Onamia man gets 24 years in federal prison after assaulting girlfriend with unserialized gun

A federal judge this week imposed a 24-year prison sentence on a northern Minnesota man convicted of illegally possessing a firearm during a domestic assault, after pleas from prosecutors to send a message that Native American victims would be taken seriously.

Justin Lyle Cutbank, 37, was arrested in November 2020 after reports that he assaulted his girlfriend with a short-barreled rifle with her two children present before fleeing into the woods.

Leech Lake Tribal Police arrested Cutbank after hours of negotiations while he was barricaded in a neighbor’s garage. Cutbank bit an officer in the face and neck, and grabbed the grip of an officer’s rifle before he was subdued and taken into custody.

Police searching the wooded area where Cutbank fled found a Marlin Model 100 .22 caliber rifle with no serial number, a knife and a cellphone belonging to his girlfriend. Smith has at least five felony convictions dating back to 2006 – including multiple assault convictions, burglary and robbery – all of which bar him from possessing a firearm. Law enforcement used DNA evidence to trace the firearm to Cutbank.

Mark Nyvold, Cutbank’s attorney, declined to comment on his client’s sentencing, delivered Tuesday by Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Davis.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bradley Endicott called for a 30-year sentence, citing violence against American Indian women as a “pervasive legal problem and human rights abuse.”

Cutbank was convicted by a federal jury in a March 2023 trial in which one witness told jurors that “Where we come from, we don’t call the police.”

“American Indian women, like other vulnerable populations, face unique challenges that contribute to their susceptibility to violence. Violence against Native American women is often underreported due to a variety of factors, including distrust of the legal system,” Endicott wrote in a memo making his case for Cutbank’s sentence. “Implementing a strong sentence will assure survivors that their cases will be taken seriously.”