Star Tribune
Duluth man pleads guilty to criminal sexual conduct with girls
DULUTH – With freshly selected jurors waiting nearby for the start of an expected days-long trial, a Duluth man facing criminal sexual conduct charges took a last-minute plea deal instead of facing the women he abused when they were children.
Clint Franklin Massie, 49, pleaded guilty Wednesday morning at the St. Louis County Courthouse to the four counts from incidents dating back to 2008-09 when two of his victims were young girls. The deal dismissed one of the counts against him. His sentencing is scheduled for March 20, and he could end up with more than nine years in prison. Massie, who was initially charged in February 2023 and has been out on $300,000 bail, was released until his sentencing.
In each case, the victim was known to Massie — whether they were related or through their shared membership at Old Apostolic Lutheran Church. He was friends with their parents and regarded as a fun, child-free uncle, according to reports from the investigation.
Assistant St. Louis County Attorney Michael Ryan told the court that the victims were satisfied with the deal.
“They have been involved in talking this through,” he said to Judge Dale Harris.
After Massie pleaded guilty, would-be witnesses and their supporters filed into the courtroom filling rows. Massie, dressed in a dark suit coat and khaki pants, turned to look. Ryan questioned him on the victims’ accusations — four specific scenarios where he had touched girls: during a sleepover at his house, when alone on a tractor, or beneath a blanket while others were in the room.
Massie said in court there were a lot of big gatherings and shared meals within this the group. It wasn’t unusual for one of the many children to sit on his lap.
At times Massie paused and said he couldn’t remember exact details or motives. At other times he deferred to what he told investigating officers last year. In each instance he ultimately agreed with the scenario presented by the prosecution.
The show includes not only photographs, paintings and sculptures but also installations, record albums and musical equipment. In fact, the exhibit has such a natural rhythmic flow, with themes being mixed and remixed, that it sometimes resonates like its own musical composition.
An installation on lost childhood innocence by Chicago-based Jamaican artist Ebony Patterson gives way to a room-sized, 33-panel work by Botswana-born painter and Yale professor Meleko Mokgosi.
A sculptural Soundsuit by fiber artist Nick Cave is in conversation with regal, intricate charcoal-and-pencil paintings by Nigerian artist Toyin Ojih Odutola, whose jewel-eyed details bring out a sublime grace in her subjects.
“The way that [these pieces] play together is like a song, like a journey, and it’s very beautiful,” Keys said, adding that the exhibit creates “a space to feel your power, your ancestry, your growth, your future, your present. And no matter who you are, what walk of life you’ve come from, you feel it.”
Audiences in New York and Atlanta have quickened to the work.
One person died and another was seriously wounded in a shooting Saturday afternoon in a Brooklyn Park parking lot.
Brooklyn Park police officers responded to a shooting around 2 p.m. Saturday in a strip mall parking lot near the busy intersection of Brooklyn Blvd. and Bottineau Blvd., not far from a Target and a Menards.
Officers found two victims and began to aid them before both were taken to a hospital, according to a police spokesman.
One of the victims was later pronounced dead. The other was seriously wounded. Identities for the victims werenot available Saturday night.
A body found in the Cannon River on Saturday afternoon is believed to be that of a 60-year-old man missing since Monday, Cannon Falls police said.
Christopher Dobson had been missing since Monday night, when a missing person report was filed after he didn’t return home after taking his dog for a walk. Police officers followed footprints in the woods toward the river before requesting assistance, because it was getting cold and dark, from local fire departments, Goodhue and Dakota county sheriff’s offices and the State Patrol, which sent in a helicopter.
The search continued for much of the week with aerial and amphibious drones as well as rescue personnel on the ground.
When the body was found in the river Saturday afternoon, the missing person search was suspended pending positive identification of the body by the medical examiner’s office.
