A man convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl — whom he never met in person — got a prison sentence of nearly 30 years Thursday in Washington County District Court.

Cheyenne Cody Vedaa Foster, a self-described “monster” who turned the Lake Elmo girl into his online sex slave, was sentenced to 28 years and eight months under the terms of a plea agreement.

Foster, 20, pleaded guilty to a charge of first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving sexual penetration, personal injury and force or coercion.

Foster, who is from Arlington, Wash., about an hour north of Seattle, admitted that he used threats of punishment conveyed through text messages, video chats and social media to coerce his victim, a Stillwater Junior High School student, to sexually abuse herself.

His sentence, handed down by Washington County District Court Judge Mary Hannon, is double the upper end of the sentencing range for the crime.

But prosecutors, who described Foster as “sadistic,” said the harsher sentence was justified because of the victim’s youth and vulnerability and because Foster’s actions were particularly cruel. He sought out suicidal and depressed young girls to victimize online.

Reading a statement that he held in trembling hands, the father said the family discussed internet safety and applied security measures with the children’s electronic devices.

“We thought they were safe,” he said. “We thought we could trust them.”

The girl’s phone was taken away from her after the messages she was exchanging with Foster came to light, the father said. But the girl continued to communicate with Foster using the electronic devices of friends.

The communications — “dark, sexually explicit and sadistic in nature” — continued throughout 2015 even after the victim’s parents contacted Foster and his parents to try to get it to stop, the father said.

The father said his daughter was “terrorized, traumatized and raped.”

“We feel a large sense of loss. Our daughter has lost her innocence because of this individual,” the father said.

The Pioneer Press generally does not identify juveniles who are victims of sex crimes or relatives whose names would reveal a victim’s identity.

Under the sentence, Foster must spend at least 19 years in custody. With credit for jail time served, he will be about 38 when he gets out on conditional release. Foster will also have to register for life as a predatory offender, pay $3,324 in restitution and may face civil commitment.

Foster also was charged in Washington County with using a minor in a sexual performance or pornographic work. That charge was dismissed as part of the plea agreement.

Prosecutors said by pleading guilty to criminal sexual conduct and accepting the harsher sentence, Foster may be avoiding federal child pornography charges.

But prosecutors believe Foster has victimized others in similar cases in other states.

He is facing charges of child pornography and child exploitation in a Virginia case, said Assistant Washington County Attorney Imran Ali.

Fred Fink Jr., the criminal division chief in the Washington County attorney’s office, said he believes a conviction for first-degree criminal sexual conduct in a case in which the victim and the defendant never physically met may be the first of its kind in Minnesota.

Hannon, the sentencing judge, also noted the unusual nature of the case as an example of how technology can be used to victimize children despite the best efforts of parents.

DEFENSE: NO ARGUMENT

Nathan Sosinski, Foster’s attorney, did not argue against the sentence.

“This is an extremely serious case involving disturbing conduct by Mr. Foster,” he said.

He described Foster as an intelligent, articulate young man who is “socially inept,” raised in “semi-solitude” and not attending public school until 10th grade.

Foster, who was dressed in prison clothing and shackled at his wrists and ankles, spent most of the sentencing hearing looking down.

When given a chance to speak, he said, “It burns me inside to think of what I’ve done, to think of who I’ve hurt.”

“I don’t know if I can say how sorry I am. The English language doesn’t go that far,” he said.

Foster’s only relatives in the courtroom Thursday were two grandparents.

His grandmother, Jeanie Vedaa, said Foster was a “good Christian” who had “never done anything wrong” until now.

But she said what her grandson did was “just demonic. That’s just what it was. Watch your kids because the devil’s after them.”

Stillwater Police Sgt. Jeffrey Stender said investigating the case against Foster was expensive and time-consuming, requiring the Stillwater police to fly detectives out of state for the first time in his 24-year career.

But Stender said Foster refused to stop contacting the victim, even though he knew police were investigating him. And the victim was in danger of serious physical harm, Stender said.

“The victim was in such an emotional state where she was so emotionally controlled. She was basically doing whatever she was told to do,” Stender said. “I think the future of child exploitation cases is this. We’re going to see way more Cheyenne Fosters.”

CRIMINAL ACTIONS

During his plea hearing in April, Foster admitted that in December 2014, he began a “dominant-submissive relationship based on sexual gratification” with the victim.

Foster said that in the messages they exchanged, the girl referred to him as “Hero, Master, Sir or Daddy.” The girl was nicknamed “Kitty.”

Foster ordered the girl to masturbate, to choke herself with a piece of cloth, to put clothespins on her body, to wear a collar, to spank and pinch herself and to write words on her body. When asked why, Foster repeatedly said the orders were meant to control the girl and for “sexual gratification on my part.”

In the criminal complaint against Foster, the girl discussed killing herself. In one communication he told her, “Maybe one day, baby girl. Every time we Face Time, you’re going to almost commit suicide for Daddy, okay?”

At one point, in March 2015, Foster said he was “particularly cruel” and he told the girl to penetrate herself with a hair brush, causing bleeding.

Foster said the relationship between himself and the girl was coercive and nonconsensual, because the girl was so young. He said the girl was innocent and undergoing emotional and physical pain. “I took advantage of all of that,” he said.

Minnesota’s attorney general is suing a magazine sales company alleging deceptive sales tactics.

Lori Swanson filed a lawsuit Thursday that accuses Your Magazine Service Inc. and owner Wayne Dahl Jr. of charging people hundreds of dollars for magazine packages after tricking them into providing billing information.

