in the way,” the complaint said.

Robert Kuefler, who has no criminal history, had served as the caretaker for his mother and ailing brother before their deaths. He told police he couldn’t bring himself to bury them so he just left them in the home.

Shortly after the bodies were discovered, he was arrested on suspicion of financial exploitation because he was in a position to profit off disability and Social Security checks sent to their house after they died, police said at the time.

He was released shortly thereafter and never charged with the crime.

The Kuefler’s home was deemed temporarily uninhabitable following the discovery so that city officials could hire a professional company to do a deep clean of the house.

In addition to the bodies, the house was infested with maggots and flies and contained bodily fluids and a powerful stench.

After it was cleaned, Robert Kuefler reportedly moved back in.

He could not be reached for comment.

Matthew Alex Morton was the lookout guy.

It was his job to stand outside Gracson Eugene Simmons’ apartment while his friend, Christopher Jerome McKay, broke into his home and robbed him, Morton said in Ramsey County District Court.

The hope was to catch the 42-year-old St. Paul man while he was still asleep during the early morning hours of April 2, 2016.

McKay kicked in the door, and soon after Morton said he heard a “tussle,” followed by a gunshot.

“Then the guy came out toward me and I stepped back and he fell down the stairs,” Morton told Ramsey County District Judge John Guthmann.

The guy was Simmons. Police discovered his body around 3:30 a.m. that day at the bottom of a staircase inside his apartment building on the 1500 block of St. Anthony Avenue after a neighbor discovered him there.

Morton made the admissions during a plea hearing Thursday morning.

The 26-year-old Michigan man pleaded guilty to one count of aiding an offender during the proceeding. A second-degree murder charge was dismissed as part of a plea deal reached with the state.

Under the terms of the agreement, Morton is expected to be sentenced in November to about 10 years in prison.

McKay, 52, also from Michigan, pleaded guilty to unintentional second-degree murder this past August. He will be sentenced later this month.

The two men ended up in Minnesota after McKay left Michigan to avoid arrest for a bank robbery there, according to his criminal complaint. He brought Morton with him.

While in town, the two stayed with the girlfriend of an acquaintance McKay made at a crack house in Detroit, charges say.

McKay ended up buying a Dodge Durango from the woman and using it to travel around the area. At some point, he and Morton met Simmons while at a bar on University Avenue and bought cocaine from him, according to the charges. 

Simmons’ friends told police after his murder that he sold drugs, charges say.

A tenant of his building told officers he heard Simmons yell, “get the (expletive) out of here,” the complaint said. More yelling followed. Then the sound of a gunshot and someone falling down the stairs.

The mother of Simmons’ 9-year-old son described him as a quiet man and a proud father. She said he grew up in Detroit and had been living in the same apartment building in St. Paul for many years.

The family of a stillborn baby discarded in Regions Hospital’s dirty laundry after staff promised to cremate the remains is suing the medical institution.

The mother of the child, Esmeralda Hernandez, filed a lawsuit against the St. Paul hospital in Ramsey County District Court earlier this month along with several of her family members.

The civil suit accuses Regions of reckless interference with a dead body. The family is seeking damages “far in excess of $50,000” for their ongoing pain related to the incident, according to legal documents.

The family’s attorney, Chris Messerly, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case. The family also could not be reached.

In a statement released Monday afternoon, Regions Hospital apologized for what happened back in 2013.

“We want to say again that we are truly sorry for our mistake,” the statement read. “We immediately reached out to the family in 2013 to apologize and to try and help ease their loss. We have continued to work with their lawyer — always open to a reasonable resolution.”

Hernandez went into early labor in April of 2013 when her son was just 22 weeks in utero, the suit says. At 3:09 p.m. April 3, she delivered her stillborn baby at Regions Hospital and named him “Jose.”

Devastated, she kept him in her room overnight as she and her family mourned his death.

Out of respect for his body, Hernandez declined an autopsy and accepted hospital staff’s offer when they said they could cremate her baby boy in “a respectful and dignified manner,” the suit says.

Nearly two weeks later, on April 16, 2013, an anonymous tipster informed Red Wing police that workers at Crothall Laundry Services there had found the body of a baby inside a dirty laundry bag sent to the facility for cleaning from Regions.

The child’s diaper was reportedly still on, as was his identification bracelet.

Laundry workers proceeded to “gawk at Baby Jose, took photos of him, and sent pictures into cyberspace,” the suit said.

The story was reported by the media and eventually reached the Hernandez family, who “hoped and prayed that the discarded baby was not their Baby Jose,” according to the civil complaint.

Regions Hospital was notified about what had happened from Crothall Laundry staff, who later relayed to police that the hospital had instructed them to reach out to the hospital directly when “something like this shows up in the linens,” the suit said.

The manager told the investigating detective that it’s not uncommon for staff at the laundry facility “to find medical waste in the linens from Regions, which may consist of tissue, blood, and on occasion, an appendage,” legal documents say.

When the baby was found, Regions reportedly sent two staff members to retrieve his body. They did not inform police, the suit said.

While hospital staff “knew that the baby was Baby Jose, (they) decided not to tell Baby Jose’s family about what they had done,” according to the complaint.

Regions staff acknowledged it was him, after the family reached out to the hospital to ask if the child was Baby Jose, on the day after the media reported the story, legal documents say.

A second newborn’s remains were also discarded in Regions’ dirty laundry around the same time. That baby was born April 7, 2013. His remains were never found.

