logo
Minnesota labor union manager arrested and accused of making threats of violence toward State Capitol

Minnesota labor union manager arrested and accused of making threats of violence toward State Capitol

CBS News5 hours ago

Safety at top of mind at Minnesota Capitol after lawmaker shootings
Safety at top of mind at Minnesota Capitol after lawmaker shootings
Safety at top of mind at Minnesota Capitol after lawmaker shootings
A Minnesota labor union manager has been charged after he allegedly made threats of violence toward the State Capitol.
41-year-old Jonathan Bohn, a Woodbury, Minnesota, resident, faces charges of allegedly making threats of violence with reckless disregard for risk.
According to a criminal complaint filed Friday in Carver County court, Bohn sent the threatening text to a Waconia resident Wednesday night.
Jonathan Bohn, 41.
Carver County Sheriff's Office
Court documents stated that some of the text messages said, "Today, I bought 500 bullets. I can't wait to shoot one of you motherf****** in the face," and "Excited to have my gun at the Capitol and blow somebody's f****** face off."
Another text stated, "Excited to have my gun at the Capitol and blow somebody's f****** face off."
Law enforcement officials say they found an unloaded firearm locked in a case in Bohn's garage while executing a search warrant of his house.
The resident who received the text messages, whose identity wasn't revealed by police, told investigators he hadn't spoken with Bohn for a "considerable amount of time" due to political differences.
A judge on Friday set Bohn's bail at $100,000 for cash bail and $1 million for non-cash bail. Conditions for the bail include having no contact with the man who received Bohn's text messages, staying at least half a mile from the State Capitol, surrendering any permit to carry a concealed weapon, no use or possession of firearms or dangerous weapons and not being able to leave Minnesota without permission.
Bohn is the director of public affairs at the Inter Faculty Organization, a labor union that represents faculty at the seven Minnesota State universities.
The union said in a written statement Friday that Bohn has been placed on administrative leave.
"We are monitoring developments closely, cooperating as needed with law enforcement and will continue to keep our members informed," the union said.
According to the statement, the group said it condemns political violence and threats of violence "in any form."
Meanwhile, a person was arrested and is being held at Carver County Jail for allegedly sending Rep. Jim Nash a text message that officials say was "threatening in nature.
The arrest comes less than a week after Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were shot and killed in their Brooklyn Park home. State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were also shot inside their home in Champlin around 90 minutes earlier but survived.
As of Friday, the senator was in the hospital, and his wife has since been released.
Vance Boelter is facing six federal and four state charges in the shootings. He was taken into custody Sunday night near his Sibley County home after a manhunt that lasted over 36 hours.
Gov. Tim Walz on Thursday said the Minnesota Legislature should reconsider allowing people to carry firearms inside the State Capitol. Rob Doar, senior vice president of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, in a social media post said that doing so won't prevent bad actors from committing violence. Minnesota law allows open carry handguns at the Capitol with a permit to carry.
contributed to this report.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Abandoned apartment buildings in Beverly Grove could be demolished after removing hazardous materials
Abandoned apartment buildings in Beverly Grove could be demolished after removing hazardous materials

CBS News

time35 minutes ago

  • CBS News

Abandoned apartment buildings in Beverly Grove could be demolished after removing hazardous materials

A Beverly Grove neighborhood that has been dealing with squatters living in three abandoned apartment buildings was given a glimpse of hope that their problems would be solved on Friday. The residents say that their usually quiet street has been hit with a rash of fights, fires and people using drugs because of the nearly 20 people squatting in the vacant buildings. "I just feel like we are going in a circle calling the cops," resident Anita Cavallo said. "We called the cops, I don't know, about 20 times, 25 times." After residents raised their concerns on CBS News Los Angeles on Wednesday, the property owner said that he's doing everything he can to secure the buildings and push forward with construction. He said he's tried everything from securing the property to turning off the utilities, but the squatters keep coming back. "I don't believe anything he says," Cavallo said about the property owner. "It's been too long. We've been asking, requesting for signs up for protection, security, and he just finds excuses or he just doesn't answer." While there has been some progress, the neighbors called the Los Angeles Police Department twice on Friday to handle squatters and check out a disturbance at the vacant buildings. "I personally think that the owner only had the cops here to save face, but he refuses to put the property city trespassing signs up," resident Caron Feldmen said. The property manager said crews were removing hazardous materials on Friday but would have to wait two weeks before demolition could start. "Since you guys and the other media showed up, it looks like something's finally happening," one resident said. "They came the next day to start removing asbestos and taking down part of the roof." But with an alleged arsonist and a string of unsettling behavior, neighbors believe a little progress just isn't enough. "We wake up to screaming, drugs, violence, all of it," Cavallo said. "I have to keep my windows closed and my daughter is traumatized to sleep at home. She doesn't even like to come home." The property owner also said he plans to take the doors and windows off the units to speed things up.

