Former Minnesota state Sen. Nicole Mitchell gets jail time for burglary at stepmother's home

DETROIT LAKES, Minn. — Former state Sen. Nicole Mitchell was sentenced to six months in jail on Tuesday for breaking into her stepmother’s home.

“I don’t think six months is very much time for what she put me through,” Carol Mitchell, her stepmother, told the Minnesota Star Tribune after sentencing. “But at least I know it’s going to hurt her ... losing her children and losing her job. ... I guess there’s definitely repercussions for what she did.”

Facing a mandatory minimum sentence of six months in jail, Nicole Mitchell’s attorneys argued for probation and for her felony burglary convictions to be reduced to misdemeanors. Prosecutors said she should face the full consequence after a jury convicted her in July of breaking into the Detroit Lakes home of her stepmother, who caught her dressed like a burglar and called 911 in a panic.

Judge Michael Fritz ordered Mitchell to serve six months in Ramsey County to participate in work release. Minnesota law requires defendants to serve two-thirds of their sentence, so she will only be incarcerated in Ramsey for four months.

She will be on probation for five years and must report to work release Oct. 1. She was not remanded after sentencing and instead left with her attorneys, who said she recently got a job working at a fast-food restaurant because it was the only place that would hire her with a felony conviction.

Mitchell’s attorneys asked Fritz to allow her to be close to her sons and keep her job. The prosecution opposed any requests to serve her sentence or work release outside the county where the crime occurred in April 2024.

Becker County Attorney Brian McDonald objected to what he deemed was “preferential treatment” by serving her sentence outside Becker County.

Fritz said that “society benefits when defendants are employed.”

“Becker County taxpayers will not be responsible for the cost of your incarceration,” he said, adding that her request to serve jail time in another county “is not unusual.”

Mitchell resigned a week after her conviction of first-degree burglary and possession of burglary tools. She also retired from a long military career. McDonald said these decisions were on her terms and a direct consequence of her crime.

As for her children, he said it’s also a “sad and tragic consequence,” but no different from any other defendant who is a parent facing incarceration.

“This should’ve been part of her calculation,” McDonald said, adding that Mitchell found someone to watch her children so she could drive 220 miles from Woodbury to Detroit Lakes in the middle of the night to break into the home.

He said the defense is claiming Mitchell is “too important to face the consequences” and alleges that she asserted “legislative privilege” by continuing to vote, craft laws and collect a paycheck from taxpayers while her case was pending. Moreover, McDonald said, she has not apologized once to her stepmother.

McDonald read Carol Mitchell’s written statement in which she spoke of living with fear and paranoia.

Nicole Mitchell apologized in court ahead of her sentencing and said that she did something “ridiculous and illegal and selfish.”

“I tell my kids that by the time you have to say you’re sorry it’s kind of already too late ... because sometimes there are things that are so big you can’t take them back,” she said. “And this is one of those situations.”

Defense attorney Dane DeKrey said in his 31-page memo, compared with a five-page sentencing memo from McDonald, that “Nicole made an enormous mistake by breaking into her stepmother Carol Mitchell’s home ... and she’s about to pay an enormous price.”

One of three attorneys representing Mitchell, DeKrey, who successfully argued for a two-week delay in sentencing, again argued that his client “no doubt committed trespass.” But he said that she didn’t steal anything, and her conduct is far less serious than the typical first-degree burglary case, even though her attire suggested that’s exactly what she intended to do.

A hallmark of Mitchell’s case is the “almost comical nature” of her black clothes, stocking cap and covered flashlight, DeKrey said.

But the idea “she’s more guilty ... because she acted like a cartoon cat burglary is nonsense ... this trope of her behaving like the Wet Bandits from the movie "Home Alone" should be put to bed once and for all,” DeKrey wrote in the lengthy sentencing memo.

He said Mitchell has “already been publicly tarred and feathered.” Her convictions should be misdemeanors, DeKrey said, because “being a felon for life is overkill” and would prevent her from caring for foster children, volunteering at her son’s school or serving as an election judge.

DeKrey asked Fritz to stay her six-month sentence pending appeal, but if not, allow her to serve her sentence at the Ramsey County work release program. He said McDonald opposes this for reasons “rooted in vindictiveness,” when all Mitchell wants to do is care for her son who has autism and ADHD.

McDonald said Mitchell “brazenly testified under oath” that she lied to police about breaking in to take items belonging to her late father and instead said she was only breaking in to check on her stepmother.

He said her changing story was “wholly unbelievable and completely rejected by the jury.” Further, he said for Mitchell to focus on her stepmother’s Alzheimer’s at trial was a “desperate attempt to somehow justify (her) actions and shift blame to the victim for the defendant breaking into victim’s home.”

Fritz said the break -n has caused her stepmother emotional distress and home intrusion is an “attack to one’s safety and privacy.”

“Everyone deserves to feel safe and secure in their home,” he said

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