Star Tribune
Nearly 7 years in prison for Twin Cities man accused of stockpiling for armed police conflict
A young Twin Cities man will spend nearly 7 years in federal prison after being caught trying to buy machine gun conversion devices from an FBI informant in a probe that also recorded him celebrating mass shootings and considering armed conflicts with police.
Senior U.S. District Judge David Doty on Tuesday sentenced River William Smith, 21, of Savage, to 80 months after intense scrutiny of Smith’s recorded statements to informants throughout the investigation and suggestions of helping Russians kill Americans in Ukraine once he’s released from prison. But Doty declined the government’s request for a maximum 10-year sentence and did not side with prosecutors’ arguments that Smith’s actions amounted to terroristic conduct.
Smith, who was arrested in December 2022, pled guilty last year to buying the gun parts from an undercover FBI informant in an investigation that started when two people reported concerns about Smith’s behavior at a south metro firing range that year. Smith was arrested peacefully while wearing soft armor and possessing a loaded Glock handgun. Agents recovered from his vehicle an assault-style rifle and nearly 1,000 rounds of ammunition. Prosecutors and federal agents have raised alarms about statements from Smith supporting Nazi paramilitary groups and mass killings of law enforcement, the LGBTQ community and Muslims. He often spoke of waging a deadly gun battle with law enforcement and dubbed as a “hero” the perpetrator of a deadly attack on a Colorado LGBTQ night club, according to court records.
“When a defendant tells us how dangerous he is we should listen,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Winter told Doty on Tuesday. “When he tells us he is full of rage, full of hate, enjoys watching people get shot, we should take notice.”
Winter had argued that Smith presented “a unique danger to the public” and asked for far more prison time than the 18 months sought by Smith’s attorney, Jordan Kushner. Smith’s attempt to buy machine gun conversion devices and what he thought were three live hand grenades were part of “extraordinary measures to train and equip himself for a violent confrontation with police,” he said.
Kushner instead argued that this was a “run-of-the-mill firearms case” involving a firearm and videogames enthusiast who hadn’t harmed anyone in his life.
“There isn’t any evidence the FBI caught a mass shooter,” Kushner said. “Frankly, it’s a fantasy on their part.”
Smith was previously arrested at 17 in 2019 after discharging an assault-style rifle inside the Savage home he shared with his grandparents. His grandmother injured her hand on a damaged doorknob afterward. Kushner has said that Smith fired the weapon while intoxicated and paranoid that people who had robbed him previously were returning to the home.
Prosecutors also cited recorded jail calls between August 2023 and October 2023 as evidence that Smith still poses a danger. During one call, he told his mother that if he had to serve 10 years in prison, “they have my word that I won’t leave this country. It’ll be settled right here.”
FBI Special Agent Erinn Tobin, the lead case agent investigating Smith, testified last week that she reviewed 300 of some 4,900 calls made from jail since his Dec. 2022 arrest. During one call back home to family, Tobin testified, Smith “said he just wanted sentencing to be over so he could ‘focus on the warpath.'”
On Tuesday, Winter again returned to recorded jail calls between Smith and his family that included vows to “never accept guilt” and lie when he entered his guilty plea. He told his grandmother last year that he planned to leave the country, join the Russian army and kill Americans in Ukraine.
“Does that sound like somebody who has sincere remorse?” Winter asked Tuesday.
Winter said that Smith posed an “imminent risk” of using the machine gun conversion devices purchased from the informant against law enforcement or members of the public.
Smith has been held at Sherburne County Jail since his arrest and appeared in court Tuesday wearing an orange sweatsuit. His mother, sister, aunt and uncle attended to support him.
In a subsequent court filing this week, Smith countered several points made during testimony last week from Tobin, who led the investigation. He argued that the informant expressed racist and extremist views, and that his own extremist remarks were made to curry favor.
“I was desperate for a friend, and wanted to impress him,” he said. “I regret and am embarrassed by many of my statements to the FBI informants, but they were mostly untrue.”
He said said many of his statements cited during the case were not rational but also not serious.
“I do not deny having anger at the government, but my venting allows me to express my feelings and not end up feeling a need to carry out any acts of violence.”
Doty added three years of supervised release to Smith’s sentence, the maximum. Smith will be barred from possessing firearms, ammunition, destructive devices or other weapons. The judge also imposed a series of post-release conditions that included prohibitions – without authorization from probation officials – against viewing extremist materials, using texting applications and being in touch with anyone affiliated with neo-Nazi paramilitary groups.
