Lakota farmer convicted of terrorizing [Grand Forks Herald] (2024)

Nov. 08--A jury Thursday night convicted Lakota, N.D., farmer Rodney Brossart of terrorizing the two law enforcement officers who arrested him in 2011 by threatening them.

But the jury of eight women and four men found him not guilty of the theft of his neighbor's six cattle, which wandered on his land and started the unusual case.

The verdict was a victory for the prosecution insofar as the main argument during the trial was whether Brossart or Nelson County Sheriff's Sgt. Eric Braathen was to blame for what became a violent arrest with the deputy using a Taser on the farmer several times.

Braathen said Brossart failed to comply with his commands to "Get down on the ground."

The deputy was assisted by state livestock detective Fred Frederikson in handcuffing Brossart.

Brossart at one point passed out and Braathen called for an ambulance; after a physician checked him in Devils Lake, he was booked into jail.

The verdict also could be seen as a victory for Brossart's neighbors, who have said they are tired of years of confrontation and fear of violence from Brossart and his sons.

Neighbors and other Nelson County citizens publicly rallied last year protesting an earlier plea deal reducing all charges to misdemeanors, saying they wanted a felony conviction so Brossart no longer could possess firearms.

Controversy linked to Brossart's unpopularity among his peers led to the Nelson County state's attorney to abruptly resign early this year and the county appointed Cameron Sillers of Langdon as a special prosecutor for the case.

Sentencing

Brossart now faces up to five years in prison, the maximum prison sentence for his felony terrorizing charge.

Brossart also was found guilty of two misdemeanor charges: of preventing his own arrest June 23, 2011, which carries a top penalty of a year in jail; and of failing to obey the state's law on handling stray livestock, a lesser charge.

State District Judge Joel Medd, who retired Sept. 1, but pledged to see this case through, set Brossart's sentencing for Jan. 14.

The judge offered Brossart the option to be sentenced in his home Nelson County, but Brossart chose to have his sentencing hearing in Grand Forks.

Medd moved Nelson County trial's venue to Grand Forks in August 2012 because Brossart's attorney, Bruce Quick argued the farmer could not get a fair trial in his home town of Lakota.

Drone use

The arrest of Brossart, then his three sons and daughter the next day in 2011, was followed by a five-month standoff as the large and tight-knit Brossart family refused to allow deputies on their farmstead and to show up for court hearings. The case attracted international attention because of the use of a military-style drone the day after Brossart's initial arrest.

Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke took the proffer of U.S. Border Patrol agents to view live video of Brossart's sons on June 24, 2011, to determine they weren't armed before he moved to arrest them.

Despite many inaccurate reports about the incident, Janke did not call for the Predator's surveillance, but Border Patrol agents, as they are wont to do in this region, were monitoring local police radio and volunteered the help.

Experts said it was the first, or one of the first, uses of such a high-altitude drone in the arrest of a U.S. citizen on American soil.

Brossart's attorney, Bruce Quick, told the Herald in early 2012 he probably would make the drone's use an issue in what became his main theme: that Brossart was a victim of overly aggressive law enforcement.

Judge Medd rendered the drone issue moot when he ruled in August 2012 the Predator's video surveillance had no relevance for Brossart's trial.

Sillers, the prosecutor, declined comment after the verdict.

But earlier Thursday in his closing, he said: "The state's position is that what happened here is the result of choices that Rodney Brossart made. It was Brossart's refusal to comply with the commands of Sgt. Braathen that led to the chaotic and violent arrest."

He refused to return his neighbor's cattle and he threatened the law enforcement officers that if they went on his land "you're gonna not come back," Sillers said.

"That's not being an individual," Sillers told the jury. "That's being a lawbreaker."

The prosecutor reminded the jury that, when Brossart's neighbor, Chris Anderson, asked Brossart early on June 23, 2011, about Anderson's six stray cattle penned up on Brossart's land, Brossart told him, "You can buy them back."

Anderson drove home and called the sheriff.

Brossart's sons, Thomas and Jacob, witnessed that exchange between their father and Anderson and testified differently, that Brossart only told Anderson to talk to his insurance agent to settle any damages, Sillers said.

"You can decide who you believe," Sillers said.

By Anderson's account, Brossart was taking his neighbor's cattle, fitting the state's definition of theft, Sillers said.

"Rodney was not going to give up those animals until he got paid what they were worth," Sillers said. "That happened before Braathen was even there."

Deputy blamed

In his closing, defense attorney Quick hammered the theme that it was poor law enforcement by Sgt. Braathen, not Brossart, to blame for what happened, as Braathen sat only a few feet from the jury.

Using a transcript, Quick gave a dramatic reading from about seven minutes of Braathen's audio recording -- from his duty belt microphone -- of his arrest of Brossart June 23, 2011, with shouts from the deputy and screams from Brossart as he's hit with the stun gun several times.

Quick said that "within a minute, 7 seconds" of meeting Brossart in his field, Braathen was using a stun gun on him.

"Braathen is the one who made the choices to escalate the situation," Quick said.

The confrontational arrest of Brossart by Braathen, including from five to 10 shots from a Taser, was over a minor misdemeanor of violating the state's "archaic" estray law over how to handle a neighbor's wandering livestock that should have been handled with a simple citation, Quick said.

Instead, it led to a violent struggle that left Brossart "wet and muddy from head to toe," handcuffed in a squad car, in fear of his life from chest pains and slipping into unconsciousness before an ambulance arrived, Quick said.

Quick spent most of his 65-minute closing argument aiming at Sgt. Braathen, saying the same deficiencies that got him "fired" after only five months on the Devils Lake Police Department in 2003 were still obvious during his physical arrest of Brossart in 2006 and the one with "multiple Taser shots," in June 2011.

The Nobel-prize-winning U.S. economist said "Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned and that's what this case is about," Quick told the jury. According to Braathen, it appears Brossart's real crime was "contempt of cop," Quick said.

"Was Rodney Brossart's behavior perfect," Quick asked the jury. "No. He could have been more neighborly."

But in America, Quick said, "it's not a crime to be different, or even to be unneighborly at times."

Quick told the jury Brossart ran a family operation of about 3,600 acres of crops and 30 head of cows.

"This is a large farm. Rodney Brossart is not some cattle thief. He's a business man, in his late 50s," Quick said.

Aftermath

Brossart, with two of his sons, left the court room Thursday night, appearing in a subdued mood, to huddle with his attorney in a conference room.

His wife Susan, and seven of their children, all who live on the farmstead about 10 miles southeast of Lakota, attended the trial Thursday.

Three of the children, Jacob, 23, Thomas Brossart, 26, and Alex Brossart, 28, each face a charge of terrorizing for allegedly brandishing guns as deputies tried to enter their farmstead later on the day their father was arrested. Their trials have not been scheduled.

Anderson, the neighbor with the wandering cattle, was in court to hear the verdict but said he did not want to comment. He still owns the three cows but their calves from 2011 are long gone.

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Call Lee at (701) 780-1237; (800) 477-6572, ext. 1237; or send email to [emailprotected].

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