The following charges were filed in Dakota County Circuit Court: Dustin J. Klein, 30, St. Paul was charged with driving with a cancelled license after an Oct. 11 traffic stop in Ravenna Township. At 9:40 p.m., a deputy saw a vehicle traveling on Ravenna Trail near 200st Street East. The vehicle allegedly turned onto 200th Street without making a complete stop. Klein also had active arrest warrants and was taken into custody and booked into the Dakota County Jail.
Kevin Allen Strauss, 52, Ramsey, was charged with felony possession of methamphetamine and misdemeanor charges of driving while impaired and refusing to submit to a blood or urine test and driving under the influence of a controlled substance. At 1:54 a.m. on Oct. 20, he was in a vehicle parked at a Hastings business. A deputy witnessed him slumped over and apparently sleeping in the driver’s seat in the business parking lot, and an employee said he had been there for a few hours. When the officer woke Strauss and asked for his license, Strauss allegedly handed the deputy a butane torch. The deputy saw a plastic bag with bill bottles on the driver’s side floorboard. He needed to steady himself with the vehicle when ordered out of the car and had difficulty staying awake and his speech didn’t make sense. A glass drug pipe and plastic bag containing a crystal substance that tested as methamphetamine were found in the center console. He was booked into the Dakota County Jail.
Edward Lee Mears, 30, Hastings, was charged Oct. 21 with possession of methamphetamine, stemming from a Jan. 14 incident in Rosemount. An officer pulled over the vehicle Mears was driving and learned that his license was revoked. According to the complaint, Mears was cited 14 times in 2021 for driver after revocation. He was taken into custody, and drug paraphernalia was found. Methamphetamine was found in a locked container on the floor of the vehicle. A court summons was issued.
Stefan Arnason Egilsson, 56, Red Wing, was charged Oct. 19 with felony check forgery. The complaint states that police received a report of a check that was fraudulently cashed on Aug. 26. A check had been cashed in Hastings written out to Egilsson. The owner of the checking account told investigators she had not written the check to him, and he didn’t have permission to have one of her checks. The check was written in the amount of $395.
Michele Lynn Running,
56, Stacy, was charged Oct. 25 with possession of methamphetamine. The charges stem from a Dec. 20, 2021 traffic stop in Hastings. Police on that date pulled over a vehicle with an expired license plate registration. The driver said he had recently purchased the vehicle and didn’t know the plates were expired. The officer searched the vehicle, which Running was a passenger in. Inside her purse, the officer found a plastic bag containing a vile, with a substance in it that tested positive for the presence of methamphetamine.
Ryan Benjamin Smith,
39, Cambridge, was charged with a felony charge of third degree burglary. A burglary had been reported Oct. 16 at a storage facility in Hampton. Smith allegedly entered the storage facility three times between Oct. 6-9 and took items from storage units. A search warrant was executed Oct. 16 in Farmington and multiple items reported taken were allegedly found in the vehicle Smith had been driving.