Kushner said after Tuesday’s hearing that he planned to appeal Smith’s sentence.
Speaking to Doty on Tuesday before being sentenced, Smith apologized for what he called a “mistake a I made when I wasn’t even old enough to buy alcohol.”
Smith said he wasn’t a criminal before being caught buying the conversion devices and “I don’t intend to be one when it’s over.”
Star Tribune
Long Prairie, MN school board dismisses its superintendent, the latest controversy in this small town
LONG PRAIRIE, MINN. — The school district superintendent dressed up as the school mascot, Thor, on football nights. He read the graduation address in both English and Spanish. He even set up office hours in the cafeteria, granting easier approachability to students.
But now, two months into the school year, Daniel Ludvigson is gone. Or, rather, “on special assignment,” according to the terminology of the Long Prairie-Grey Eagle School Board, which voted 4-3 earlier this month to remove him as superintendent. The move came weeks after voting to not renew his contract, which expires at the end of the school year in June.
Four board members — two of whom voted to oust Ludvigson, including Board Chair Kelly Lemke — are up for re-election next week.
The dismissal is the latest blow in this central Minnesota community on the edge of the prairie. Over the last nine months, the town of 3,400 residents and seat of Todd County has lost its mayor, a city manager, two school board members, and now its superintendent.
Students walked out earlier this month in support of Ludvigson. Signs in support of Ludvigson can be seen across town on the lawns of apparent Democrats and Republicans alike. And last week, hundreds packed the American Legion off Hwy. 71 to eat beef sandwiches and sign support letters for Ludvigson, who only swung by to pick up his child for hockey practice.
In a time of great divide in America, this fight has nothing to do with politics.
“You’ve got Harris buttons and Trump hats side-by-side, arm-in-arm,” said Amanda Hinson, a former local newspaper reporter who is concerned the board is not being upfront about why they placed Ludvigson on special assignment. “We want transparency in our government.”
Lawn signs around Long Prairie, Minn., now include people weighing in on the dismissal of Superintendent Daniel Ludvigson by the school board. (Christopher Vondracek)
School board members say Ludvigson has repeatedly shown he is not ready for the prime time of a school district bigger than the one in central North Dakota he arrived from two years ago. They have twice disciplined Ludvigson, but did not state the reason for placing him on “special assignment,” beyond insinuating that staff are fearful to raise official complaints.
Rain and potentially heavy snow are on tap Thursday around the Twin Cities, just before families set out for Halloween trick-or-treating.
Temperatures were expected to drop throughout the day, creating conditions for flurries. A winter weather advisory is in effect from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. covering the Twin Cities metro area and parts of south-central Minnesota. Steady rain drenched the Twin Cities on Thursday, making for a soggy morning commute.
“As colder air begins to move in this morning, the rain will transition to heavy snow from west to east with snowfall rates of an inch per hour at times into early afternoon,” the National Weather Service in Chanhassen said in a weather advisory.
The Twin Cities and surrounding areas could get between 2 and 4 inches of snow, according to the weather service. The winter weather advisory is expected to affect Anoka, Chisago, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, Washington and Le Sueur counties.
It’s unclear how much of the snow will actually stick, with warm surface temperatures likely leading to melting on contact in many areas.
“Exact totals will depend on snowfall rate, surface temperatures, and melting — which increases uncertainty with the snow forecast,” the weather service said in an early Thursday briefing.
“Thundersnow possible!” the weather service emphasized.
The good news for Halloween revelers is that the snow and rain are expected to wrap up in time for trick-or-treating, though temperatures will remain in the 30s with a sharp windchill.
An off-duty Washington County sheriff’s deputy caused a head-on crash while under the influence of alcohol and injured a couple in the other vehicle, officials said.
The crash occurred about 10:40 a.m. Sunday in Afton on Hwy. 95 at Scenic Lane, the Minnesota State Patrol said.
Campbell Johnston Blair, 58, of Hastings, was heading north in his Subaru Crosstrek, crossed into the opposite lane and collided with a southbound Ford Expedition, the patrol said.
Blair and the other vehicle’s occupants, 38-year-old Erik Robert Sward and 36-year-old Heather Lynn Sward, both of Lake Elmo, were taken to Regions Hospital with non-critical injuries, according to the patrol.
The patrol noted the alcohol use by Blair was involved in the crash.
Blair, who was driving a private vehicle at the time of the crash while off-duty, has been a deputy with the Sheriff’s Office since 2020 and is currently assigned to our Court Security Unit.
The Sheriff’s Office has been asked for reaction to the crash involving one of its deputies.