Coach’s bail softened in teen sex cases, now $20,000
WINONA, Minn. – Bail was lowered significantly in a review of the charges against a Winona High School coach accused of preying sexually on athletes on the track team over a six-year period. Judge Nancy Buytendorp set bail at $20,000 – a dramatic drop from $300,000 ordered by a visiting judge last week. Birth’s attorney, Christine Ledebuhr, renewed her argument for lesser bail on grounds that Birth was not a flight risk. Ledebuhr noted that Birth knew he was being investigated for at least a month before he was arrested and didn’t.. Also, she said, Birth has family reasons not to flee — his spouse, a daughter and a child on the way. Birth poses no risk to the safety of the community, the attorney said. Judge Buytendorp’s reduction inbail came even after Birth was charged with criminal sexual conduct with a fourth student.
Lake Winona ice cometh, goeth
An odd February. After almost touching 60, cooler temperatures are forecast. But for now that’s why nobody is out ice-fishing on Lake Winona. Image: Steve Lunde
Rescue mission: At-risk dogs retrieved near LeRoy
LEROY, Minn. – Agents from the state headquarters of the American Humane Society rescued 15 dogs from a property in extreme southwest Fillmore County. The dogs were taken 130 miles to Society treatment facility and kennels in the Minneapolis suburb of Golden Valley. The rescue, about 10 a.m. was authorized through a Fillmore County search warrant Sheriff’s deputies were on stand-by duty.
Coach accused of sex with fourth teen athlete
WINONA, Minn. – A Winona High School assistant track coach, already accused of sexual misdeeds with three students, now has been charged with violating a fourth student. Police investigators said that on Wednesday they found a Snapchat conversation between the coach, Eric Birth, and a high school senior back in 2018. The student, now in her 20s, confirmed there had been a relationship. Investigators immediately began paperwork for a new criminal complaint. County prosecutor Karin Sonneman filed the complaint within 24 hours with Winona County District Court. In summary these are incidents alleged against Birth:
> 2016. A five-month affair with a high school junior on the track team.
> 2017. At two-month affair with a high school junior on the track team.
> 2018. An encounter with a high school senior who, although on the track team, was not assigned to Birth’s tutelage.
> 2022. An assault forced on a high school senior on the track team.
Everybody masked. Birth signing up phys-ed students in gym during the CoVid crisis. This photo from September 2021.
The woman in the latest criminal complaint told police investigators that she and Birth had intercourse when she was 17. He was 27 or 28at the time. This, she said, was at her home out in the county while her parents were at work. The woman also told investigator that she had been called into the high school principal’s office back then and asked about stories that Birth had “done stuff” with some girls. The woman, now her 20s, said she lied to the principal telling him that nothing had happened. She was scared, the woman told a police investigator.
Jailer to drunk driver: Weren’t you just here?
WINONA, Minn. – A Richfield man was arrested driving drunk half an hour after being released from jail on another drunk-driving charge from earlier in the night. Police said that Agripino Velazquez Jimenez, 40, had been released to a sober adult as per protocol. Half an hour later, just before 1 a.m. on Riverview Drive, Jimenez was stopped at the wheel again. The sober adult was riding along. Jimenez’ blood tested at 0.13% alcohol — more than 1-1/2 times the legally allowable max. Jail records document this sequence:
> 10:34 p.m.: Jimenez was brought to the Winona County jail by a State Patrol trooper who had stopped him for speeding and driving drunk.
> 12:28 a.m.: Jimenez was released to a sober party.
> 1:05 a.m.: Jimenez was brought back to jail by a sheriff’s deputy after a new drunken-driving stop, still with an elevated blood-alcohol reading.
R.I.P.: Darlene Michalowski
WINONA, Minn. – Darlene Joyce Michalowski, of Winona, cied at age 78. She grew up on the family farm in Wilson Township with eight siblings. She was a member of St. Martin’s Church in Winona.
Detail: Watkowski-Mulyck Funeral Home
1945-2024
McDonald’s rolls back prices amid consumer revolt
CHICAGO – Even for McDonald’s diehards, the $8 cheeseburger was too much, even there was a double patty. Also: What of $3 hash browns. It was no surprise that corporate earnings slowed in late 2023 as customers balked at the price creep. The company’s chief financial officer, Ian Bordsen, says the goal non is to woo back customers with lower rices. But why did prices zoom an average 10% in 2023? Inflation, Borden said, skirting whether there had been gouging at some locations. Resistance to climbing prices swelled when customers began posting photos of over-the-top receipts: Like$14.58 for two Egg McMuffins, which breaks down to $7.29 per sandwich, and a $17.59 of a Big Mac combo meal. There have been 2 million views and hundreds of sound-off comments.
