Records for May 22

This is the records summary for May 22.
Teen hurt in First Street crash
WILLMAR - A 16-year-old Willmar teenager was taken by Willmar Ambulance Service to Rice Memorial Hospital in Willmar for treatment of injuries suffered in a multiple-vehicle crash reported at noon Wednesday at the intersection of First Street and Litchfield Avenue.
According to Willmar police, Katie DeGraw was driving a 2004 Pontiac southbound over the First Street bridge and struck from behind two vehicles that had stopped at the stoplight at the base of the bridge.
The drivers of those vehicles, Caitlin Ehrenberg, 20, of Atwater, and Jennifer Luberts, 28, of Hawick, were not injured.
Also called to the crash were the Kandiyohi County Sheriff’s Office and rescue squad and the Willmar Fire Department.
Burglary
WILLMAR - A burglary was reported around 9:40 p.m. Tuesday along the 1200 block of 24th Street Northwest. A television, jewelry and shoes were missing from a residence.
District Court
Kandiyohi County
* Mahad Muhidin Tahlil, 22, of Willmar, was sentenced Wednesday to a year and a day in prison, which was stayed, five years of probation, 90 days in jail and a $5,000 fine, of which $4,000 was stayed, on a felony charge of attempted simple robbery for his role in assaulting and robbing the clerk of Trav’s Dino Mart on Jan. 25, 2012.
As part of a plea agreement, two misdemeanor charges of theft and assault were dismissed.
Tahlil and Abass Warsame Mumin, 24, of Willmar, were charged in the case. Mumin was sentenced to 14 months in prison, which was stayed, 92 days in jail, five years of probation, 250 hours of community service and a $50 fine on the same simple robbery charge.
The charges were filed after the men were identified as the perpetrators of the Dino Mart robbery and another theft in the downtown Willmar area after Willmar police posted video surveillance images of the men on the department’s Facebook page.
According to the complaints, police officers were called to the First Street South gas station, where a cashier reported that three men had entered the station and that one had grabbed her by the neck and pushed her. The man also grabbed the drawer of the cash register, causing it to fall the floor. The cashier reported that the men smelled of alcohol and that her cell phone was also missing. The third man is mentioned, but not identified in the court documents.
Security video showed the assault and the theft of the phone. During the same time period as the investigation into the robbery, police also took reports from other local businesses that three men described as Somali were entering businesses and being disruptive.
* Samuel Lee Berends, 22, of Willmar, pleaded guilty Tuesday to an amended gross misdemeanor charge for offering a forged check for his role in cashing a check forged on another person’s account.
As part of a plea agreement, the charge was reduced from felony level. He will be sentenced on July 10.
Berends is one of four people charged in the case. Stanley Gutierrez, 23, of Willmar, has pleaded guilty to a gross misdemeanor charge and will be sentenced June 18. The felony charge against Omar Escalante was dismissed and there is a warrant for the arrest of Oscar Escalante, 23, of Renville.
According to the complaint, the investigation began when Renville police reported to Willmar police that a Renville man had reported checks forged on his account had been cashed at two Willmar businesses. Berends was identified as one of four people who had forged a total of $5,150 on checks between Oct. 5 and Oct. 13 at the two businesses.
* Christopher Ray Maeyaert, 21, of Marshall, made his first appearance Wednesday on two felony charges of offering a forged check.
Unconditional bail was set at $20,000. His next appearance is June 2.
Maeyaert also faces a misdemeanor charge for driving after revocation.
According to the complaint, a Kandiyohi County sheriff’s deputy stopped Maeyaert’s vehicle after receiving information that the vehicle had left Teal’s Market in Spicer without paying for gas on March 28. Maeyaert was arrested after he allegedly told the deputy that he left a check written out for $115.29 for the gas and other items at the store after store officials told him they wouldn’t accept the check.
When he was interviewed at the county jail, Maeyaert also allegedly admitted to writing a $156.66 check to Teal’s on March 27 and that he knew there wasn’t money in the account to cover the amount.
Investigators also received information from Jackson County officials that the checks were for a fake account and that no such account existed at the Fairfax bank listed on the checks.
* Efrain Rojas III, 22, of Willmar, made his first appearance Wednesday on a fifth-degree drug sale charge for allegedly selling marijuana to a CEE-VI Drug Task Force informant.
Unconditional bail was set at $10,000. His next appearance is July 10.
According to the complaint, the informant purchased the drugs from Rojas on Dec. 20 in a vehicle in the McDonald’s parking lot in Willmar. The informant turned the marijuana over to agents and identified Rojas by photo as the person who sold the drugs.