Over a two-week period in March, Dylan Bryan Adams, 33, an employee of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, intentionally damaged at least six Tesla cars by “keying” them while out walking near his apartment in downtown Minneapolis. The damage to property was part of a nationwide politically motivated effort by left leaning activists to financially harm the owner of Tesla, Elon Musk, who has taken a lead role in the Trump Administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
As I wrote earlier this week, the Minneapolis Police Department completed a comprehensive investigation identifying Adams and presented the case to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office for felony prosecution. The appropriate charge would have been six counts of damage to property, with an aggregated damage total of nearly $21,000.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty had other plans.
On Monday April 21st, Moriarty announced that her office would be deferring prosecution in exchange for Adams’ participation in a pre-charge diversion program.
The Star Tribune reported that Moriarty defended her decision saying that the goal in these types of cases is “to hold the person accountable for keying the car, get restitution to the people affected, and avoid felony convictions when possible, because it can waylay someone’s life.”
That reasoning from Moriarty was purely surface level, and it failed to hold up to scrutiny for a single day.
In a bit of sound reporting, the Star Tribune also noted that on the very day Moriarty deferred charges against Adams’s six separate crimes totaling $21,000, Moriarty charged a 19-year-old Brooklyn Park female with no prior criminal history, with felony damage to property for a single incident of keying a co-worker’s car and causing $7,000 in damage.
The message Moriarty has sent seems clear – there are two separate systems of justice in Hennepin County and her office will do its part in protecting politically motivated crime against conservative causes.
Thankfully not all metro area county attorneys operate with Moriarty’s inconsistent standards. Brad Johnson, the Anoka County Attorney, posted this message on social media a day after Moriarty’s decision to defer charges against Adams:
Just so that no one gets any silly ideas in the North Metro from this story. Offenders who commit a crime spree causing tens of thousands in damages to multiple victims will not be approved for pre-charge diversion in Anoka County. This is especially true if the lawlessness is politically motivated.
Pre-charge diversion can be a very useful tool to deal with people – especially those that are immediately remorseful – who make a stupid mistake or commit isolated crimes when under some type of distress. That was not this. It makes it worse that the offender is a State employee in a position of public trust. He would likely become a felon in Anoka County.
If anyone gets the urge to damage cars or other property as a political statement … please think again … the First Amendment is not a defense to criminal misconduct. And we have enough on our hands right now.
Remember. Treat your neighbors like you would like to be treated.
I don’t think it could be said any better.