Regions staff reported at the time that they suspected the child was sent to Crothall Laundry Services in the same linen container as Baby Jose’s remains.

Nothing like it has happened since, the hospital reported in its statement.

“We … took immediate steps to ensure this would not happen again,” the statement read. “The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reviewed and approved our updated process in 2014. We continue to review these processes on an ongoing basis.”

The hospital has not yet filed an answer to the suit but plans to do so, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

Hernandez now lives in Texas. She was living in St. Paul when she delivered her baby.

Seng Xiong preyed upon “the open wounds” of particularly vulnerable people within the Hmong community when the Maplewood man promised them access to a new Hmong homeland in Southeast Asia in exchange for money, a federal judge said Wednesday.

Through his lies, the 49-year-old defrauded more than 400 Hmong people from across the United States — many of them elderly — of thousands of dollars each. Their contributions totaled about $1.7 million.

U.S. District Judge Susan Nelson went above federal guidelines in sentencing Xiong to more than seven years in prison. He also was ordered to pay $1.2 million in restitution and comply with a long list of conditions upon his release.

As Seng Xiong was sentenced in St. Paul, about 50 of his supporters outside waved signs and shouted demands for his release.

Despite a jury convicting Xiong last winter of both mail fraud and wire fraud for orchestrating the scam, several of those who donated to his cause maintain his innocence and still ardently believe that he intended to carry out his promises.

Nelson spoke of those supporters and all of Xiong’s victims before rendering her sentence.

“These are folks … who share some sort of cultural pain … they were displaced, they had a refugee experience,” Nelson said.

Many of the victims had also lost loved ones during the Hmong’s involvement in aiding the U.S. in the Vietnam War and endured broken promises by American officials about what they would receive in exchange for their help, Nelson added.

“It (was) these folks’ lack of assimilation in this country, their lack of healing over this horrific past, that Mr. Xiong preyed upon,” Nelson said.

Despite his promises to the contrary, investigators could find no evidence to back up his claims to donors that he was actively working with officials from both the U.S. government and the United Nations to secure a Hmong homeland, Nelson added.

Xiong went so far as to tell donors via conference calls and YouTube videos that land had not only been identified for the homeland, but that funding for acquisition had been approved and that its creation would be announced imminently.

In exchange for a $3,000 to $5,000 donation, each donor was promised land, housing, education, jobs and social services in the new Hmong homeland.

During the trial, evidence was presented that no one from the U.S. Department of State, the White House or the United Nations ever collaborated with Xiong.

“The fact is you lied to your followers and to this day you continue to deny it,” Nelson said. For that reason, the judge gave Xiong a sentence above federal sentencing guidelines.

Xiong stood in an orange jumpsuit while his sentence was read while rows of his supporters listened in the gallery. He proclaimed his innocence when given the chance to address the court and also made a failed motion to have his attorney removed.

“I am an honest person. I have dedicated my life to the liberation of the Hmong people,” Xiong said. “This is politically motivated. It has nothing to do with fraud … everybody knows that.”

His supporters gathered both in and outside the federal courthouse came from states across the country.

They said Xiong, who they referred to as their leader, had been framed by a bitter former business partner involved in his organization, Hmong Tebchaws.

It was through that organization that Xiong solicited donations for his promised Hmong homeland.

Yang Moua drove from Arkansas to show his support for Xiong.

He donated $5,000 for a new Hmong homeland.

“Our people suffer for so many years because we helped the United States to fight communism. Right now, our people are still getting killed in Laos because of that. We need a homeland,” Moua said.

He added that he firmly believes Xiong was working with officials to accomplish that goal.

Judge Nelson referred to Xiong’s influence over his supporters as “cult-like” during the hearing, saying his followers “blindly” believe him despite all evidence because they are so vulnerable, “they can’t afford to lose hope.”

In asking for a lesser sentence for his client, Xiong’s attorney, James Ostgard, pointed out that much of the money Xiong received from his victims was still in his account.

Dauntrelle Bullock admitted to driving up alongside another vehicle in St. Paul this past summer and fatally shooting a 17-year-old girl riding as a passenger inside it, court records say.

Keyira Nunn of St. Paul was pronounced dead by St. Paul Fire medics who responded to the shooting at the intersection of Third and Van Dyke streets around 5 p.m. June 2.

By the time they arrived, Bullock had fled, court records say.

He claimed responsibility for his actions in Ramsey County District Court Wednesday when he entered a guilty plea to one count of second-degree unintentional murder in Nunn’s death.

His attorney, public defender Emma Ray Koski, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Shortly before the shooting, Nunn had been picked up by a 25-year-old man she recently met.

Seconds later, the driver of the SUV pulled out a gun and fired one shot toward his car before driving away, he told officers, according to court records.

The bullet struck Nunn in her left shoulder area and then traveled through her chest, hitting her left lung, aorta, heart and right lung, the Ramsey County medical examiner concluded.

A nearby home’s surveillance system captured part of the incident on video, leading police to identify the suspect vehicle and eventually tie it to Bullock, who is 24.

Nunn’s acquaintance later identified him as the shooter.

When initially interviewed by police, Bullock lied about where he was at the time of the incident, according to his criminal complaint.

The complaint does not include a motive for the shooting. However, Nunn’s 16-year-old sister has said she does not believe Keyira was the intended target.

Nunn was a junior at City Academy High School in St. Paul.

Bullock will be sentenced in December.