New Jersey Anti-SLAPP Law Applies In Part In Federal Court In Paucek
New Jersey Anti-SLAPP Law Applies In Part In Federal Court In Paucek

Forbes

timean hour ago

  • Forbes

New Jersey Anti-SLAPP Law Applies In Part In Federal Court In Paucek

The U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals are split on the application of Anti-SLAPP laws in the federal ... More courts. Chip Paucek had been the CEO of a company (U2, Inc.) which had failed under some negative circumstances. Paucek is now the CEO of a new company (Pro-Athlete Community, Inc. a/k/a "PAC") which provides educational and other support to professional athletes who have ceased playing. Paucek came to the attention of Dahn Shaulis, who is a blogger covering the education industry through his publication Higher Education Inquirer ("HEI"). After following Paucek's failure with U2, Shaulis then began to investigate and cover Paucek's new venture, PAC. Long story short, Shaulis made some unflattering comments about Paucek on social media. Paucek had his attorney send Shaulis a cease-and-desist letter which also called for Shaulis to retract the offending comments. Shaulis agreed to do so, but only on terms that were unacceptable to Paucek. The day after receiving Paucek's cease-and-desist letter, Shaulis then posted on social media that he had received the letter but that he stood by the statements therein based on a variety of information. Paucek then sued Shaulis in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. Paucek alleged that Shaulis' social media posts were defamatory and that Shaulis had intentionally interfered with Paucek's prospective business relations. Shaulis responded by filing a motion to first determine if the New Jersey Uniform Public Expression Protection Act ("UPEPA") applied in federal court and which of several states' Anti-SLAPP laws should be applied to this controversy. The idea here was that the court would decide these threshold issues before Shaulis filed his UPEPA motion to dismiss (which had not yet been filed as of the time of this opinion). Shaulis also answered Paucek's complaint with a counterclaim under the UPEPA. All of this led to the opinion in Paucek v. Shaulis, 2025 WL 1298457 (D.N.J., May 6, 2025), that you can and should read for yourself here, and which we will next review. The first question addressed by the court was whether the New Jersey UPEPA would be recognized in federal court. The issue here is that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) already provide a means for the early dismissal of a case, which is by way of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. If a defendant attaches evidence to a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, then that motion is converted to a motion for summary judgment under Rule 56. As I have often written, a special motion to dismiss or strike under the UPEPA is essentially an early summary judgment motion and akin to a "motion to dismiss on steroids". In fact, the UPEPA deliberately uses the summary judgment standard to test whether the plaintiff's complaint should be dismissed because that standard is well-understood by the courts and has already withstood constitutional challenges based on the plaintiff's right to a jury trial. So, the question becomes: if the Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss is already employed by the federal courts, then why substitute it with the UPEPA? The answer is twofold. First, in diversity of citizenship cases (as here), the federal courts will apply their own procedural rules but they are also required to apply the substantive rules of the state from where the action arises. This is known as the Erie doctrine, after a 1938 U.S. Supreme Court opinion of that name. But there is an important limitation, being that if the state substantive law "is in direct collision" with the federal procedure on some issue, then the federal procedure will govern that issue. Second, there are some differences between a Rule 12(b)(6) motion and a UPEPA special motion, mostly being the UPEPA special motion triggers a stay of discovery and the UPEPA automatically awards attorney fees to a defendant who successfully asserts a UPEPA special motion. A Rule 12(b)(6) motion does neither of these things. This is not the first time that a federal court has addressed whether the state law UPEPA should apply in the federal courts. In fact, throughout the nation, the state law UPEPA has been asserted in many federal court cases. The problem is that the federal courts have not all agree on the outcome, but rather there has been a split of opinion by the various federal circuits. The Fifth, Tenth, Eleventh and D.C. Circuit Courts of Appeals have held that Anti-SLAPP laws do not apply in federal court, while the 1st and 9th Circuits have held that they do. For its part, the Second Circuit has opinions going both ways, but with the latest opinions stating that Anti-SLAPP law do not apply in federal court. Obviously, the U.S. Supreme Court is eventually going to have to step in and resolve this split of decisions among the Circuits, but we're not there yet. The District of New Jersey, where this case was heard, sits in the 3rd Circuit which hasn't ruled yet on the issue. The court here declined to look at the issue as merely being one of whether an Anti-SLAPP law should apply in federal court or not. Rather, the court thought that the correct analysis was whether a particular Anti-SLAPP law (here, New Jersey's UPEPA) through its text and structure was in conflict with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. This would be the analysis to be followed by the court. To this end, it was obvious to the court that some provisions of the UPEPA do indeed conflict with the FRPC. One example is that