- Joined
- Jul 18, 2017
PARTIES
Plaintiff: Matthew Hardin
Matthew Hardin is a Virginia licensed Attorney with license to practice in numerous other states, including Minnesota. Matthew Hardin is the former elected Commonwealths Attorney (Chief Prosecutor) for Greene County, Virginia where he served in that position for 2 years before returning to private practice. Per his website - He specializes in political law and freedom of information act lawsuits and violations. Which have included lawsuits against the US States of Vermont and New York (Energy and Environment Legal Institute v. Attorney General of Vermont, Vermont-Case 349-6-16), and the United States Department of State (Power the Future v. Department of State, US District Court, District of Columbia, Case 1:24-cv-02822). He also became involved with a gossip forum after it was sued by Melinda Scott (Scott v. Moon, US District Court, Western District of Virginia, Case 2:19-cv-00005). This attachment to a certain gossip forum brought him to this instant action as his background in freedom of information lawsuits made him interested in obtaining certain government records in the custody of the Kandiyohi County Sheriffs department headed by Eric Tollefson.
In this case he is being represented by another Attorney, Oliver Bromke as he is seeking access to government information in his personal capacity rather then on behalf of a client. Which is an important distinction to be made in understanding this case. The Plaintiff IS NOT the Kiwifarms, the Plaintiff is Matthew Hardin, who is arguing his own rights have been violated by the county government.
Defendants:
Eric Tollefson
Eric Tollefson, per his campaign website, Ran for Sheriff in 2022 and was elected that same year. He has been Sheriff for Kandiyohi county since. According to his public facing background, before he became Sheriff, he's been a deputy for the county since 1996 and is the poster child for rural county career advancement. Rising through the ranks and then replacing the former sheriff after they retired. Indeed if you look at his own campaign website the last three Sheriffs for Kandiyohi county served until retirement. Over the last half century. Rather cushy and permanent job despite its elected nature from the looks of it, and the King does indeed sit easily on his throne.
Carol Kohlman
Carol Kohlman is the records administrator for the Kandiyohi County Sheriffs department, and if the Linkedin Profile Picture is to be believed, she smokes waaaaaaaay too many cigarettes. There really is not much more too say here. She's a secretary, but one with legal statute authority, so she gets roped into this case too in her official capacity. But its just such an on the nose stereotype of the cigarette smoking county secretary with the raspy voice that puts her as a character right out of central casting for this legal drama movie.
Kelsey Baker
Kelsey Baker is the County Administrator for Kandiyohi County. For those unfamiliar with how County government works in the USA, There are three orders of Government. Federal, State, and Local. All of these levels have their own statutory and constitutional authority and I won't waste time going over Federal or State. All you need to know is that at the local level in the USA there is an administrative unit called a County, and the County runs all the shit that actually matters. Your schools, your trash, your utilities and in this instant case most relevant, your law enforcement. Nominally, like all government bodies in the USA, Counties are led by elected officials. However, the vast majority of Counties are rural (like Kandiyohi), and the people elected don't "actually" want to run the day to day shit of government. They have jobs to do. Whether it be picking cotton, fishing fish, or getting beers bought for them at the local bar. So frequently County Boards (The Government) will appoint a Court Vizier called a "County Administrator". The County Administrators job is to actually do the job the County Board was elected to do. In this particular case, Kelsey Baker is the appointed Vizier, which is why she is being sued for the actions of the counties subordinate law enforcement agency.
Not much more to say about her either. She's apparently done the Boards job for them well enough, and in their recent review (A thing that happens where the Board pretends to be in charge), they indicated she has exceeded their expectations. I imagine the next performance review will be less stellar given that she may have overseen the counties descent into major civil liability that will cost the taxpayers of the county a large stack of cash (more on that later).
CASE BACKGROUND
On May 23, 2024, the Kandiyohi County Sheriffs Department executed a search warrant on the property of Youtuber Nicholas Rekieta. Rekieta would subsequently be charged with a litany of offenses including Drug possession, child neglect and firearms misuse. For the full breakdown of that particular case you can go here. What is important for this case however is that Joshua Moon, the owner and operator of the Kiwifarms began demanding through his legal representative Matthew Hardin to gain access to the body camera footage of Rekieta's arrest. At this point we must now rely solely on the face of the Plaintiffs complaint which it must be noted has not yet been tried in court.
According to the Plaintiff, Defendant Carol Kohlman informed them the Body Camera footage WAS available, but that it must first be prepared by forensics. It was assumed by implication that this would be to remove uninvolved parties such as Rekieta's children from the footage. Kohlman indicated in this email exchange that there was an initial fee of $60 to process the request (Indicating that there is a policy for doing this) and then $3,000 would be required to actually go through 50 hours of footage (indicating there was extensive footage available). She also indicated she ran this by her department head, which would be in this case Defendant Tollefson, the County Sheriff.
