"This Should Have Everyone Very Concerned" - Maude Family Ranchers Federally Indicted - 1950 Survey

This is a 12 August 2024 video.

Transcript…

The fact you have such an over zealous persecution of this family should concern everybody. It should concern other Forest Service Personnel. I don’t see how you could possibly justify criminal charges in this case. Like I’ve pointed out, the and records show a lot of discrepancies. They also show a lot of cooperation. You suddenly have this Hunter show up with a complaint to the National Forest Service and people are being threatened with 10 years jail time and a half a million dollar worth of fines.

Even the Association of National Grasslands president Ty Checketts who lives in Wyoming said his biggest concern when he heard of Charles and Heather Maude being indicted was that they didn’t have a chance to work it out.

https://youtu.be/I3U346Opb1I

From Gazette.com…

U.S. Forest Service Special Agent Travis Lunders appeared unannounced, armed and in full tactical gear at the home of Charles and Heather Maude of Caputa, S.D., and served them each with federal grand jury indictments for theft of government property.

This stemmed from a boundary dispute and associated in-holdings that have been managed by the Maudes in the same way for generations.

Charles Maude purchased the operation from his family when he was just 17 years old, and he is the fifth generation on the farm and ranch. He was gifted his first cow to begin his own herd before he was born, and his love of the land hasn’t wavered.

…on March 29, Special Agent Lunders and U.S. Forest Service Patrol Capt. Jeff Summers appeared at the Maudes’ home and said they had received a complaint from a hunter that a no trespassing sign was posted on a fence that wasn’t built upon the correct boundary. The Maudes removed the sign from the fence, which had been built sometime prior to the 1950s. The family has owned their property adjacent to the U.S. Forest Service-managed Buffalo Gap National Grasslands (BGNG) which is part of the Nebraska National Forests and Grasslands since 1910.

Sometime between 1910 and 1950, William Maude built a levy and a fence, and that fence has served as the physical boundary between the acres owned by the Maudes and the BGNG.