of the UPEPA mandating that a defendant who successfully brings a UPEPA special motion will be awarded attorney's fees. By contrast, the FRPC instead requires that before such attorney fees can be awarded, a successful party would have to prevail on either summary judgment or at trial. This means the defendant must prove that the plaintiff has no case, which is different than the UPEPA which requires the plaintiff to establish that he can make at least a prima facie case to avoid dismissal. Other conflicts of the UPEPA with the FRPC include an immediate appeal of right to the defendant if the UPEPA special motion is unsuccessful, and also the automatic stay of discovery upon the filing of a UPEPA special motion. So, there were conflicts between the UPEPA and the FRPC where their provisions collided. But that did not mean to the court that the entire UPEPA would be disallowed in federal court, but rather only that the conflicting provisions of the UPEPA would be surgically excised and in those places the federal rules would be substituted in their stead. This is known as "severability" and it is essentially the same process as where the illegal provisions of a contract are cut out but the surviving operating provisions will be enforced. This is the approach that has been followed by the Second and Ninth Circuits, which allows a court to enforce the state Anti-SLAPP procedures where they do not conflict with the federal rules, but replace those procedures with the corresponding federal rule where they do conflict. Now the court returned to the Erie doctrine which, it will be recalled, requires a federal court sitting in diversity jurisdiction to apply state substantive law but federal procedural law. Thus, it would only be the procedural parts of a state's Anti-SLAPP laws, including the UPEPA, that would be replaced by the federal rules. The substantive parts of the state's Anti-SLAPP laws would survive and be utilized under the Erie doctrine. This brought the court to one of the questions before it: Was the UPEPA's mandatory award of fees to a defendant who successfully asserted a UPEPA special motion to be considered substantive or procedural in nature? Under the Erie doctrine, a fee-shifting provision is typically considered to be substantive in nature because it is tied to the outcome of the litigation (a procedural rule is not). But there are times when a fee-shifting provision would be procedural, such as when such fees are awarded because of a party's bad faith conduct ― but that is not tied to the outcome of the litigation. Because the UPEPA's mandatory fee award is tied to the outcome, since it can only be awarded if the defendant prevails on the UPEPA special motion, the court held that the UPEPA fee-shifting provision is substantive and not procedural. But the UPEPA in fact has two fee-shifting provisions. As mentioned, the first provision awards attorney fees to a defendant who wins on the UPEPA special motion. This is different than the second provision, by which a court has the discretion to award attorney fees to the plaintiff and against the defendant if the defendant filed the UPEPA special motion in bad faith or for purposes of delay. This latter provision is not tied to the outcome of the case, since the case continues if the defendant loses the UPEPA special motion, and thus is procedural in nature. The upshot to this is that if the defendant wins the UPEPA special motion, then the mandatory fee award in favor of the defendant is substantive and determined by state law. However, if the defendant loses the special motion then the issue of whether fees can be awarded against the defendant would be procedural in nature and determined if at all by the FRCP. The court also noted another factor in determining the UPEPA's mandatory fee award to be substantive: One of the purposes of that mandatory fee award is to deter the filing of abusive litigation. Disposing of a minor issue, the court also held that UPEPA relief is only obtainable through the filing of a UPEPA special motion and not by way of a counterclaim. The balance of the opinion deals with a conflict of law issue; namely, which state's Anti-SLAPP law would apply. The court ultimately concludes that the New Jersey UPEPA applies, and although the court's discussion of the issue is quite interesting, it is beyond the scope of this article. ANALYSIS Anti-SLAPP laws such as the UPEPA are indeed a mix of substantive and procedural law ― they are not purely one or the other. It therefore makes sense for the federal courts in applying the Erie doctrine to apply the substantive portions but reject the procedural ones. This may be the best that we get until the U.S. Supreme Court resolves the split between circuits (and that could go either way) or Congress adopts a federal Anti-SLAPP law (which is regularly introduced, but never seems to go anywhere). But in the words of the Rolling Stones: "You can't always get what you want. You get what you need."

Ex-Columbia Grad Student Khalil Released From ICE Custody
Ex-Columbia Grad Student Khalil Released From ICE Custody

Bloomberg

timean hour ago

  • Bloomberg

Ex-Columbia Grad Student Khalil Released From ICE Custody

A former Columbia University graduate student detained for more than three months over his role in pro-Palestinian protests was released Friday from immigration detention, allowing him to continue a legal fight to avoid deportation while out on bail. Mahmoud Khalil, 29, was set free from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana after a judge ordered his release, Khalil's lawyers said in a court filing. Khalil claimed he'd been unlawfully held in retaliation for his activities to oppose Israel's war in Gaza with Hamas.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store