Joshua Moon promptly opened a crowdfunding campaign to raise the $3,000. He actually raised twice that. In 24 hours. Plaintiff Hardin would then reply that he was prepared to submit the money. Suddenly the reason shifted. It was no longer about the money. It was about sending a message...sorry...it was because the investigation was still ongoing so nothing could be released.
Apparently in Kandiyohi County investigations last right up until the moment of trial, guilty plea and conviction. Why did they need to investigate after a guilty plea? Well, because the Sheriffs office was still investigating the Co-defendants! Check mate!
But then the case was dropped against the co-defendants. Also by now Plaintiff Hardin began sharpening his own axe. He went too the State administration authority which was established to handle these sorts of disputes to ask them to kindly educate the county officials on their legal duties. The State of Minnesota's Department of Administration informed Plaintiff Hardin that they had in fact made a determination of this very fact pattern, and that the County officials should release the body camera data.
At this point, Plaintiff Hardin had assumed the role of aggrieved citizen. He has not stated directly what his reasons for seeking the information could be, but as a licensed attorney he could be interested in the behavior of another attorney that besmirches the dignity and reputation of his profession. That or he was concerned over Rekietas claims there was a conspiracy in Kandiyohi County against a man charged in criminal court, perpetrated by Defendant Tollefson. An issue that Rekieta raised in Court during his criminal trial. In support of which Rekieta submitted as evidence the body camera footage. The court would deny his motions, but the body camera footage would remain in evidence.
At this point, armed with a favorable ruling from the department of Administration, Plaintiff Hardin indicated through his attorney that if the Body Camera footage was not released by the county officials by June 1st, he would file a lawsuit.
The Department of Administration would also inform Plaintiff Hardin that they directly contacted Defendant Tollefson and informed him of his obligations under Minnesota law to comply with the information request.
In response to this, The Kandiyohi County Attorney Shane Baker, on behalf of Defendant Kelsey Baker the County administrator, dispatched assistant attorneys Kristen Pierce and Jordan Engler to reach a consent agreement with Attorneys for Rekieta. The agreement was that the State and the Defense in the criminal matter would agree the Body Camera Footage was admitted into evidence in error.
The Sheriff's office would then change the story again. It wasn't about the money, it wasn't about the investigation, it wasn't about ongoing trial, this time they just weren't going to give up the bodycamera footage. In fact there was no Body Camera footage in evidence after all. The case file of Minnesota v. Rekieta would be amended ex post facto and that this would make what was public information private information once more. Incidentally, this is a violation of the Federal Second Circuit Precedent, Gambale v. Deutsche Bank AG, 377 F.3d 133, 144 (2d Cir. 2004).
CAUSE OF ACTION
Plaintiff Hardin brings this cause of action against the defendants in the Eighth judicial court of the County of Kandiyohi pursuant to Minnesota Code Statute 13.08
COUNT I. Action to Compel Disclosure Pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 13.08. Defendants are in willful non compliance with law. This willful noncompliance necessitates the court to bring them immediately into compliance. Additionally, the court must by law levy a mandatory civil judgement against the defendants which shall be not less then $1,000 and not more then $15,000 per the law. How this is too be paid is not specified in the law. In theory the willful non compliance penalty could be levied against the county administration. It could also however from my reading of the law be levied against the agents in their capacity as agents of the organization. Lucky for them its not that severe, though I imagine for a secretary like Kohlman a 1,000 dollar fine will suck ass never mind a 15,000 dollar one. I will admit though I am not read up fully on Minnesota law. And by that I mean not at all.
COUNT II. Disclosure of Public Data on Individuals, Public Data not on Individuals, and Government Data, Minn. Stat. 13.02. Plaintiff alleges malfeasance in office by State Officials as defined by their duties in Minn. Stat. 13.02 for the purpose of the MGDPA. Making the county officers jointly liable in their official capacity.
COUNT III. Disclosure of Data Pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 13.01, Subd. 3. Plaintiff has a right to the demanded data under Federal and State Law. The County must be brought into compliance with the law of Minnesota and the United States. From my reading of this last part of the complaint, it is an implicit threat to the county court that Plaintiff Hardin intends to escalate this as far as he needs too.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
Ways to access the case:
https://publicaccess.courts.state.mn.us/CaseSearch -> Case Number -> 34-CV-25-364
If the website doesn't work, try turning off your VPN, or switching through locations because on rare occasions it gets buggy.