The lawsuit says the company’s employees would call consumers and pose as their existing magazine provider and offer a phony credit on their account. Swanson says the employees would then enroll the consumers in magazine packages that cost up to nearly $1,000.

The lawsuit filed in Carver County District Court seeks civil penalties, restitution, and injunctive relief.  The attorney general says Dahl moved recently to Loxahatchee, Fla., from Eden Prairie. Dahl’s phone number is not listed.

Ramsey County residents who own guns can get free locks, provided by the county attorney, sheriff and heath department’s offices beginning Friday. The simple locks, made of plastic-coated metal, are designed to prevent accidental shootings.

The initiative by county officials comes after a bout of accidental shootings nationwide.

Such incidents are estimated to occur once a week in America, County Attorney John Choi said. In the last six months alone, 242 children under the age of 12 have been killed or injured across the country, not to mention parent injuries and deaths.

“I want the public to understand that it can happen here too, in Ramsey County, and that all of these incidents are preventable,” Choi said.

In 2012 two Twin Cities toddlers were shot when their older siblings found loaded guns that had been hidden by their parents. A St. Paul two-year-old survived a gunshot wound to the head, but children aren’t always so lucky, Choi said. A Minneapolis toddler shot later that year died.

Last year, a 13-year-old Eagan boy was accidentally shot in the chest and killed by his older brother while playing “cops and robbers” with their father’s hand gun. It was unloaded when they found it, but a loaded magazine was nearby.

Many parents assume that hiding a gun, or leaving it unloaded is enough to keep their children safe, but about 70 percent of children with guns in their homes know where the weapons are. And nearly 36 percent of children have handled the weapons as well, said Joan Brandt of the Ramsey County Health Department, citing a Harvard University-conducted survey.

The gun locks were purchased with funds from the county’s crime forfeiture budget and 2,500 are currently available. Each comes with a pamphlet of gun safety information. Additional information will be available at the county’s website as well.

In addition to the Ramsey County Public Health Department, gun locks also are available at four St. Paul recreation centers, county library branches in Shoreview and Roseville, the Hmong American Partnership in east St. Paul, the Rondo Community Library, the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center and the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Center for Community.

This allows people to pick up the locks outside standard business hours, without identifying themselves if they don’t want to, said Ramsey County Sheriff Matt Bostrom.

A St. Paul law enforcement sting last March led to charges for five men between 34 and 52 years old who tried to hire prostitutes between the ages of 13 and 16.

The sting is part of the Operation Guardian Angel project, which started in 2014 to target people who try to buy sex from minors. In each case, undercover officers post ads online at Craigslist and Backpage offering sex. The suspects respond for pricing information and to arrange meetings with the girls.

Victor Huertero, of Minneapolis, 34, Kurt Matthew Schumann of Burnsville, 52, Markus Akre of Robinsdale, 50, and Jiou Yi Shih of Walnut, Calif., 47, replied to a Backpage ad titled “Spring break fun — leave your suit at home!!!! – 18.”

All four face charges of agreeing to hire a minor to engage in prostitution.

After the initial inquiry, all were informed that the two “fetish friendly” girls in need of “sum fun,” were actually 16 and 14 years old, according to the criminal complaints filed in Ramsey County District Court Thursday. Although some expressed concern about the girls’ ages and possible connection to law enforcement, the men did arrange to meet at a St. Paul apartment building where they were arrested.

The men’s reasons for responding to the ad ranged from loneliness and stress to not having had sex recently and wanting to see if the girls were in trouble, the criminal complaints said.

Meanwhile, Brian Leo Remus of Plymouth, 52, responded to a different Operation Guardian Angel ad posted on the “Casual Encounters” section of Craigslist. It was supposedly posted by a 40-year-old man home alone with his 13-year-old daughter and looking for “friends and fun!”

Remus also faces charges of agreeing to hire a minor to engage in prostitution.

Previous Operation Guardian Angel stings have also taken place in Washington and Dakota County.

BEMIDJI, Minn. — Court documents show that a 2-year-old foster child found dead Sunday in a Bemidji home had several areas of bruising and superficial lacerations around her head and body and a red or pink fluid draining from her nose.

Police suspect the Bemidji man charged with second-degree manslaughter in connection with the child’s death was using drugs, according to the documents.

Kira Friedman, 2, was found dead at about 11:30 a.m. Sunday. Friedman was left unattended in a shower and apparently drowned in a laundry tote, according to a criminal complaint.

Search warrant affidavits say Nathan Jackson, 38 — who was arrested Sunday after police were called to his residence after receiving a report of an unresponsive child — told police he had had past problems with drugs.

A Beltrami County child protection investigator also told police that she had spoken with Jackson’s fiancee, as well as his fiancee’s sister, and that both were concerned Jackson was using methamphetamine or other drugs, according to the warrant. Children who live with Jackson also told interviewers at the Family Advocacy of Northern Minnesota that Jackson had lately not been sleeping at night, which was unusual.

Jackson had been living with his fiancee, Amanda White, their five children and two foster children, including Friedman, in the house.

The home was licensed as a foster care provider through the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, rather than the Minnesota Department of Human Services, according to DHS spokeswoman Karen Smigielski.

A search warrant filed Sunday, as well as one filed Tuesday, provided more details about the scene where the child was found. The first officer to arrive on the scene at about 11:21 a.m. found the 2-year-old unresponsive and cold to the touch. Rigor mortis had set in.