A young St. Paul man addicted to opioid-based painkillers hopped over the counter at a Walgreens on Monday afternoon and ordered a pharmacist to empty all the prescription narcotics out of a safe, authorities say.

“Where they at? Give me the drugs! I want the drugs,” Manuel Christopher Lee Young, 19, demanded during the robbery at the pharmacy chain on Old Hudson Road and White Bear Avenue in St. Paul, according to the criminal complaint filed against him in Ramsey County District Court.

Young faces one felony-level count of theft and another for robbery.

After the pharmacist entered the safe’s combination, she was instructed to put 30 bottles containing more than 300 oxycodone pills valued at nearly $20,000 into Young’s blue drawstring backpack, the complaint said.

Young then reportedly took off running through the store’s aisles as a police officer chased him.

He was found hiding under a trailer in a construction yard across the street and arrested, the complaint said.

She told officers Young threatened to hurt her if she didn’t move fast.

The robbery was caught on the store’s surveillance video.

In an interview with police, Young admitted to stealing the drugs, the complaint said.

He told officers that he is addicted to Percocet and needed “a quick fix,” according to the complaint.

The plan to rob the store was conceived by two of his acquaintances “from the streets” who Young said planned to sell the stolen narcotics, the complaint said.

Percocet contains oxycodone, an opioid-based pain medication.

Young has no convictions on his criminal record in Minnesota.

His family could not be reached for comment. No attorney was listed for him in court records.

A separate pharmacy robbery that took place in St. Paul last week remains under investigation.

Police are looking into whether the cases are connected, but they do not immediately appear to be, according to Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman. 

In the earlier case, three males went to the CVS at East Maryland Avenue and Arcade Street at about 8 p.m. Oct. 9. One served as the look-out and two went in the pharmacy.

One grabbed a pharmacist by the arm, and then they stole a large number of pills from the safe and left, Ernster said.

The drugs were reported to be stashed in a garbage bag, and officers searching the area found a bag with more than 100 bottles and pills still inside, Ernster said. They arrested a 33-year-old man, whom a witness identified as being involved. Police continue to look for the other two suspects.

That case has not yet been presented to the Ramsey County attorney’s office for possible charges.

A St. Paul man accused of beating his partner’s dog and leaving it for dead after it relieved itself in a relative’s bathroom was found unfit to defend himself against the allegations, court records say.

A Ramsey County District Court Judge ruled Wednesday that Morgan Quinn Knutsen was mentally incompetent to proceed with this case after reviewing the results of a Rule 20 evaluation requested for the 22-year-old following his alleged conduct.

The determination means that the case against Knutsen will be  suspended. A review hearing to reevaluate his competency will take place early next year.

Knutsen was reportedly mad at his partner’s family’s 10-year-old Yorkshire terrier-Havanese mix when he picked up a stick and began “savagely and repeatedly” striking the animal, according to a criminal complaint filed against him in Ramsey County District Court.

After beating the small dog, Knutsen “dumped” it outside so it could “go off and die,” according to statements he later made to investigators, the complaint said.

Knutsen faces two counts of animal cruelty and two more for making terroristic threats for his alleged conduct.

His attorney, Jill Brisbois, declined to comment on his case Wednesday afternoon. None of his family members could be reached.

Knutsen pleaded not guilty to the charges in August.

Knutsen told his partner he “lost it” June 2 after discovering that her childhood dog, Jack, had gone to the bathroom inside her relative’s home in Vadnais Heights, according to the complaint.

He then claimed he couldn’t find the animal, but never told her he had actually abandoned Jack outside her relative’s property line, according to the criminal complaint.

He continued to withhold that information as he accompanied her and her sister-in-law on a search for the dog. Instead, he reportedly “made fun” of his partner for “getting emotional over an old dog,” charges say.

The sister-in-law found Jack after someone discovered him and reported it.

Veterinarians said the dog had sustained injuries that necessitated removal of his left eye, a broken jaw that prevented him from eating, fractures to four ribs and bruises on his lungs, the complaint said.

The injuries were consistent with animal abuse, veterinarians reported.

The dog’s condition was so dire that Knutsen’s partner and her family decided to euthanize their pet on June 5.

On the same day of the assault, Knutsen also reportedly got in a fight with his partner and threatened violence against her and her loved ones, the complaint said.

He later admitted to beating the dog and making threats toward his partner, charges say.

After his arrest, a Ramsey County judge granted an order for protection for the woman.

Knutsen is accused of violating that order when he went to her apartment in September and choked her before throwing her into a couch, court documents say.

That case is also pending.

Knutsen has no felony convictions on his criminal record. His has three citations for driving-related offenses.

Michael Fleming was standing in a kitchen inside a St. Paul apartment about six years ago when police officers burst into the unit with a search warrant and physically assaulted him without cause, according to a recently filed federal lawsuit.

The 31-year-old was visiting the residence at the time and wasn’t tied to the case that prompted the search, according to one of his attorneys.

Fleming also claims he never resisted officers’ actions at the apartment, but was assaulted and seriously injured anyway.

He is suing the city as well as several St. Paul police officers, claiming they violated his constitutional and civil rights during the 2011 incident.

“At no time did (Fleming) present himself as any kind of danger to anyone and did not resist (police) in any way. … He was simply standing in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Scott Swanson, one of his attorneys.

Fleming is also being represented by Paul Applebaum and Nicholas Rowley.

City officials deny the allegations outlined in the suit and said in their answer to the complaint that all of the actions taken by police officers during the incident were “authorized by the laws of the United States and the state of Minnesota.”