Plaintiff: Matthew Hardin
Matthew Hardin is a Virginia licensed Attorney with license to practice in numerous other states, including Minnesota. Matthew Hardin is the former elected Commonwealths Attorney (Chief Prosecutor) for Greene County, Virginia where he served in that position for 2 years before returning to private practice. Per his website - He specializes in political law and freedom of information act lawsuits and violations. Which have included lawsuits against the US States of Vermont and New York (Energy and Environment Legal Institute v. Attorney General of Vermont, Vermont-Case 349-6-16), and the United States Department of State (Power the Future v. Department of State, US District Court, District of Columbia, Case 1:24-cv-02822). He also became involved with a gossip forum after it was sued by Melinda Scott (Scott v. Moon, US District Court, Western District of Virginia, Case 2:19-cv-00005). This attachment to a certain gossip forum brought him to this instant action as his background in freedom of information lawsuits made him interested in obtaining certain government records in the custody of the Kandiyohi County Sheriffs department headed by Eric Tollefson.
In this case he is being represented by another Attorney, Oliver Bromke as he is seeking access to government information in his personal capacity rather then on behalf of a client. Which is an important distinction to be made in understanding this case. The Plaintiff IS NOT the Kiwifarms, the Plaintiff is Matthew Hardin, who is arguing his own rights have been violated by the county government.
Defendants:
Eric Tollefson
Eric Tollefson, per his campaign website, Ran for Sheriff in 2022 and was elected that same year. He has been Sheriff for Kandiyohi county since. According to his public facing background, before he became Sheriff, he's been a deputy for the county since 1996 and is the poster child for rural county career advancement. Rising through the ranks and then replacing the former sheriff after they retired. Indeed if you look at his own campaign website the last three Sheriffs for Kandiyohi county served until retirement. Over the last half century. Rather cushy and permanent job despite its elected nature from the looks of it, and the King does indeed sit easily on his throne.
Carol Kohlman
Carol Kohlman is the records administrator for the Kandiyohi County Sheriffs department, and if the Linkedin Profile Picture is to be believed, she smokes waaaaaaaay too many cigarettes. There really is not much more too say here. She's a secretary, but one with legal statute authority, so she gets roped into this case too in her official capacity. But its just such an on the nose stereotype of the cigarette smoking county secretary with the raspy voice that puts her as a character right out of central casting for this legal drama movie.
Kelsey Baker
Kelsey Baker is the County Administrator for Kandiyohi County. For those unfamiliar with how County government works in the USA, There are three orders of Government. Federal, State, and Local. All of these levels have their own statutory and constitutional authority and I won't waste time going over Federal or State. All you need to know is that at the local level in the USA there is an administrative unit called a County, and the County runs all the shit that actually matters. Your schools, your trash, your utilities and in this instant case most relevant, your law enforcement. Nominally, like all government bodies in the USA, Counties are led by elected officials. However, the vast majority of Counties are rural (like Kandiyohi), and the people elected don't "actually" want to run the day to day shit of government. They have jobs to do. Whether it be picking cotton, fishing fish, or getting beers bought for them at the local bar. So frequently County Boards (The Government) will appoint a Court Vizier called a "County Administrator". The County Administrators job is to actually do the job the County Board was elected to do. In this particular case, Kelsey Baker is the appointed Vizier, which is why she is being sued for the actions of the counties subordinate law enforcement agency.
Not much more to say about her either. She's apparently done the Boards job for them well enough, and in their recent review (A thing that happens where the Board pretends to be in charge), they indicated she has exceeded their expectations. I imagine the next performance review will be less stellar given that she may have overseen the counties descent into major civil liability that will cost the taxpayers of the county a large stack of cash (more on that later).
CASE BACKGROUND
On May 23, 2024, the Kandiyohi County Sheriffs Department executed a search warrant on the property of Youtuber Nicholas Rekieta. Rekieta would subsequently be charged with a litany of offenses including Drug possession, child neglect and firearms misuse. For the full breakdown of that particular case you can go here. What is important for this case however is that Joshua Moon, the owner and operator of the Kiwifarms began demanding through his legal representative Matthew Hardin to gain access to the body camera footage of Rekieta's arrest. At this point we must now rely solely on the face of the Plaintiffs complaint which it must be noted has not yet been tried in court.
According to the Plaintiff, Defendant Carol Kohlman informed them the Body Camera footage WAS available, but that it must first be prepared by forensics. It was assumed by implication that this would be to remove uninvolved parties such as Rekieta's children from the footage. Kohlman indicated in this email exchange that there was an initial fee of $60 to process the request (Indicating that there is a policy for doing this) and then $3,000 would be required to actually go through 50 hours of footage (indicating there was extensive footage available). She also indicated she ran this by her department head, which would be in this case Defendant Tollefson, the County Sheriff.