As well as the bruising and lacerations observed on the child, officers noted a red substance on the wall of the bathroom presumed to be blood.

Jackson told police he had put Friedman in the shower at about 7:30 a.m. Sunday and left her unattended while he made toast. He also left an 18-gallon Rubbermaid tote without holes in the shower with the 2-year-old, who was nonverbal and had learned to walk shortly before her second birthday in April. According to the criminal complaint, Jackson returned to the bathroom to check on the child and found her in the bin, which was filled with water.

White said they typically bathe Friedman in the bathtub upstairs, according to the criminal complaint.

After finding Friedman, Jackson said she didn’t “seem right,” but that she was breathing. He dressed her and put her to bed. According to the search warrant, Jackson told police he believed the child smiled at him when he laid her down. He then went back to sleep. When White checked on Friedman she found her unresponsive and told another party to call 911.

An investigator said in the search warrant affidavit that White told dispatchers she could not move Friedman’s head to start CPR.

Jackson is being held in the Beltrami County Jail and his next court appearance is set for June 20. Each count of second-degree manslaughter carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a fine of $20,000 or both.

A St. Paul man was acquitted of second-degree murder charges Thursday in a drug sale that ended with the shooting victim’s body being left in a burning car last fall.

The Ramsey County District Court jury announced the verdict early Thursday evening.

Jurors deliberated more than a day before finding Demetrius Ramon Smoot, 23, not guilty of the murder charges. After the verdict was read, Smoot’s family cried with relief and hugged each other and him.

Smoot arranged a marijuana sale between the victim — 36-year-old Jeremy Anthony Allen of Chicago — and Chauncy Hilliard in November and helped to set the car with Allen’s body in it on fire in an alley near Westminster Street and Cook Avenue, hours after his death. But Smoot didn’t pull the trigger, defense attorney Bruce Wenger said in his closing statement during the trial.

“(Smoot) was honest in his wrongdoing … but he’s not charged with these things” Wenger said. “Murder is pulling the trigger.”

Wenger, who said Smoot had no motive to kill Hilliard, highlighted his age and lack of a significant criminal record. Allen and Smoot had a good working relationship, he said, and the police should have considered Hilliard, a primary witness in the case against Smoot, as the possible killer.

“I suggest to you that the police were lazy” and bought Hilliard’s story “hook, line and sinker” without considering other possibilities, Wenger said.

Arnold Lee Scott, 23, and Kenny Ray Smoot Jr., 32, both of St. Paul, were charged with first-degree witness tampering for trying to intimidate Hilliard in late May, ahead of Smoot’s trial.

Jail phone records showed Demetrius Smoot calling his friend and brother in the two days before a meeting between Hilliard and Smoot’s defense. Scott and Kenny Smoot were outside the building with a loaded pistol that Scott tossed aside when pursued by police officers, the criminal complaint in their case said.

“While we respect the decision of the jury, our hearts go out to the family of the victim in this case,” said Dennis Gerhardstein, spokesman for the Ramsey County attorney’s office.

Jaime DeLage contributed to this report.

DULUTH, Minn. — A Florida woman faces two felony charges of adoption fraud after allegedly leading a Duluth couple to believe she was carrying a child meant for them — several months after she had a miscarriage.

Carrie Cutler, 31, was arrested Wednesday in Tampa. The Pinellas County sheriff’s office said Cutler received about $13,500 from Todd and Alyssa Holmstrom post-miscarriage for rent, food, medical and phone expenses.

The Holmstroms, who have been working toward adopting a child for nearly two years, had a pre-birth agreement with Cutler, signed in July 2015 though an adoption agency. Cutler gave the couple ultrasound pictures and said the expected due date was in March.

Alyssa Holmstrom, 30, said she had almost daily contact with Cutler via text message, at Cutler’s insistence.

“In this position, you want to be as open and as receptive as possible,” Alyssa Holmstrom said. “This person is carrying a child you hope to adopt.”

Pinellas County detectives said Cutler visited a hospital for pregnancy complications in August, and was told she had miscarried the baby. But she didn’t tell the Holmstroms or the adoption agency, and later sent a text message to the couple saying the baby was a girl, according to authorities. The Holmstroms continued to make payments to the adoption agency that were funneled to Cutler.

In October, the couple traveled to Tampa for a scheduled meeting with Cutler. The Holmstroms were told at the last minute that Cutler wouldn’t be coming, and so they returned to Duluth. In February, Cutler told the Holmstroms and the adoption agency that the baby was doing well and that a cesarean section birth was planned for March.

In March, Cutler told the Holmstroms her delivery had been postponed by doctors. The couple soon traveled back to Florida for the delivery, in hopes of returning home with the baby girl. They met with Cutler for the first time, and authorities said she continued to mislead the couple, at one point claiming the baby inside of her was “kicking” and pointing to her stomach.

Todd Holmstrom, 37, said neither noticed Cutler wasn’t actually pregnant, because she is a heavyset woman.

“If I passed her and someone told me she was pregnant, I’d believe it,” he said.

Days later, Cutler contacted the family and claimed that doctors miscalculated her due date, and she wasn’t scheduled to give birth for another six weeks. The Holmstroms returned to Duluth.

“That would have put her at an 11-month pregnancy,” Todd Holmstrom said. “She was hoping we’d go home and go away and not report it.”

The adoption agency that month obtained records from the hospital Cutler used and learned about the miscarriage. The agency then reported what happened to authorities.