Winona pricing
Courtesy Corporation of LaCrosse has 64 McDonald’s franchises in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Courtesy’s Winona menu:
Big Mac combo: $9.99
Egg McMuffin: $4.99
Hash browns: $2.99
College scores
Basketball (women): UW-Oshkosh 77, UW-LaCrosse 52
Hockey (men): St Olaf 3, Saint Mary’s 0
About Matt Ruge: “He perfected the art of kindness”
Remembering. Mourners, about 250 of them, including fellow police officers from many jurisdictions, gather with candles to share memories of Matt Ruge. This was under the Mississippi River bridge at Wabasha’s Heritage Park Ruge, 27, was felled by a gunman’s bullet in a drawn-out confrontation over the weekend in Burnsville. In all, three officers died.
Giant luminaria launched into night sky
WABASHA, Minn. – The theme in eulogies was that Matt Ruge was a kind and caring friend while growing up nearby Reads Landing and attending the Wabasha hug school. There many stories, mostly little but telling epsodes – like inviting a new friend to sleep over. Said retired school superintendent Jim Freihammer: “What made Matt remarkable was that he had perfected the art of niceness.” Another theme was that Ruge had wanted a life of service as a police officer even in high school. Ruge had been with the Burnsville police since 2020 and served on the crisis negotiations team. Wabasha Police Chief Joe Stark said: “Every day Matthew wore his uniform knowing the risks that lay ahead, yet he was unwavering in his commitment to protecting and serving others.”
Earlier: Vigil in Wabasha for slain Burnsville police officer
Freeing the spirit. Luminaria ever upward in vigil finale..
Second Arches encounter: Pit bull maimed this time
Police convergence. It was an unusually heavy police presence for an injured dog call, but police have been especially concerned about the house where the dog is kept. A series of recent drug incidents have been traced to the address. Images: Steve Lunde
Although hurt, dog revived and was led home
LEWISTON, Minn. — For the second day in a row, a young white pit bull-terrier mix was trotting merrily down the U.S. Highway 14 center line. This time he was hit. The impact stunned the guy unconscious. A passing motorist stopped and coaxed him back to life. Meanwhile, a Lewiston police officer arrived with lights and siren, then two sheriff’s vehicles, and then a state police cruiser – an unusual police convergence for a dog being hit – even though traffic control was needed on the busy Winona-Rochester corridor. More to the point, the dog had begun its jaunts down Highway 14 two days in a row from a house suspected as a drug flophouse. Amid the commotion on the highway, about 5 p.m., the dog’s master, a house-sitter, emerged from the 23121 address and led the dog, now recovered and standing, back to the house. The pit bull, still unleashed, was on his own power, albeit foaming a little blood from perhaps from an internal injury. The house-sitter went inside and locked the door. A motorist who was first to happen on the accident took he dog two miles to a veterinarian in Lewiston, said Winona County sheriff’s investigator Mark Dungy.
Earlier: Loose pit bull linked to “problem address” at Arches
Ambulatory. Moments after impact.
Auto rollover claims Elmore driver
LAKE MILLS, Iowa – A Minnesota driver, David Mason, 69, died when his vehicle went into a ditch and started rolling. The accident was near Lake Mills on Highway 69 and 440th Street about 5 p.m. Mason was 35 miles from his home in Elmore, on the Minnesota side of the state line. He was not wearing a seatbelt and was thrown out of the vehicle, Winnebago County deputies said. He died on the scene.
Illness forces Iowa school district to declare e-days
FOREST CITY, Iowa – After 10% absences two days in a row, Forest City families were told o keep kids home from school Thursday and Friday. There has been widespread influenza, strep and stomach flu. Students were told to go online for e-learning packets and not to return until Monday. The School District has 1,150 students in three schools 15 miles south of the Minnesota border.
Vigil in Wabasha for slain Burnsville police officer
Time: 7:30 p.m. under the Michael Duane Clickner Memorial Bridge over the Mississippi River. The bridge bears he name of a Wabasha soldier who died in combat in the Vietnam war.
Native son. A candlelight vigil has been planned Wednesday evening for Matthew Ruge, who was shot fatally in the line of duty Sunday in the Minneapolis suburb of Burnsville. Ruge was a 2015 Wabasha-Kellogg High School graduate.