Joshua Moon promptly opened a crowdfunding campaign to raise the $3,000. He actually raised twice that. In 24 hours. Plaintiff Hardin would then reply that he was prepared to submit the money. Suddenly the reason shifted. It was no longer about the money. It was about sending a message...sorry...it was because the investigation was still ongoing so nothing could be released.
Apparently in Kandiyohi County investigations last right up until the moment of trial, guilty plea and conviction. Why did they need to investigate after a guilty plea? Well, because the Sheriffs office was still investigating the Co-defendants! Check mate!
But then the case was dropped against the co-defendants. Also by now Plaintiff Hardin began sharpening his own axe. He went too the State administration authority which was established to handle these sorts of disputes to ask them to kindly educate the county officials on their legal duties. The State of Minnesota's Department of Administration informed Plaintiff Hardin that they had in fact made a determination of this very fact pattern, and that the County officials should release the body camera data.
At this point, Plaintiff Hardin had assumed the role of aggrieved citizen. He has not stated directly what his reasons for seeking the information could be, but as a licensed attorney he could be interested in the behavior of another attorney that besmirches the dignity and reputation of his profession. That or he was concerned over Rekietas claims there was a conspiracy in Kandiyohi County against a man charged in criminal court, perpetrated by Defendant Tollefson. An issue that Rekieta raised in Court during his criminal trial. In support of which Rekieta submitted as evidence the body camera footage. The court would deny his motions, but the body camera footage would remain in evidence.
At this point, armed with a favorable ruling from the department of Administration, Plaintiff Hardin indicated through his attorney that if the Body Camera footage was not released by the county officials by June 1st, he would file a lawsuit.
The Department of Administration would also inform Plaintiff Hardin that they directly contacted Defendant Tollefson and informed him of his obligations under Minnesota law to comply with the information request.
In response to this, The Kandiyohi County Attorney Shane Baker, on behalf of Defendant Kelsey Baker the County administrator, dispatched assistant attorneys Kristen Pierce and Jordan Engler to reach a consent agreement with Attorneys for Rekieta. The agreement was that the State and the Defense in the criminal matter would agree the Body Camera Footage was admitted into evidence in error.
The Sheriff's office would then change the story again. It wasn't about the money, it wasn't about the investigation, it wasn't about ongoing trial, this time they just weren't going to give up the bodycamera footage. In fact there was no Body Camera footage in evidence after all. The case file of Minnesota v. Rekieta would be amended ex post facto and that this would make what was public information private information once more. Incidentally, this is a violation of the Federal Second Circuit Precedent, Gambale v. Deutsche Bank AG, 377 F.3d 133, 144 (2d Cir. 2004).
CAUSE OF ACTION
Plaintiff Hardin brings this cause of action against the defendants in the Eighth judicial court of the County of Kandiyohi pursuant to Minnesota Code Statute 13.08
COUNT I. Action to Compel Disclosure Pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 13.08. Defendants are in willful non compliance with law. This willful noncompliance necessitates the court to bring them immediately into compliance. Additionally, the court must by law levy a mandatory civil judgement against the defendants which shall be not less then $1,000 and not more then $15,000 per the law. How this is too be paid is not specified in the law. In theory the willful non compliance penalty could be levied against the county administration. It could also however from my reading of the law be levied against the agents in their capacity as agents of the organization. Lucky for them its not that severe, though I imagine for a secretary like Kohlman a 1,000 dollar fine will suck ass never mind a 15,000 dollar one. I will admit though I am not read up fully on Minnesota law. And by that I mean not at all.
COUNT II. Disclosure of Public Data on Individuals, Public Data not on Individuals, and Government Data, Minn. Stat. 13.02. Plaintiff alleges malfeasance in office by State Officials as defined by their duties in Minn. Stat. 13.02 for the purpose of the MGDPA. Making the county officers jointly liable in their official capacity.
COUNT III. Disclosure of Data Pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 13.01, Subd. 3. Plaintiff has a right to the demanded data under Federal and State Law. The County must be brought into compliance with the law of Minnesota and the United States. From my reading of this last part of the complaint, it is an implicit threat to the county court that Plaintiff Hardin intends to escalate this as far as he needs too.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
Ways to access the case:
https://publicaccess.courts.state.mn.us/CaseSearch -> Case Number -> 34-CV-25-364
If the website doesn't work, try turning off your VPN, or switching through locations because on rare occasions it gets buggy.
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