“We were hurt by (what happened) but mostly just kind of shocked that she thought we would never figure it out,” Alyssa Holmstrom said.

“We were both devastated at first,” Todd Holmstrom said, but the couple is trying again to adopt. “You know going in there is a risk of something falling apart. Granted, I never thought there would be a situation this extreme.”

Pinellas County sheriff’s Sgt. Spencer Gross said Cutler had worked with the adoption agency before, successfully adopting out one of her children.

“There was no reason to believe this also wouldn’t be a successful adoption,” Gross said.

He said Cutler has a lengthy criminal history that includes grand theft, writing worthless checks and obtaining a vehicle using false representation. She is pregnant again, he said, although he couldn’t say what her intentions with her current pregnancy were.

The Holmstroms are out nearly $20,000 when considering adoption and travel expenses, but Alyssa Holmstrom said they were “well-educated” that they could lose that money, if a birth mother changed her mind, for example.

The experience hasn’t deterred the Holmstroms from the process of adoption.

“There are kids who need to be adopted,” Alyssa Holmstrom said. “To give up on that because of one person’s bad decisions, then they win.”

LOS ANGELES — Students and administrators at UCLA are examining campus safety — including concerns raised about classroom doors with no locks — after a St. Paul man carried out a murder-suicide last week that left a beloved engineering professor dead.

In a letter to students and faculty Tuesday, Chancellor Gene Block said a new task force will review the university’s response to the June 1 shooting.

Separately, students will announce the creation of the UCLA Institute on Campus Violence on Friday to study strategies to end campus violence.

“As the 186th school shooting since Sandy Hook, UCLA students pledge to take a stand on campus violence,” UCLA student body president Danny Siegel said. “No student, faculty, or staff should ever feel unsafe on campus – after 186 school shootings, we come together to send a clear message: no more.”

Authorities believe former student Mainak Sarkar of St. Paul killed his estranged wife in Brooklyn Park before driving across the country to Los Angeles and fatally shooting engineering professor William Klug on June 1. Klug had helped Sarkar earn his engineering Ph.D. in 2013.

Immediately after the shooting, UCLA went into lockdown amid a massive police response.

Inside classrooms, some students found they were unable to lock doors. Images of panicked students keeping doors secured with desks, chairs, printers and other means posted on social media sparked questions and raised alarm.

Scott Waugh, an executive vice chancellor and provost at the school, later told reporters that university officials were troubled by reports of unlocked doors.

The issue of doors that cannot lock from the inside has come up in other deadly campus shootings, including one at Virginia Tech in 2007 where students barricaded themselves inside rooms. Some schools have installed locks after attacks.

Most security experts agree that getting into a locked room is one of the most effective deterrents against getting shot. But wider adoption has been hindered by cost and local fire codes.

In his letter, Block said the university has devoted “considerable attention” to crisis preparedness in recent years, including active shooter drills. In addition to locks, a university security analysis will look at UCLA’s emergency notification process, he said.

“We must now carefully study our actions and reactions to determine what more we can do to protect our community from violence,” Block wrote.

Investigators believe that Sarkar, 38, was mentally ill and likely killed his estranged wife, 31-year-old University of Minnesota medical student Ashley Hasti, on May 29 before heading to Los Angeles.

A license plate reader picked up his car in Denver on May 31, and Sarkar arrived in Los Angeles after that, Los Angeles police Capt. Billy Hayes said Thursday.

Hasti’s body wasn’t found until after the UCLA shooting. Investigators followed up on a note left by Sarkar to check on his cat in his North End apartment in St. Paul.

Hayes said the FBI is analyzing Sarkar’s cellphone to help piece together his movements and motivation.

“You want to see the timeline, you want to see if we can find what was the trigger event that sparked the whole thing,” Hayes said.

WILLMAR, Minn. — A Minnesota man and a Minnesota bait shop owner have been charged with violations of the state’s laws regulating the trapping and selling of minnows.

Jack W. Sankey of Glenwood, Minn., has been charged in Pope County District Court with harvesting and selling minnows without a license to Minnesota bait shops in Svea near Willmar, Clitherall near Fergus Falls and Brainerd. Sankey, 65, has pleaded not guilty to the charges — five gross misdemeanor counts of buying or selling wild animals and one misdemeanor count for not correctly tagging minnow traps with his name.

From 2013 to 2015, Sankey allegedly made nearly $65,000 selling the unlicensed minnows to the three bait shops.

The owner of Wakanda Bait in Svea, Scott Lee Johnson of Willmar, has also been charged in Kandiyohi County District Court for buying minnows from Sankey and letting Sankey trap under his license. Johnson, 67, faces a gross misdemeanor and a misdemeanor charge, also for buying or selling wild animals.

He made his first appearance Wednesday in Kandiyohi County District Court.

Those who harvest and sell minnows must be licensed, undergo aquatic invasive species training and periodic health inspections. Those who forgo the $310 commercial minnow dealer license can face a hefty fine up to $10,000 and even a year behind bars.

Court documents say the two had an agreement that Sankey would trap under Johnson’s license, and Johnson would license Sankey’s truck for transporting the minnows, as long as Sankey agreed to supply Johnson’s shop with minnows.

According to the documents, he liked the arrangement, “because he didn’t have to deal with the paperwork and reporting requirements that come with having a commercial license, and that is why he didn’t have a license for himself.”