“Any injuries or damages sustained by (Fleming) were caused solely by reason of his willful and physical resistance to St. Paul Police Officers in the lawful performance of their duties,” the answer said.

City Attorney Sam Clark declined to comment Thursday. A St. Paul police spokesman said the department is unable to comment on pending litigation.

The alleged incident took place Oct. 13, 2011, when police officers with the city’s East District Force unit executed a search warrant at an apartment on the 900 block of Edgerton Street.

The reason for the raid was not disclosed in the suit.

Fleming and several others were reportedly inside the unit at the time, with some gathered in the kitchen.

Shortly after entering, police officer Mike Dunaski struck Fleming in the head with his gun, felling him to the floor, the suit says. That’s when he claims Dunaski and several other officers began repeatedly kicking him and stomping on his head.

“Despite the brutality of the officers’ assault on him, Fleming continued to offer no verbal or physical resistance,” the suit said.

He was arrested on suspicion of being a felon in possession of a handgun, according to police reports. Others at the apartment were arrested or cited as well for other conduct.

Bleeding and handcuffed, Fleming was taken to Regions Hospital. He was treated for “massive facial trauma” and a traumatic brain injury during his three-day stay and eventually needed a titanium plate inserted to repair a blowout to his left eye socket, according to the complaint.

He still suffers from headaches, dizziness, nightmares and fainting spells from his injuries, Swanson said.

The ongoing symptoms reportedly make it hard for him to work the manual-labor jobs he’s qualified for in the past.

Though he was never charged in relation to the incident in question, Swanson said, Fleming does have a criminal history.

He was convicted of giving false information to police and disorderly conduct in 2004, third-degree assault in 2008, unlawful possession of a firearm stemming from a separate case in 2011, and terroristic threats in 2016.

A pre-trial conference on his lawsuit will take place Dec. 19. 

“We look forward to trying to vindicate our client’s rights,” Swanson said. “This is just another example of police acting out of control. … Not all cops are like this, but they have to tone things down.”

Of nine suits against St. Paul police, three have been dismissed and six settled this year, according to city records.

This year, the city paid out a record-setting $2 million to a man who sued after he was severely injured when a St. Paul police K-9 repeatedly bit him and an officer kicked him. The other settlements in police lawsuits this year totaled $64,900.

Mara H. Gottfried contributed to this report.

Yasmin Mullings just wrapped up three grueling back-to-back criminal trials and was training for a marathon when she found herself with a sick feeling she couldn’t shake.

The longtime Ramsey County assistant attorney took a couple days off work to recuperate and thought the worst was behind her when she hopped on a treadmill for a workout.

After a half-mile, the longtime runner could barely breathe.

“I was like, ‘Boy, I am out of shape,’ ” Yasmin recalled. She figured the change she made in her training schedule to accommodate her trial hours had eaten away at her edge.

“So I switched to the bike and did some other stuff, and a few days later, I got back on the treadmill … I could barely run,” Mullings said.

The peculiarity was the start of a sudden decline for the 52-year-old New York native in the winter of 2016.

Up until that point she was known for her optimum physical health and fierce commitment to running and her work. She’s crossed eight marathon finish lines and completed twice as many half-marathons while often working 19-hour days.

Her career was spent prosecuting complicated, often heart-wrenching cases involving women and children as victims.

Mullings fruitlessly visited her doctor’s office four times seeking answers while her energy levels tanked and her breathing worsened. After blacking out during a hearing in a Ramsey County courtroom, she went to the emergency room.

The doctors there were also perplexed, but Mullings knew something was very wrong.

“I would prop myself up to sleep at night but I would slide back down and wake up feeling like I was drowning,” Mullings said.

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

At the urging of a friend, she called Mayo Clinic in Rochester. After a battery of tests, she finally had an answer.

A flu virus — viral myocarditis – had infected the otherwise healthy woman’s heart, causing fluid to build up that her heart couldn’t pump out.

“The cardiologist comes in the room and says ‘I’ve got good news and bad news.’ The good news is we know what’s wrong with you. The bad news is you are in end-stage heart failure,” Mullings said. “I remember being like, ‘Say what?’ ”

Rounds of treatment failed to address the issue. At one point Mullings was sent home with a LifeVest that would resuscitate her if her heart gave out. Later, she was advised she would need a defibrillator.

Nothing helped. Mullings was constantly dizzy and could barely walk more than a few steps at a time without losing her breath.

She mourned her independence and quality-of-life and found herself pushing back against interventions that would buy her nothing more than time.

In June 2016, doctors informed her she needed a heart transplant, and soon, or she would die. She was added to the waiting list but was told it could take a year to get her a donor.

The news was stunning and disorienting, especially as Mullings learned the transplant was not a cure, and that the kind of quality-of-life that awaited her on the other side was uncertain.

But the doctors told her it was her best chance.

“I think there is this thing that happens in situations like these where this is a recognition that this is out of your control,” Mullings said of how she processed the news. “I have always been somebody who has had a lot of confidence in my faith and my toughness and my ability to fight … So it was like this recognition that I had come to the end of myself. That there was nothing I could do.”

STRANGELY AT PEACE

The realization left her feeling strangely peaceful, she said.

“I knew I had lived a really good life. I had done all the things I wanted to do … I got to look at the people who had been there and say  ‘I love you.’ … So I felt as if I was actually being given this gift,” Mullings said. “Because this wasn’t something that was sudden like getting hit by a bus … I had time to try and understand it.”

