RED WING, Minn. – A Red Wing School Board member, Rachel Marie Marshall Schoenfelder, was sentenced to one year of probation and 24 hours of community service work for shoplifting from the local Target department store. Also she was ordered to pay $504.76 to Target for restitution. Schoenfelder is 49 years old. The incident, not her first, was in July. The School Board censured her and voted 5-2 to ask her to resign. She did. Her Board duties included being treasurer. Those duties were transferred to another Board member.
The take-down
The criminal complaint offered these details: Surveillance videos caught Schoenfelder putting a 10-pack of Diet Coke into a cart. She then placed other items, worth $158.72, into a reusable Target bag. These items included three books, one pair of shoes, games, chocolate chips and a bar of white chocolate. At a self-checkout aisle she paid for items in her cart but not items in the reusable bag. An asset protection investigator called police about “a known shoplifter” in the store. Schoenfelder was being held in a backroom when police arrived. She admitted to the shoplifting and that this wasn’t the first time. Why did she do it? “Things were becoming more expensive,” she said. Target confronted her about seven other shoplifting incidents in the previous five months. The stolen merchandise, Target said, totaled $504.76. She was served a trespass notice not come back.
Schoenfelder. On School Board since 2023. A pediatric physician assistant with the Mayo Clinic outpost in Red Wing. Active in conservative political circles. A Trump supporter.