During six months in 2015, Sankey sold 1,116 gallons of minnows, worth $8,515, to Johnson, say the charges.

Johnson allegedly admitted to a conservation officer in June 2015 “that he knew Sankey was not licensed, that allowing Sankey to trap under his license was a ‘gray area’ and that he would have to be ‘pretty naive’ to think that Sankey was not trapping and selling minnows to other dealers as well,” according to the criminal complaint.

That’s exactly what Sankey was doing, the charges allege.

A commercial minnow trapper tipped off a Pope County conservation officer anonymously in August 2014 about Sankey’s alleged behavior.

The officer met with Sankey at a Starbuck farm. Sankey allegedly told him he was paid by Urbank Bait, based in Clitherall, to trap at Urbank Bait’s registered ponds, and that he had been doing it “for a long time.”

Then, the same officer got a trespassing complaint from a Pope County landowner — someone had been driving across his field, and those tire tracks led to a slough containing a minnow trap.

The trap was Sankey’s, and it didn’t have the necessary identification tag. The officer told him to remove the trap within a few days. After further investigation, a search warrant was granted to place a mobile tracking device on Sankey’s vehicle.

Review of the tracking results from May and June 2015 confirmed Sankey visited Urbank Bait, Lake-N-River Bait of Brainerd, and Wakanda Bait, as well as several bodies of water. DNR licensing records indicated Sankey had not had a commercial minnow dealer license since 2002.

Sankey’s next court appearance in Pope County is a hearing scheduled for June 28. Johnson is next set to appear June 21 in Kandiyohi County District Court.

The licensing is not only meant to regulate the demand, but also to make sure the minnows are handled and transported properly, according to Conservation Officer Jeff Denz.

“Second to that is the invasive species and disease concerns,” Denz said.

Because minnows are transported in large amounts of water, invasive species and disease prevention training is crucial, he said.

For example, some regulations involve a fish disease called viral hemorrhagic septicemia — a deadly disease that is easily spread. Minnow harvesting isn’t allowed in lakes affected by the disease. All of the Great Lakes have tested positive for traces of the disease, including Lake Superior. Wisconsin’s largest freshwater lake has also been affected. There is worry it could spread from there.

The father of a White Bear Lake infant who suffered a near-fatal beating has been sentenced to eight and a half years in prison.

Austin Thomas Whiteaker, 20, was convicted last month in Ramsey County District Court of first-degree assault and malicious punishment of a child, both felonies. According to the criminal complaint against him, a doctor reported that “the child actually died and was revived and will have permanent disabilities as a result of the inflicted trauma.”

Police who responded to the Hoffman Road home April 26, 2015, found the month-old infant with no pulse and not breathing. The baby was treated at St. John’s Hospital in Maplewood for bleeding on the brain. The child had bruises on his face, head and shoulders and his leg bones were fractured, according to the complaint.

Investigators said Whiteaker gave inconsistent accounts of what happened to the child, none of which “would explain the devastating and permanent injuries suffered by this child,” the complaint said.

Whiteaker was sentenced May 27 to 103 months in prison. He’ll get credit for the year he already served in jail and is expected to be eligible for release in February 2021.

You might think you know something about this 5-year-old girl wearing flamingo pink leggings as she eats a cotton candy ice cream cone on St. Paul’s Rice Street.

You might assume that her favorite color is pink. Or that her short life has been full of her daydreams about visiting places like Disneyland and the Eiffel Tower.

Both presumptions would be wrong.

Her favorite color is actually the green in the glitter she has over her purple nail polish. And lately, her life has mostly been a nightmare.

She is the girl who a stranger approached in the North End as she waited for her school bus May 2. The girl is fierce — she has taken karate, her mother had reminded her about “stranger danger” just that morning, and she told the young male that she did not want to go with him. But she is 5 years old, 3 1/2 feet tall and about 40 pounds, and the suspect took her hand and led her away.

Police now are confirming for the first time that the male raped the girl, in addition to physically assaulting her. A school bus driver found her soon after, with her pants and underwear around her right ankle. She was bleeding from the nose and mouth and crying so much that she could not tell police officers what happened.

Nearly six weeks since the assault, police and the family are pleading for any little bit of information from the public to solve the case.

“I need him to be caught, to hold him accountable for what he’s done to her, and he obviously needs help,” the mother said. The Pioneer Press is not naming the girl or her mother because the child was a victim of a sexual assault.

As the girl recently enjoyed her ice cream cone on the patio of Dar’s Double Scoop, her childhood innocence was evident: The pre-kindergartner mentioned her school’s end-of-the-year celebration.

“We’re going to do water balloons! I can’t wait,” she said. She explained what her favorite animals are — lions and dogs — and how she would love to go horseback riding again. She did once, when she was 4.

But the trauma she and her family are living through was also just below the surface. For a moment, tears rolled down her mother’s face, behind her sunglasses. The girl asked, “Mom, are you crying?” and embraced her.

Soon after, the girl played with her mother’s cellphone at a nearby table and returned, saying, “I made a song about that day.”

She played what she’d just recorded on the phone and it was her voice singing, “Why do you be mean to little kids?”

LITTLE GIRL AT THE HOSPITAL

The girl’s mother said she thinks intuition led her to pick up her phone to call her daughter’s school May 2.

It wasn’t her normal routine, though something that morning made her think she should check that the girl arrived safely. But before she could dial, the woman’s cellphone rang.

A St. Paul police officer said her name and asked, “ ‘Can you come home right now? You need to come home,’ ” the woman said. The officer told her something happened to her daughter.