Weeks later, she learned she could get transferred to Mayo’s hospital in Phoenix, where the wait time was drastically shorter.

On July 20, 2016, her doctors visited her Arizona hospital room and told her they had a heart. It was about five months after her own started pounding half a mile into her treadmill workout back in Minnesota.

“I remember my doctor takes my hand and says, ‘We are ready to do this. … And then they wheeled me in and I started counting backwards and the next thing I knew I could hear my sister’s voice.”

Days later, after she was transferred out of the intensive care unit, one of the nurses asked Mullings if she had a chance to listen to her new heart.

“He got out his stethoscope and I listened and I just lost it,” Mullings said. “It was absolutely the most amazing thing I had ever heard. It was strong. It was steady. It wasn’t racing. … It was just like, ‘Wow.’ ”

ONE OF THE STRONGEST

Big gold hoops dangle from Mullings’ ears as she recounts what happened to her inside a busy Dunn Bros. in St. Paul.

Her lipstick matches her bright pink dress. Her hair is curly and wild.

She is stylish, loud and funny. She talks incessantly. She doesn’t strike you as someone who is sick, though her body has remained in some stage of rejection of her new heart since shortly after the surgery.

She tears up only occasionally as she tells her story: When she describes her older sister wailing when she found out Mullings would need a transplant. When she remembers lying alone in her hospital room trying to decide what kind of life-saving measures she wanted if her surgery didn’t go as planned. When she speaks about the loss the family and friends of her donor had to bear for her to get a new heart.

She doesn’t know who her donor is and will only find out if his or her family chooses to allow it.

“I know a lot of strong women. I think being in the profession we’re in we are surrounded by them, but Yasmin is truly one of the strongest I know,” said Karen Kugler, an assistant Ramsey County attorney and one of Mullings’ colleagues.

Her older sister, Grace Mullings, echoed Kugler.

“It’s been scary for me to watch because she is my younger sister … but it’s been enlightening to see her courage,” Grace Mullings said. “People think a heart transplant is a cure, and it’s not, there are still a lot of ups and downs and she has shown so much grace through all of it. … I’m in awe of her strength.”

Comments praising her tenacity have poured into her CaringBridge site from other family and friends, judges, attorneys, probation officers — even defendants she’s sent to prison.

‘I AM NOT ON MY OWN’

Mullings credits much of her perseverance to her faith.

She says she never expected a miraculous recovery but that it’s given her comfort to trust that whatever happens, good or bad, is divinely ordered.

“I am not one of those people that believe only good things happen,” Mullings said. “Kids die, they didn’t do anything; accidents happen. We live in a fallen world, but I know no matter how bad things are, I am not on my own.”

The experience has also forced her to redefine what strength means and accept that she has limits. Where before quitting was her “anathema,” she is fitfully learning to bail out of a run early if her body calls for it or stay in bed when it feels too hard to get out.

More than a year after her transplant, Mullings still frequents the hospital for testing to monitor her fragile heart. Her immune system sees the organ as a foreign object and fights against it, meaning her doctors are constantly adjusting her medications to keep its attack at bay.

She has no idea how long she has. Some people live up to 30 years with a new heart, others don’t make it out of the hospital.

“I have had 14 more months than I anticipated, so it’s a win,” Mullings said. “I have had my struggles, but I have been able to spend time with my family, friends, work. I have been able to do the things I wanted to do.”

Knowing that’s how she’s always lived her life has also given Mullings a sense of resolve about her future.

“I did a chronology of my life and all the decisions I made and I asked myself if there was anything I would do differently, and I could not think of one thing,” Mullings said. “I have fought battles I wanted to fight, I have done work I care about and love, I have taken chances. I moved from New York to Minnesota for love, it didn’t work out, but I stayed. I’ve traveled.

“So when this happened, I wasn’t going “Geez, I wish I had like a year to do all of this,’ because I’ve lived my life the way I’ve wanted,” she continued. “That’s what I want for everybody. … If there is something you want to do, as long as you’re not hurting anybody, do it.  Don’t wait.”

‘RUNNING KEEPS ME SANE’

That’s why Mullings plans to keep running. It’s one way she can hold on to some control while continuing to push boundaries, arguably her favorite pastime.

She’s quick to point out that there is no “handbook” for how to return to long-distance running after a heart transplant. Most people who get them aren’t runners in the first place, Mullings said.

“Running keeps me sane,” she said. “I am slow as a turtle now, but getting out there and relying on my body to do something when everything else about this process is the exact opposite, it’s the only thing I have found that has given me back power.”

She refused to drop out of the 10-mile she’d signed up for at MedtronicTwin Cities Marathon despite feeling unusually rundown in the days leading up to it.

She promised herself she wouldn’t compete if she woke up without enough oomph, but she felt good that morning and headed to the course.

She ran the whole way, with another assistant Ramsey County attorney alongside her to make sure she was OK.

It’s the longest race she’s competed in since her transplant.

When she crossed the finish line, all her supporters were crying. Mullings was beaming.

“It would have never crossed my mind that a year later I could do that,” she said. “I mean I left (Arizona) in a wheelchair, and I just ran 10 miles, a year later. It just absolutely blew my mind.”

An Illinois man is accused of gunning down a 37-year-old father found dead in the parking lot of the Lamplighter Lounge in St. Paul late last month.