Driver admits hitting deer, not an Amish buggy
SPRING VALLEY, Minn. – A motorist suspected of hitting an Amish buggy carrying nine people says she thought she hit a deer. No one died in the Friday night crash, although two children in the horse-drawn buggy were hurt. The motorist didn’t stop. Unaware of the accident, a Preston County sheriff’s deputy happened to stop a vehicle with front-end damage a few minutes later. The driver said she had hit a deer. She was allowed to continue home. Shortly thereafter the deputy learned of the buggy wreck and realized that the woman in in the vehicle he had stopped may have been the hit-and-run driver. Her vehicle was white. Pieces of white wreckage were at the scene. The driver was traced through database automobile records to a Spring Valley address. There the woman again denied running into the buggy. Her car, however, had substantial front-end damage with a passenger side headlight out, deputies said. And it was a white vehicle. The vehicle was impounded for further examination. Pending more evidence, the cunty prosecutor, Brett Corson, has delayed a decision on criminal charges.
Judge to MyPillow pitchman: Pay the $5 million
MINNEAPOLIS – Financial doom appears to loom over MyPillow inventor Mike Lindell for a reckless offer of $5 million for anyone who could disprove his logic that China interfered with the 2020 election. A new decision by Federal Judge John Tunheim went against Lindell. The judge ordered him to make good on the $5 million offer. He gave Lindell 30 days to pay the Nevada software engineer who debunked the China theory — plus 2-1/2 years interest. “Of course we’re going to appeal it,” Lindell said. “This guy doesn’t have a dime coming.” Although $5 million once would have been a drop the bucket of Lindell’s self-made fortune, he’s now financially beleaguered with problems related to his devoted support of the now also financially beleaguered ex-President Trump.
A debt or not?
In 2021 Lindell launched a wobbly right-wing television network out of Mitchell, South Dakota. In what first seemed to be an ill-considered on-air moment of bravado, Lindell offered $5 million to anybody who could disprove his logic that China had interfered with the 2020 election. He called it the “Prove Mike Wrong Challenge.” He then hammered away at the offer. In Nevada a computer whiz, Robert Zeidman, examined Lindell’s supporting data and found it irrelevant. Zeidman asked for the $5 million prize. “Over my dead body,” Lindell replied. The two agreed to arbitration. The arbitration panel found for Zeidman. Lindell appealed. Now Judge Tunheim has refused to intervene. Courts have only limited authority to overrule arbitration awards, he said.
Lindell’s fiscal health
Whether Lindell can afford to pay Zeidman is unclear. Zeidman’s beach-of-contract suit was filed not against Lindell personally but against a hybrid legal shield entity, Lindell Management LLC. But are any Lindell properties still solvent? Although once a self-made millionaire, Lindell has taken financial hits for being on the Trump bandwagon of claims of election fraud:
> Dominion Voting Systems has sued for $1.3 million for defamatory assertions that it manipulated voting machines.
> Smartmatic, another voting machine company, has sued Lindell and others on similar grounds for $2.7 billion.
> Fox News, which carried advertising for MyPillow for years, has cut him off for hundreds of thousands of dollars in overdue bills.
> All major MyPillow retail outlets, including Kohl’s and Wayfair, have discontinued the product as politically toxic.
> His MyPillow factory, which once employed 1,700. people in Chaska, is running now on a relatively skeletal staff.
> Lindell has unloaded his corporate jet and scaled down a high-flying lifestyle.
> His legal bills, in the millions have gone unpaid.
> He has left his super-upscale Minnesota home to live elsewhere, a necessity, he said, for security reasons. His now digs, however are relatively modest.
Lindell. Although his legal problems stem from zealously backing Trump, the former president ungratefully has left Lindell out to dry financially.
Zeidman. Las Vegas-based software engineer who debunked a claim central to Lindell’s theory that the 2020 election was rigged,
MyPillow collapse
Lindell became a self-made millionaire with incessant claims on late-night television for a miracle product, MyPillow. He guaranteed a deep and restful sleep. When Trump ran for president, Lindell threw his MyPilow recognition into the campaign and even contemplated running for governor of Minnesota himself. When Trump lost the 2020 election, Lindell became one of the most vocal claimants that it all had been rigged. Some claims were whacky on their face, and some were financially damaging. The lawsuits generated millions of dollars in legal bills and still are.
Emergency, fire crews make 53 calls
WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 40 emergency medical calls plus 13 fire calls in recent days:
> Tuesday, February 20: 8 medical calls plus 2 fire call.
> Monday, February 19: 7 medical calls plus 1 fire calls.
> Sunday, February 18: 8 medical calls plus 2 fire call.>
>Saturday, February17: 6 medical calls plus 2 fire call.
> Friday, J February 16: 7 medical calls plus no fire calls.
> Thursday, February 15: 2 medical calls plus 5 fire call.
> Wednesday, February 14: 2 medical calls plus 1 fire call.