When she was allowed to see her only child at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics in St. Paul, the girl looked “very bruised, very battered, very broken, very somber,” the woman said.

“I was crying hysterically,” she continued. “They said I couldn’t do that in front of her, that it was frightening her. That I needed to calm down and be there for her. I couldn’t turn on my emotions cause I had to be strong for her.”

The family was initially told not to ask the girl what happened because she would be talking to an expert in interviewing child victims.

“They wanted the information not to be tainted by having her repeat the story over and over,” her mother said.

Now, they know these horrific details: Some time after the girl’s mother dropped her off at her school bus stop in the area of Park Street and Cook Avenue, a young male crossed the street toward her.

He asked where she lived and told her, “Come with me.” The girl said, “no,” but that’s when he grabbed her hand and led her away, her mother said.

The male brought her up an alley and the girl says he took her into a yard.

“The story gets foggy at that point,” the mother said. “She told us, ‘He seemed nice at first, but he turned mean really fast.’ ” The girl reported he hit her in the face over and over again.

Outside Dar’s ice cream shop this week, the girl was flitting around the patio as her mother told a reporter what had occurred. The child approached at one point.

“I screamed,” she said. “I don’t want to tell the rest.” She ran toward the other side of the patio.

“It’s OK, you don’t have to go in the bushes,” her mother told her. “Come here, sweetie, I don’t want you to feel alone over there.”

LOOKING FOR A NEW HOME

The nights are the worst time.

That is when the girl cries, sleepwalks, has nightmares and punches at the air, said her mother, who holds and comforts the girl.

“Some really sad moments,” her mother said. “Very traumatizing.” Still, the girl is “really strong” and mostly seems herself in the daytime, the woman said.

The girl has been going to therapy twice a week, and the kindness of strangers has been heartening to the family. People have donated gift cards for groceries, and so many teddy bears and dolls that the girl has been opening a gift a day.

“This is just not the way you want Christmas to come,” the woman said.

But for all the community support, the woman also knows people have been critical on social media and in comments on online news stories about her leaving her daughter alone to wait for her bus – though she feels the blame should be placed squarely on the person who hurt her child.

“I’m terribly, terribly, terribly saddened that this happened to my child,” she said. “I can’t go back and fix it. There’s no time machine to take me back to those moments and say, ‘I’m not going to go to work on time today.’ ”

The woman said she and the girl’s father had trouble finding affordable before-school care for the child, and they both needed to get to work on time.

For about a month, the woman had been dropping the girl off at her school bus stop to wait for a short time until her bus arrived.

“We thought she should be able to stand at a bus stop close to our house and get to school safely,” the woman said.

Since the attack, moving has become the woman’s highest priority. She doesn’t know if the suspect resides in their neighborhood, and she doesn’t want her daughter to live so close to where she was victimized.

But the woman said they haven’t been able to find a decent place they can afford and she’s hesitant about living too far from St. Paul. She said her car needs expensive mechanical work and can’t reach 50 mph, so she doesn’t drive on the highways.

A woman who knows the family has set up an online fundraiser, trying to help them move and cover other expenses.

POLICE SEEKING TIPS

Since the 5-year-old girl was sexually assaulted, her mother said she keeps seeing other articles about cases in St. Paul that sicken her.

“Where is our safety?” the woman said. “Why are they attacking women and children like that?”

Three days after the North End case, a man kidnapped and sexually assaulted a 7-year-old girl in the Cathedral Hill neighborhood. A man has been charged and police said the cases are not connected.

Despite the recent cases, “stranger attacks are very uncommon in our city,” said St. Paul Police Sgt. Matt Toronto, a sex-crimes investigator.

Finding the person responsible for assaulting the 5-year-old girl has been “one of those true whodunits,” he said.

The girl’s young age has been a particular challenge, along with the fact that the suspect struck her in the head, potentially making it difficult for the girl to remember details, Toronto said.

Through their investigation, police have established a more specific time frame about when the assault happened May 2 — sometime between 7:48 a.m. and 8:06 a.m. Police believe it happened outdoors, somewhere near Park Street and Cook Avenue.

Investigators have reviewed surveillance video in the area, canvassed the neighborhood and made public pleas for people with information to come forward. So far, none of the leads has panned out.

“We’re looking for somebody to start talking about … the hunches that have been maybe overlooked or not acted upon because they convinced themselves it’s unlikely,” Toronto said. “It’s a busy intersection … there’s lots of school buses, there’s lots of people out. I think that somebody had the opportunity to see something and we really need that person to come forward and help us with additional information.”

Police initially said the girl described her attacked as “a big older boy,” saying he was a black male wearing a blue shirt and blue pants. Her mother said this week that the girl has provided additional information: he had carmel-colored skin and his eyes were a light color (they might have been gray, green or blue), a skinny build and was not very tall. His voice was not deep enough to be a grown man, the mother believes, based on what her daughter told her. She guesses he was a pre-teen or teenager.

The description is the best the girl can give, but it might not be exact.

Police say people shouldn’t get hung up on the description, and they ask anyone with any bit of information to call them at 651-266-5685.

FINDING HER STRENGTH

After the attack, the girl’s mother’s first instinct was to keep her inside.

“I wanted to stay in the house, in the dark and just hold her,” the woman said.

But the girl sought normalcy and some of her favorite ice cream, so she went with her aunt to the neighborhood ice cream parlor.