Peter Devonn Crosby, 35, was charged Friday with one count of second-degree murder in the death of Ja’uan Love, according to the criminal complaint filed against him in Ramsey County District Court.

Crosby and Love were both at the Lamplighter Lounge at Larpenteur Avenue and Rice Street before the shooting took place Sept. 29; Love with his brother and Crosby with a couple acquaintances, court documents say.

Surveillance video reportedly showed “no issues” between the men while they were inside the establishment, the complaint said.

After the strip club closed, Crosby was seen on camera hanging around in the parking lot, according to authorities. Cameras depict him getting into one car and then exiting the vehicle to climb into someone else’s car also waiting in the parking lot, the complaint said.

Shortly after Love and his brother exited the Lamplighter, cameras show Love walking up to the vehicle Crosby was sitting in and engaging with him and the other man in the car, court documents say.

After a brief interaction at the window that included “no physical altercation,” Crosby pulled out a gun and shot Love from behind, the complaint said. He fell to the ground as Crosby and the other men in the parking lot fled.

A medical examiner ruled that Love died from two gunshot wounds, one to his head and another to his shoulder.

Police later tracked Crosby’s cellphone to Zion, Ill., where he was eventually arrested.

No motive for the shooting was disclosed in the complaint.

Love’s homicide is the 17th of the year in St. Paul. His mother remembered him Friday as a loving father of five who worked as a barber.

“He was a good guy, a good kid, a guy that loved people,” Mystie Love said. “It’s unreal. I can’t even grasp that he is (gone).”

Police have been called to the Lamplighter Lounge nearly 60 times this year for reports including disturbances, weapons complaints and assaults.

A Minneapolis police officer threatened to hide in the bushes and shoot his sister-in-law, authorities say.

James John Lopez, 55, was charged via warrant Friday with one count of felony-level threats of violence for the alleged conduct, according to the criminal complaint filed against him in Ramsey County District Court.

Lopez, who lives in St. Paul, is a longtime Minneapolis police officer.

He was relieved of duty following the allegations, meaning he is still being paid but is no longer working for the department, according to public information Officer Corey Schmidt.

The department has also opened its own internal investigation into his alleged conduct, Schmidt said.

No attorney was listed for Lopez in court records and he could not be immediately reached for comment. 

Lopez’s sister-in-law was in town visiting Monday evening when Lopez, who had been drinking, began arguing with his wife inside their home on Sidney Street West, the woman told St. Paul police, according to the complaint.

As his wife began packing up her things to leave the house, Lopez reportedly pointed his finger at his sister-in-law and threatened to shoot her, authorities say.

“I don’t care where you go, St. Paul or Seattle. I’ll be hiding in the bushes and I’ll shoot you,” Lopez threatened, according to the complaint.

Investigators later spoke with Lopez’s wife about the incident.

She told officers that Lopez had been “drinking heavily” and “acting out of control and crazy,” that night, prompting her to want to leave their home with her other family members because she feared what Lopez might do, legal documents say.

Both she and her father confirmed that they overheard Lopez threaten his sister-in-law during the incident, and Lopez’s wife said he also threatened her in the past, once putting a gun to her head, the complaint said.

His wife said she refrained from reporting the earlier incident because Lopez threatened to kill her if she ever called police, court documents say.

Her father told police he heard sounds “like a gun being racked and loaded” after Lopez made the threatening remarks to his wife’s sister Monday. 

Lopez was convicted of a DWI in Scott County in 2016.

The president of the Minneapolis Police Federation did not respond to a request for comment.

Lopez was recognized for 25 years of service with Minneapolis along with other city employees this past June, according to the city’s web site.

The University of Minnesota’s Raptor Center will host its Outstanding Owl program at the Bruentrup Heritage Farm in Maplewood Saturday, Oct. 28.

Attendees will get the chance to meet an owl “up close,” according to information provided by the Maplewood Parks and Recreation Department.

The event starts at 3:30 p.m. Oct. 28 and includes a presentation by the Raptor Center followed by opportunities to participate in arts and crafts and night-hike in search of owls.

Guests are encouraged to dress for the weather. Treats and beverages will be provided.

The event costs $8 and registration is required. To register, go to www.maplewoodnaturecenter.com and click on the “Register Online” button. Call 651-249-2170 if you need help registering.

The Bruentrup Heritage Farm is located at 2170 E. County Road D in Maplewood.

Jennafer Meyers is accused of paying an Andover man who fixed her laptop with prescription pain-medicine last December.

Four years earlier, Dennis Rivers took methadone pills and crack cocaine to his girlfriend’s Inver Grove Heights apartment and the two got high.

In 2013, Jennifer Marie Johnson filled a syringe with some of the liquid methadone a doctor had prescribed for the Newport woman and gave it to her husband.

Beverly Burrell sold heroin to a couple in a Minneapolis parking lot on a September day in 2015.

Each case involved different people in different metro-area counties, but they also share devastating similarities. In each instance, the recipient of the drugs ended up dying of a fatal overdose, and the provider wound up facing murder charges.

They are just a few of the stories behind the rising number of third-degree murder cases being charged across the metro in recent years. Prosecutors attribute the increase to the opioid epidemic and enhancements in forensic science and technology that make it easier to establish a link between suppliers and overdose victims.

RAMSEY COUNTY CASE COULD BE A FIRST

While Ramsey County has been far from immune from the deadly consequences of drug use, the state’s second most populated county has only filed third-degree murder charges following fatal drug overdoses within the past 10 years, according to statistics provided by the county.

