Putting an end to what Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins calls a “politically motivated witch hunt,” the Trump administration dropped criminal charges against a South Dakota ranching and farming couple whom the Biden-era U.S. Forest Service accused of perpetrating the “theft” of federal land.
Charles and Heather Maude, whose fourth-generation cattle ranch and hog farm sit on the edge of South Dakota’s Badlands, were set to go on trial on July 25 over a routine property line dispute with the Forest Service. The couple were charged separately, facing up to 10 years in prison and fines up to $250,000 apiece, requiring the husband and wife to retain separate counsel.
U.S. Attorney Alison Ramsdell, a Biden appointee, brought the charges.
The couple’s ordeal began on March 29, 2024, when the U.S. Forest Service notified them that a hunter had complained about a “No Trespassing” sign on a section of the fence separating their ranch from the Buffalo Gap National Grassland, which the Forest Service administers. The hunter allegedly said the Maudes’ fence blocked his access to the federal land.
Complying with the Forest Service’s request, the Maudes removed the sign the next day.
At a May 1, 2024 meeting with Forest Service officials, the couple were told that a survey was needed to determine the property line, a process that could take up to a year, after which a course of action would be set. Yet five days later, a Forest Service team led by Special Agent Travis Lunders showed up on the Maude ranch and began surveying the property. Seven weeks later, on June 24, 2024, the ranching couple were facing indictment, with Ms. Ramsdell alleging they “did knowingly steal, purloin, and convert to their own use … approximately 25 acres of National Grasslands for cultivation and approximately 25 acres of National Grasslands for cattle grazing.”
Determining property lines in the rugged backcountry of western South Dakota is not always easy. The fence the Maudes inherited was built sometime between 1910 and 1950 using the surveying equipment available at the time. After the National Grasslands Program was created in 1960, successive generations of the Maude family renewed their grazing permits on the adjacent federal land with no objections from the Forest Service, Hale Multimedia reported.
The Forest Service’s abrupt change of heart during the final year of the Biden administration raises intriguing questions. After all, a peaceful solution to the property line dispute was readily available through the Small Tracts Act of 1938. It allows the Forest Service to trade or sell tracts of less than 40 acres. The Maudes raised the possibility of purchasing the small tracts at their May 1 meeting with the Forest Service, only to be blindsided by felony charges seven weeks later. An August letter from Sen. Mike Rounds, South Dakota Republican, to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack suggesting the Small Tracts Act to resolve the conflict elicited no response. The Forest Service is under the umbrella of the Agriculture Department.
Biden officials brushed aside an amicable settlement of the fence line dispute and never identified the hunter who allegedly complained to the Forest Service about the “No Trespassing” sign. The Forest Service also never revealed the results of its survey to the Maudes. Adding insult to injury, the couple were placed under a gag order not to speak to the media about the case, nor to each other. Some area ranchers have speculated that the prosecution of the Maudes is part of a plan to create a wildlife corridor between the Badlands National Park and the Black Hills National Forest. In that case, a pretext, such as a disputed property line, could drive ranchers off their property, freeing up the land for a federal wildlife corridor.
“The Maudes are not criminals,” Ms. Rollins said in a statement. “They have worked their land since the early 1900’s 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.”
Additional justice to the couple could be rendered by having the Forest Service reimburse the Maudes for their legal expenses because of the Biden administration’s prosecutorial overreach.