SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — After a grand jury indicted a South Dakota ranching couple for theft of property, a U.S. senator and cattle industry groups are speaking up on the ranchers’ behalf.
A grand jury on June 20, 2024, indicted Charles and Heather Maude for theft of government property. An indictment alleges the crime is that they “did knowingly steal, purloin, and covert to their own use National Grasslands managed by the United States Department of Agriculture, approximately 50 acres.”
While the indictment does not give specifics about what the Maudes are alleged to have done, a July 7, 2024, letter from U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack sheds some light, indicating that the issue involves a boundary discrepancy that the Maudes were trying to help solve.
If found guilty, the couple faces thousands of dollars in fines or imprisonment of up to 10 years.
In his letter, Rounds said the matter seems to be “an overzealous prosecution of a ranching family in my state,” and asked Vilsack to get involved and requested correspondence all USDA correspondence about the Maudes and with the Maudes.
“I trust with further understanding of the facts involved, common sense should prevail. I appreciate your attention to this urgent matter,” he wrote.
The office of the U.S. Attorney for South Dakota did not immediately respond to a message left seeking information about the case.
According to the letter from Rounds to Vilsack, the Maude family has ranched near Caputa, South Dakota, since 1910 and has a longstanding, multigenerational grazing permit with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on the Buffalo Gap National Grassland. The Buffalo Gap National Grassland is part of the Nebraska National Forests and Grasslands, managed by the U.S. Forest Service.
Rounds’s letter to Vilsack lays out a timeline of events leading up to the indictment, beginning that on March 29, 2024, the Maudes were notified of a complaint received by the USDA concerning a fence between their land and adjacent Buffalo Gap National Grassland. The complaint stated that the fence was blocking access to the grasslands.
On May 1, 2024, the Maudes met with Julie Wheeler, a USFS district ranger, and Travis Lunders, a USFS special agent, to discuss the boundary discrepancy. During the meeting, all parties determined a survey should be completed, Rounds’s letter said. Wheeler outlined three “administrative steps” that could be taken following the survey, and “it was noted that a survey could take several months, possibly even a year.”
Five days later, on May 6, 2024, Lunders escorted a crew to survey the land. The Maudes did not participate. As of July 7, 2024, the family had not received the survey’s results.
On June 24, 2024, without warning, the Maudes were served a summons to appear in U.S. District Court, on indictment for theft of government property, Rounds’s letter said.
“This action represents a direct conflict to an agreed upon plan, wherein the landowners were working cooperatively with the USFS to resolve the issue,” Rounds wrote.
Rounds’s letter said the Maude family has held permit agreements with the U.S. Forest Service for nearly 60 years, during which time the USFS “has repeatedly acknowledged the fence placement every single time the lease was renewed.” Rounds included in his letter a USDA-USFS “fence report” from September 1991, which indicated the existence of a “Cornfield BDY Fence,” which was constructed in 1950, before the Maudes’ permit agreements.
“Therefore, if the border was inaccurately established, the USFS’s own documentation failed to correct the issue 70 years ago when the fence was constructed,” Rounds wrote. “The issue was also present 60 years ago when the Maudes obtained their first grazing lease. And it has persisted each time the USFS renewed their agreement with the Maude family, most recently in 2024.”
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the Public Lands Council have come out in support of the Maudes, with a joint press release issued on Wednesday, Aug. 8.
“The Maude family are public lands permittees in good standing, and they have always been the first to step forward as constructive partners in federal land management,” Public Lands Council President Mark Roeber said in the press release. “This case is a prime example of what can happen when federal agencies view ranchers as enemies, rather than partners. I urge the U.S. Forest Service to rethink their plan to slap handcuffs on these hardworking ranchers and instead pursue an alternative resolution to this issue.”
“I am deeply disgusted by the Forest Service’s persecution of family ranchers Charles and Heather Maude,” said Mark Eisele, NCBA president, in the release. “The Maude family has been ranching in South Dakota for five generations and Charles and Heather have spent their lives protecting natural resources, investing in their land and raising their children. The U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Attorney’s Office have maliciously targeted and prosecuted these family ranchers, and it’s clear that if this can happen in South Dakota, government overreach can happen anywhere.”
“I am very concerned with USDA pursuing criminal charges through the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) when the landowners were cooperating with USDA in good faith to resolve this dispute involving less than 50 acres of land,” Rounds wrote. “The criminal indictment appears unnecessary and conflicts with USDA’s stated good neighbor practices with regard to land management partnerships.”
In 2020, the USDA expanded the use of the Small Tracts Act, which was enacted in the 2018 Farm Bill. These statutory changes created two new categories of land eligible for conveyance outside of the National Forest System: parcels 40 acres or less that are physically isolated, inaccessible or have lost National Forest System character, and parcels of ten acres or less that are not eligible for conveyance under previous eligibility conditions and are encroached on by permanent habitable improvement for which there is no evidence that the encroachment was intentional or negligent.
“This expansion was intended to provide greater flexibility to resolve issues like the Maudes experienced,” Rounds wrote. “The expansion was also meant to provide ways for USDA and landowners to work together to ‘sustain the vitality of the land’ and to ‘further the health, productivity and connectivity of the national forests and grasslands.’ The events the Maude family has encountered are inconsistent with this intent.”
Friends of the Maude family have opened an account at First Interstate Bank for those wishing to help with the family’s legal expenses.
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Publish date : 2024-08-08 13:28:00
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