It is now aiming to get its first conviction in such a case as the trial for Victor Wayne Lynch begins this week. He is accused of causing the death of 28-year-old Trina Maurstad last October after giving her a “speedball” of heroin and methamphetamine after the two met up at a Roseville hotel, according to a criminal complaint.

With the trial underway, the Ramsey County attorney’s office declined to comment about its approach to prosecuting alleged suppliers of lethal drug doses. Part of it is undoubtedly based on the number of cases it is asked to consider, though.

Over the past 10 years, law enforcement agencies across Ramsey County have presented the county attorney with only nine such cases: three from St. Paul police, two from White Bear Lake, one from Roseville, one from New Brighton and one from the Ramsey County sheriff’s office, the county attorney’s office reported.

To put that in perspective, the county saw around 80 deaths from accidental drug overdoses in 2016 alone, 62 related to opiate use, according to data compiled by Drug Abuse Dialogues, a local consulting organization run by the former director of the state’s drug and alcohol abuse agency.

Comparatively, there were 37 opiate-related deaths in Ramsey County in 2013.

Of the nine fatal drug cases that made their way to the Ramsey County attorney’s desk in the past decade, only two resulted in charges of third-degree murder.

State statute dictates that anyone who “without intent to cause death, proximately causes the death of a human being by directly or indirectly, unlawfully selling, giving away, bartering, delivering, exchanging, distributing, or administering a controlled substance … is guilty” of third-degree murder.

Hennepin County has charged 23 defendants for such crimes in the past decade, according to the Hennepin County attorney’s office.

Anoka County charged 10 in that time period; Washington County six; and Dakota County three, according to data provided for this story.

Similar to Ramsey County, the number of charges is well below the number of fatal drug overdoses that have taken place over the past 10 years in the metro area.

Hennepin County reportedly alone had more than 200 fatalities from accidental drug overdoses last year, for example.

“We all know there are more drug-related deaths than we see for prosecution,” said Assistant Anoka County Attorney Paul Young. “Law enforcement is obviously making an internal determination that sometimes there is just not enough there to make a referral. … You simply have to go where the facts take you and, unfortunately, that is a place that doesn’t always allow for prosecution.”

CASES ARE ‘INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT’

If Washington County Attorney Pete Orput could, he would hold someone responsible every time someone dies of a drug overdose.

“The way I see if, if you kill one of my kids, you owe me for one dead kid and I want to collect,” Orput said. “I don’t mean to sound like a (jerk) … but that’s how I look at these cases.”

“It used to be that cops would get called to a hotel and find someone with a needle in their arm and they would often go, ‘Well, that’s a real tragedy,’ and bag him up,” Orput said. “It’s been part of my job to convince them it’s not over … that we need to try and figure out who gave that poison to that boy who died, and that requires some deep investigation. … I assured the cops that if they put in the work, I’ll put in the work.”

A spokesman for the St. Paul Police Department called such cases “incredibly difficult.”

“Our investigators … have to determine whether the person willingly took the drugs, the quantity of drugs that was taken and whether there was a mix of drugs in the system at the time of death,” Steve Linders said. “Often times there is a mix of drugs, in which case determining what actually killed the person is difficult.”

Authorities also need to be able to trace the drug back to a source, which can be hard when users have multiple dealers or there is no witness, prosecutors said.

“Our principal witnesses in these cases are usually fellow buyers from the same source,” Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said. Drug buyers and sellers typically “don’t like to talk about each other.”

A supplier’s motive or intent is irrelevant, though. As long as prosecutors can prove who unlawfully gave the drugs to a victim and that it was that drug that caused the person’s death, third-degree murder charges apply, county attorneys said.

OPIOID EPIDEMIC PUSHES PROSECUTORS TO SEEK CHARGES

Despite the hurdles, county attorneys are prosecuting such cases at a growing rate, according to county and state statistics.

Hennepin County charged two defendants with third-degree murder for providing drugs that led to fatal overdoses in 2007. The county has charged seven so far this year.

And only one such case was sentenced statewide 10 years ago, compared with 12 in 2016, according to data provided by the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission.

The increase is undoubtedly impacted by the rising number of lives claimed by the opioid epidemic, county attorneys said, but advances in technology and forensics also appear to play a role.

Cellphones make it easier to trace drugs back to dealers, for example, and medical examiners and toxicologists have more sophisticated means to parse out what role various substances found in a overdose victim’s system played in their death.

“Now cellphones are everybody’s filing cabinets,” Young said. “So investigators (can look at phone records and see) who did you talk to, when, what did you say.”

The aim is that prosecuting more of these cases will eventually lead to fewer fatal drug overdoses, Freeman said.

“As we send more of these (dealers) to prison for this and people know about it, word will travel on the street,” Freeman said.

He added that his office prioritizes cases that have a bigger public-safety impact, such as high-profile dealers with a reputation for selling bad drugs.

Burrell, for example — a dealer known as “Ice” on the street — has been linked to five fatal overdoses in the metro area, authorities say.

She was recently sentenced to 14 years in prison in two of the deaths, despite one victim’s father pleading for leniency for her on behalf of his other son who argued incarceration is not an effective strategy for dealing with drug addiction.

The situation becomes more muddied when you consider that many overdose victims willingly ingested the substance that killed them.

Still, prosecution is an important tool in a complicated landscape that should be used when possible, authorities say.

