The United States government announced Tuesday (April 29, 2025) that criminal charges against South Dakota ranchers Charles and Heather Maude had been dropped.
In March 2024 (March 29, 2024), the Maudes were notified that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service had received a complaint claiming a fence between their property and the adjacent Buffalo Gap National Grasslands blocked access to the Grasslands. The Maudes and the Forest Service agreed to a survey of the property lines, after which the Maudes say they were not given a copy of the survey results. Then, in June 2024 (June 20, 2024), a federal grand jury indicted the couple alleging they had knowingly stolen the land for their personal use.
During a news conference Wednesday (April 30, 2025) in Washington, D.C., U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins gave a very brief summary of what the Maude family has gone through.
South Dakota U.S. Senator and Republican Majority Leader John Thune issued the following in response to the charges against Charles and Heather Maude being dropped. “I’m glad this case has been resolved and the Maude family can finally put this behind them. I appreciate Secretary Rollins’ leadership, and I welcome her work to review the land dispute process to ensure situations like this can be avoided moving forward.”
The Maude family ranch is located approximately 20 miles southeast of Rapid City, near Caputa in Pennington County.
Leaders of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and Public Lands Council are speaking out against action taken by federal authorities that has resulted in charges being brought against family ranchers in western South Dakota.
Charles and Heather Maude operate a diversified ranch, raising cattle, hogs and crops. In June (June 20, 2024), the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Dakota indicted the Maudes on charges of theft of government property related to a piece of U.S. Forest Service land surrounded by land owned by the Maudes for five generations.
NCBA President and Wyoming rancher Mark Eisele says the Maudes have spent their lives protecting natural resources, investing in their land and raising their children. He says the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Attorney’s Office have “maliciously targeted and prosecuted these family ranchers, and it’s clear that if this can happen in South Dakota, government overreach can happen anywhere.”
PLC Executive Director Kaitlynn Glover says as partners with federal agencies, public lands ranchers rely on open, transparent communication with the government. In this case, she says the U.S. Forest Service threatened “their family, their ranch, and their land.” She says this kind of behavior by law enforcement “should never have been allowed to result in criminal charges.”
The NCBA and PLC say the Forest Service law enforcement officer who targeted the Maudes and the U.S. Attorney’s Office have both acted far beyond their authority in pursuing the Maudes.
“The Maude family are public lands permittees in good standing, and they have always been the first to step forward as constructive partners in federal land management,” said PLC President Mark Roeber, a public lands grazing permittee. “This case is a prime example of what can happen when federal agencies view ranchers as enemies, rather than partners. I urge the U.S. Forest Service to rethink their plan to slap handcuffs on these hardworking ranchers and instead pursue an alternative resolution to this issue.”
“The Forest Service’s actions in this case—especially the deference they’ve given to a heavy-handed special agent with a long history of abusing permittees—is absolutely unconscionable,” said NCBA Vice President of Government Affairs Ethan Lane. “NCBA is actively engaged with Congress to address this situation and find an outcome that protects this family. The Forest Service has a long, shameful history of creating confrontation with ranchers in South Dakota, and their escalation to imprisonment over a century-old fence line has shaken the confidence of permittees nationwide. Secretary Vilsack and the White House must engage now to get control of the Forest Service and the Department of Justice.”