They returned to Dar’s recently to talk to a reporter, with the mother saying she had to bring her daughter because she didn’t have someone to watch her. “Now something’s terrible happened, I can’t trust her with anybody.”

She wants to maintain financial stability and to allow her daughter to still be the little girl who’s excited for kindergarten, who likes to swim and climb and make crafts.

She does not push her daughter to talk about what happened, but she also needs her to know that she can.

The girl still doesn’t know the word “raped” and her mother doesn’t want her to. Her daughter should not be defined by what someone did to her, she says. She wants her to grow up to be strong, not afraid of anyone, and she sees that in her daughter on the patio at Dar’s.

The 5-year-old walks up: “Do you want to hear my roar?,” she asks, mentioning her favorite animal again.

She shouts, “Rahhhrr!!!” and then, “That was loud.”

DALLAS — A police officer shot and injured a man who was involved in a domestic disturbance outside a baggage claim area at Dallas Love Field airport on Friday, authorities said.

Assistant Dallas Police Chief Randall Blankenbaker says a man was using rocks to attack a woman in a car at the airport on Friday afternoon when an officer responded to the incident.

Blankenbaker says the man rushed the officer. He says the officer was able to get away before he was rushed again by the man. Blankenbaker says the officer then fired his weapon at the man several times. He says the man was taken to a local hospital; his condition was not immediately known.

Video posted by Instagram user @flashyfilms— and credited to Bryan Armstrong shows people scattering outside a baggage claim door as an officer in a yellow vest trains a gun toward a baggage claim entrance. At least eight gunshots can be heard as a man’s voice repeatedly yells “stand down!” A woman can be heard screaming.

Traveler Lucinda Fonseca told WFAA-TV that she and her husband were coming out of the baggage claim area when they saw police approaching the man throwing rocks and one of the officers drew a gun.

“The man was yelling at the cops, basically saying ‘shoot me shoot me, I dare you,’ something to that effect,” Fonseca said.

She heard gunfire while trying to reach a vehicle picking up the couple.

“I crouched down on the ground,” she said. “I didn’t know where the bullets were going.”

About an hour after the first public reports, people were streaming out of Dallas Love Field and hours-long delays are being reported.

Some travelers were on airplanes when the shooting occurred Friday afternoon but were ordered off when the terminal was cleared. They said Transportation Safety Administration officials were estimating it would take five hours to get through security.

A Cottage Grove man pleaded guilty this week in Washington County District Court to a charge of first-degree burglary after he allegedly put on a ski mask with a skeleton face, burst into a house and began hitting a man at a party.

According to a criminal complaint, Cottage Grove police were called to a house on Grafton Avenue at 4 a.m. Oct. 18 and arrested Brian James Hickson, 33. Witnesses told police that Hickson kicked in the kitchen door and charged at a man who was with Hickson’s ex-girlfriend. Hickson also threatened to stab the man and to stab and shoot everyone at the party, the complaint said.

Hickson did not have a gun, but a search revealed that he had a 4-inch knife, brass knuckles and several lug nuts that had been taken from his ex-girlfriend’s vehicle, which was parked across the street, according to the complaint.

The girlfriend told police she was afraid of Hickson, who had recently texted her a photo of himself sitting in front of her house with a gas can, according to the complaint.

Sentencing for Hickson is scheduled for Aug. 23.

MADISON, Wis. — Former “Saved by the Bell” star Dustin Diamond tested positive for a painkiller last month in violation of his probation conditions, according to records the Wisconsin Department of Corrections released Friday.

Diamond, 39, who played Screech on the popular 1990s television show about a group of California high school students, was convicted last year in Wisconsin on charges he stabbed a man during a barroom brawl in Port Washington, just north of Milwaukee, in 2014. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail. He was released in April and placed on probation with conditions that he maintain absolute sobriety and not use any controlled substances or prescription medication without a doctor’s permission.

He was arrested on May 25 and spent two days in the Ozaukee County Jail for what corrections officials would describe only as a probation violation. Records the DOC released Friday show Diamond took a urine test in his probation agent’s office the day he was arrested and it came back positive for oxycodone.

His probation agent wrote in her report that when she confronted Diamond about the test he initially denied using any drugs or alcohol but then said he may have taken a pill for a toothache two days before the test.

He said he thought the pill was from an old prescription and didn’t know what it was, according to the agent’s report. Diamond said there were no pills left, he had thrown the bottle away and he hadn’t seen a doctor for pain medication since he was released from jail, the report said.

The probation agent wrote that Diamond lied about the use of a narcotic drug and didn’t follow its prescription.

Diamond’s attorney in the stabbing case, Daniel Fay, said he no longer represents Diamond and doesn’t know anything about the probation violation.

According to the DOC records, he told his probation agent he’s been pursuing stints as a stand-up comedian. Corrections officials granted him permission in May to travel to Los Angeles to film an interview with the television news magazine “Extra.” Mario Lopez, who co-starred with Diamond on “Saved by the Bell” as Slater, hosts the show.

Diamond’s agent later chastised him for his remarks during the “Extra” interview, saying he downplayed his crime, took no responsibility for it and showed no empathy for the victim. Diamond replied to the agent that he didn’t watch the interview to see how it was edited and he does take responsibility for the offense, saying it was a series of mistakes that night.

A former East Metro chiropractor was charged Thursday with orchestrating his third Ponzi scheme.

