Minnesota former state senator sentenced to 6 months for breaking into estranged stepmother's house

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DETROIT LAKES, Minn. (AP) — A former Minnesota state senator who was convicted of burglary for breaking into her estranged stepmother’s house was sentenced Tuesday to six months in jail but will be allowed to serve her time on work release.

Democrat Nicole Mitchell, 51, of Woodbury, faced a minimum sentence of six months on the felony burglary count because her stepmother was at home in the northwestern Minnesota city of Detroit Lakes when she broke in last year.

“I don't think there is anything I can say or do that will ever be big enough to repair the harm that I've done,” Mitchell told the court.

Becker County District Judge Michael Fritz agreed to let Mitchell serve her 180-day sentence on work release in Ramsey County, where she lives. Her attorneys said the former broadcast and military meteorologist recently got a job working at a fast-food restaurant.

The judge ordered Mitchell to report for her sentence by Oct. 8. Minnesota defendants typically serve two-thirds of their sentence in custody and one-third on supervised release, so she could be free in four months. The judge stayed a 21-month prison sentence on the condition that she abides by the terms of her probation.

The prosecutor, Becker County Attorney Brian McDonald objected to what he called :preferential treatment” by letting her serve her sentence outside Becker County. He also criticized her for a lack of accountability and refusing to resign.

Mitchell didn't resign her Senate seat until July 25, one week after a jury convicted her of first-degree burglary and possession of burglary tools.

The first-term senator was dressed all in black and had a flashlight covered with a black sock when she was arrested in the basement of her stepmother Carol Mitchell's home in the early hours of April 22, 2024. Body camera video showed her telling police, “Clearly, I’m not good at this,” and “I know I did something bad.”

The video, which was played for the jury, also showed her telling police that she went there because her stepmother refused to give her mementos like her late father’s ashes and other belongings. Mitchell’s father and stepmother had been married for 40 years.

But she tried to walk back that statement on the witness stand in July. She claimed to the jury that she had not really intended to take anything — that she just wanted to check on the well-being of her stepmother, who has Alzheimer’s disease.

“My life will never be the same,” Carol Mitchell said in a victim impact statement the prosecutor read to the court Tuesday. “Fear has moved in with me to stay. How could I ever trust Nicole again?”

The defense plans to appeal.

Mitchell represented a Democratic-leaning suburban district in a closely divided Senate, where she often cast the deciding vote, to the consternation of the narrow Republican minority.

Gov. Tim Walz has called special elections for Nov. 4 to fill Mitchell's seat, and the seat of GOP Sen. Bruce Anderson, of Buffalo, who died in July. Anderson's district is heavily Republican. Absent an upset in either contest, Senate Democrats are expected to maintain a 64-63 majority.