“I understand that addiction is a disease, but we also can’t ignore the crimes that are associated with addiction,” Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom said.

ROSEVILLE OVERDOSE FOCUS OF TRIAL

In Ramsey County’s first trial of such a case, prosecutors will try to prove Lynch provided Maurstad with the drugs that a medical examiner determined killed her last fall.

Heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl were found in her system after she was pronounced dead of a drug overdose Oct. 10, 2016, court records say.

Police found her unconscious inside a room at the Red Roof Inn in Roseville after her friend saw her having a seizure and called 911, authorities say.

The friend and Lynch were also inside the room.

Though both initially denied Maurstad had taken drugs that night, her friend later told police Maurstad had taken a “speedball” of methamphetamine and heroin prepared and administered to her by Lynch, authorities say.

The 50-year-old Roseville man will get a chance to tell his side of the story this week.

His attorney, Seamus Mahoney, declined to comment on his defense strategy. Lynch has pleaded not guilty.

The mother of three boys, Maurstad’s family wrote in her obituary they would “miss (her) beautiful smile.”

Opening arguments in the case are expected to take place Thursday.

Dawahn Darnell Littles was trying to break up a fight in front of his home on Dale Street early Saturday morning when several gunshots popped off. His older brother then heard him yell, “I’m hit,” authorities say.

That’s when Denise Chanel White ran, holding a small handgun she’d just fired into the crowd that had gathered in front of Littles’ St. Paul home, according to an account by Littles’ brother in legal documents.

The brother waited alongside Littles until police arrived.

About an hour later, at 6:04 a.m., 38-year-old Littles was pronounced dead in the emergency room at St. Paul’s Regions Hospital.

SUSPECT SHOWS UP ON DOORSTEP

White, 27, of St. Paul, was charged Wednesday with two counts of second-degree murder in Littles’ death, according to a criminal complaint filed against her in Ramsey County District Court.

Still holding her gun, White sat down on a couch and cried as she repeated the words “I shot him,” the man told officers, according to legal documents.

Littles’ brother later picked White out of a lineup as the woman he’d seen shoot his brother, the complaint said.

AFTER-HOURS PARTY FIGHT BREAKS OUT

The incident occurred about 5 a.m. Saturday after Littles had a group of people back to his place in the 600 block of Dale Street after bar closing, legal documents say.

At some point, the party spilled onto the streets outside and an altercation broke out between several people, the complaint said.

As Littles attempted to break up the fight, White reportedly got into an argument with several women trying to leave the scene in a car, authorities say.

She broke one of the car’s windows before taking out a small handgun and firing shots into the crowd, striking Littles, the complaint said.

SUSPECT TO MAKE COURT APPEARANCE

White’s criminal history includes several convictions for theft-related crimes as well as two for fifth-degree assault.

White made her first appearance on the charges Wednesday. Her next hearing is scheduled for Nov. 22.

No attorney for her was listed in court records.

St. Paul police continue to investigate the case, said Steve Linders, a police spokesman.

A drug addict who died a slow and sad death because of her own reckless decision to shoot up heroin, or a murder victim who overdosed after a fellow user shot her up with what ended up being a lethal dose of drugs.

Those were the two portrayals attorneys on either side of Ramsey County’s first murder trial stemming from a fatal drug overdose gave jury members tasked with deciding Victor Wayne Lynch’s case of the woman he is accused of killing last October.

Trina Maurstad died at Hennepin County Medical Center Oct. 10, 2016, after police found her unconscious in a motel room in Roseville. She arrived at the room the previous evening with another woman to buy drugs from Lynch, who was living in the motel at the time, authorities say.

After getting high together and engaging in sexual activity, Lynch left the motel the following morning for several hours. Sometime after he returned, Maurstad starting seizing. She was pronounced dead hours later.

Lynch faces third-degree murder charges for allegedly supplying the 28-year-old White Bear Lake woman with the drugs that ultimately killed her. His trial opened Thursday.

While Maurstad was also a drug user with a history of drug abuse, that does not negate the role Lynch played in causing her death or the responsibility he should take for it, Tennison continued.

Not only did the 50-year-old mix up the heroin and methamphetamine that killed Maurstad, but he shot her up with it and then failed to disclose what he had done when first responders arrived at the scene to try to save her life, Tennison said.

He ended by reading a portion of what he said was one of the final statements Lynch made to police about what happened, a remark Tennison said came after Lynch twice denied that Maurstad had ingested any drugs before her death.

“‘I just try to help people, cuz they’re gonna do it anyway … I did my shot and just helped her with the tourniquet,’” Tennison said Lynch said.

Lynch’s defense attorney, Seamus Mahoney, told jurors during his opening remarks that the state’s case is weak and lacks facts.

The only hard evidence the state can stand on is the time the 911 call took place and the medical examiner’s ruling on her cause of death.

“As to what happened in that hotel room, three people go in and two people come out and that’s about all you’re gonna have,” Mahoney said.

He went on to say that the key witness the state is relying on in the case — the other woman who was there with Maurstad and Lynch the night she died — has her own history of drug use, lacks credibility and has a motive to be dishonest about what happened.

“She is here to tell a story so she doesn’t get charged,” Mahoney said. “All the parties (in this case) tell several stories. We are dealing with junkies.”

“It’s a very sad situation. It’s sad for everyone involved,” Mahoney said. “But adjusting a junkie’s tourniquet is not enough to find (Lynch) guilty of murder.”

The case will continue Friday with witness testimony.