When the stepmother of Democratic state Sen. Nicole Mitchell called police at 4:45 a.m. Monday, she said someone broke into her house and “ran downstairs into my basement,” according to the 911 transcript obtained by the Star Tribune on Thursday.
Police asked her if she got a look at the person, to which she responded: “I tripped over ‘em. Ah, he was on the floor next to my bed. He ran downstairs into my basement.”
When they arrived, officers found Mitchell, a first-term senator from Woodbury, in the basement of her stepmother’s Detroit Lakes house. Mitchell was dressed in black and admitted to entering her stepmother’s house through a sliding basement window, according to the criminal complaint. Police said they found a flashlight covered with a black sock — dimming its brightness — near Mitchell, and a backpack wedged in the open basement window. That backpack contained several items, including a laptop that the criminal complaint suggests belonged to Mitchell’s stepmother.
Mitchell was arrested and charged with felony first-degree burglary. She allegedly told police, “I know I did something bad,” but that she entered the home to take some of her late father’s belongings, including his ashes.
The charging document further states that as Mitchell was being detained, she told her stepmother “something to the effect of, ‘I was just trying to get a couple of my dad’s things because you wouldn’t talk to me anymore.’” Her father died last year, and his estate was left entirely to his wife, according to court documents.
The burglary charge against Mitchell has cast uncertainty over the final month of Minnesota’s legislative session. Democrats hold the state Senate by a one-seat margin and can’t pass a long list of bills without Mitchell’s vote. Mitchell said through her attorney Thursday that she doesn’t intend to resign from the Senate.
Senate Republicans filed an ethics complaint against Mitchell on Wednesday and demanded an immediate investigation. Democrats rejected a motion to expedite the investigation and said the matter will be reviewed within 30 days. The Legislature is required to adjourn by May 20, meaning the Senate’s ethics subcommittee could take up the complaint after lawmakers have left St. Paul.
Mitchell shared a version of events to Facebook on Tuesday afternoon that seemed to contradict some of the statements she allegedly made to law enforcement. The senator denied stealing, and said she drove from Woodbury to Detroit Lakes in the middle of the night to conduct a welfare check on a family member who has declined “due to Alzheimer’s and associated paranoia.”