Earlier: Emergency, fire crews 51 calls
News summary at mid-week: February 20, 2024
TOURISM: Cruise line drops corporate anchor for last time
ENVIRONMENT: Mississippi flood outlook: So far, so good
ENVIRONMENT: State regulators slow Daley dairy expansion plan
CRIME: Police chronicles: The Eric Birth probe
CRIME: Loose ends still in car-buggy collision
CRIME: Three Burnsville officers killed in stand-off
REMEMBRANCE: Mary Anne Zimmerman
ARTS: Final curtain call for Old Log Theater
COMMERCE: Rogan shoe chain sold; name being retained
Cruise line drops corporate anchor for last time
FORT LAUDEARDALE, Fla. – The cruise ship company American Queen Voyages, whose river boats made three Winona landings last season, has cancelled 2024 voyages and apparently is putting its fleet up for sale. “All future cruises have been cancelled.” the company announced. Why? “An inability to obtain sufficient capital at a commercially reasonable rate to continue operations,” the announcement said. American Queen Voyages is not to be confused with the larger cruise operator American Cruise Lines. Of 31 cruises with Winona as a port of call in 2023, only three were by American Queen Voyages vessels:
> American Queen. 417 passengers. Last Winona dockings: August 8 and October 3.
> American Countess. 245 passengers. Last Winona docking: September 6.
American Queen Voyages vessels plied not only the Upper Mississippi but also the Lower Mississippi and the Cumberland, Illinois, Ohio and Tennessee tributaries and the Columbia and Snake rivers in the Northwest.
Farewell to a queen? Built in 1995, the American Queen paddle-wheeler reigned as the world’s largest river steamboat. Its financial history has been rocky. Does the Queen have a future under another new owner?
American Queen Voyages profile
American Queen Voyages is one of three units of the Hornblower Group, a private equity company. The origins of Hornblower were the Boston Harbor Cruises in 1926. Besides American Queen Voyages, Hornblower units operate cruises to Alaska, the Canadian the Inside Passage the Mexican Riviera and Costa Rica. American Queen Voyages had its origins in 2015 when HMS Global Maritime founder John Waggoner bought the 222-stateroom riverboat American Queen for $15 million from the U.S. Maritime Administration, which had acquitted the vessel in a $30 million foreclosure. Waggoner’s company grew and eventually ended up in the Hornblower portfolio.
State regulators slow Daley dairy expansion plan
LEWISTON, Minn. – The Daley dairy farm, already the largest in Winona County, has run into a glitch with its application to state environmental regulators to double its herd. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency told the Daleys that an error had been discovered in the agency’s application form for a permit. Not until the error is fixed can the Daley application be considered – and even then the Daleys will need to refile from scratch. Uncertain is whether all this relates to new federal pressure on the MCPA and other state agencies to clean up oersistent groundwater contamination in southeast Minnesota. The U.S. Environmental Agency has clamped down on many years of lax state regulation.
Earlier: Whack-a-mole: Daleys again file to expand herd
Earlier: Feds get serious, order Minnesota to fix tainted water
College scores
Baseball: Missouri Science 9, Winona State 0
Baseball: Missouri Science 12, Winona State 5
Basketball (men): UW-Stout 93, UW-LaCrosse 91
Minnesota prep
Basketball (boys): Rushford-Peterson Trojans 66, Winona Cotter Ramblers 54
Basketball (boys): Lewiston-Altura Cardinals 66, Chatfileld Gophers 44
Basketball (boys): Plainview-Elgin-Millville Bulldogs 81, St. Charles Saints 68
Basketball (girls): Winona Winhawks 63, Red Wing Wingers 36
Wisconsin prep
Basketball (girls): Adams-Friendship Green Devils 55, Galesville-Ettrick-Trempealeau Red Hawks 39
Basketball (girls): Independence Indees 41, Eleva-Strum Cardinals 36
Winona tuba meister in state orchestra
Back from Orchestra Hall. Josh Sheridan, a senior at Winona High School, performed in the all-state orchestra at the Minnesota Music Educators Association mid-winter conference. Sheridan won an audition 11 months ago and participated in a week-long August camp with fellow orchestra members.
Fire levels garage out of Dakota
DAKOTA, Minn. – A detached garage was lost in a fire on Pier Ridge Road in extreme southeast Winona County. No one was injured. The fire was in the 31000 block. The fire was believed due to an electrical problem.
Where is $500 check? Missing from mailbox
WINONA Minn. – Police were asked to investigate a $500 missing check. A resident in the 1050 block of Gilmore Avenue saidtyat someone who owed him the money had left the check in the mailbox at the house. but it was gone.
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