Randy Scott Miland, 62, of White Bear Lake is accused of soliciting $575,000 from his chiropractic clients to make investments on their behalf. Instead, he used their money to pay personal expenses — including court-ordered restitution to victims of previous schemes, charging documents say.

“Randy Miland is a serial scam artist with no regard for his victims,” Minnesota Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman said in a prepared statement. “He used fake investments to steal
people’s life savings before, and now he’s done it again.”

Miland could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon. His attorney declined to comment, saying he had not yet reviewed the charges.

Between 2010 and 2014, Miland stole or attempted to steal $575,000 from clients of his White Bear Lake chiropractic practice, court documents say. Although his clients believed Miland was making legitimate investments with their money, he allegedly used at least $300,000 of it to pay personal expenses, make Ponzi-type payments to other investors and make court-ordered restitution payments to victims of previous swindles.

Miland was convicted in 1999 and 2006 for stealing clients’ money in similar schemes, according to court documents. He was ordered to pay a total of $1.8 million in restitution to the victims in those cases. As of May 2016, he still owed about $1.6 million, court documents say.

Miland’s chiropractic license was revoked in 2015 when the latest allegations came to light after an investigation by the Minnesota Board of Chiropractic Examiners and the Minnesota Attorney General’s office. They referred their findings to law enforcement officials.

Miland was charged Thursday in U.S. District Court with five counts of mail fraud and one count of money laundering.

An 11-year-old girl was killed Friday evening in a hit-and-run incident in Aitkin County, according to the Minnesota State Patrol.

The girl was a pedestrian on Minnesota 18 along the north shore of Lake Mille Lacs when she was hit just before 8 p.m., according to a preliminary report from the State Patrol.

A description of the vehicle involved was not available late Friday night.

The State Patrol said it is investigating and seeking the public’s help in locating a possible witness to the crash.

Investigators want to talk to the driver of a white Ford pickup truck pulling a white fifth-wheel camper with black trim.

The pickup was in the area and the occupants might have witnessed the crash, the State Patrol said.

The driver of the pickup or anyone else with information about the crash should contact State Patrol Lt. Adam Fulton at 218-318-3025.

Three people were wounded when a Rice County party escalated into violence early Saturday morning, the Rice County sheriff’s office said.

According to a news release, sheriff’s deputies from Rice, Scott and Dakota counties responded to a call of shots fired just before 3 a.m. in the 4800 block of Elmore Avenue in Webster Township, about 40 miles south of the Twin Cities. Officers from the Lonsdale, Northfield, Faribault and New Prague police departments and the Minnesota State Patrol also responded to the scene.

Officers also found two men inside a car near the scene of the shooting. Both men had gunshot wounds to their lower extremities. One was airlifted and the other was taken by ambulance to a trauma center.

Authorities said the shooting occurred when a fight broke out at a party. None of the victims is from the immediate area.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Rice County sheriff’s office at 507-334-4391.

St. Paul police are investigating a fatal shooting Sunday night in the 400 block of Lexington Parkway North.

Police were called to the scene at 8 p.m. Sunday. A man was found shot in a parking lot at Lexington and Aurora Avenue and was pronounced dead at the scene.

At about 10:30 p.m., officers were still canvassing the scene, gathering information and attempting to contact witnesses. Police did not release the victim’s name Sunday evening, but a woman at the scene, Jeanette McDaniel, said she was his mother and identified him as 31-year-old Renaldo Trez McDaniel.

Jeanette McDaniel said she was playing bingo in Bloomington when she heard her son had been shot. She quickly drove to the scene.

She mother was visibly angry and said her son had been shot in the head. She added that she believed the shooting was gang-related.

McDaniel was a father of seven children, and his youngest was about to turn 2 years old, his mother said.

As police investigated the shooting, dozens of people flocked to the area, with some weeping and falling to the ground.

Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the St. Paul Police Department’s homicide unit at 651-266-5650.

A western Wisconsin man who had threatened to shoot law enforcement officers was found hiding in a house after a standoff lasting several hours, authorities say.

Trempealeau County sheriff’s officials said officers were called to a house in Independence about 7:30 p.m. Sunday. The homeowner said a man with a gun was threatening to use it against law enforcement.

Tactical officers arrived, nearby homes were evacuated and negotiators spent several hours trying to talk the man into surrendering. Officers deployed “chemical agents” into the house and eventually went in after the suspect. He was found hiding in a crawlspace. Officers again used chemicals to get the man out of the crawlspace, and he surrendered.

He’s being held at the Trempealeau County Jail.

Oak Park Heights police are searching for a person who walked into Walmart early Sunday morning, pried open a cash register with a crowbar and escaped with an undisclosed amount of cash.

The incident happened about 1:45 a.m. Sunday; the store is open 24 hours a day.

Police Chief Brian DeRosier said the person’s face and body were covered, and witnesses could not tell the person’s race or gender.

The person walked right up to a manager’s cash register — next to a regular cash register — and pried open the drawer with the crowbar, DeRosier said.

The burglar then walked to the store’s customer-service area and appeared to try to pry open another drawer behind the counter. They then fled to a black passenger Chevrolet sedan that was waiting outside, DeRosier said. The car did not have a front license plate; witnesses said the car had a rear license plate, but they could not determine the numbers, he said.

“Obviously, we feel the individual had some knowledge of where they were going and what they were doing — whether they were a former employee or just someone who had seen a manager access the drawer while shopping,” he said. “We feel they had been in the store before.”

Anyone with information about the crime is asked to call Oak Park Heights police at 651-439-4723.