Colfax man accused of threatening healthcare workers gets 18 months in prison for 5th OWI
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — A 58-year-old Colfax man charged with two felonies after threatening to bring an AK-47 to Mayo Clinic in Menomonie has been sentenced in a separate case to 18 months in prison for Operating While Intoxicated 5th offense.
Maurice R. Knutson appeared in Dunn County Circuit Court before Judge Luke M. Wagner on September 12 for a plea and sentencing hearing.
Knutson was charged with one felony count of.threatening bodily harm to an employee of a health care facility, one felony count of bail jumping and one misdemeanor count of unlawful telephone use to threaten harm.
In a separate case, Knutson was charged with OWI fifth offense.
Judge Wagner dismissed the felony count of threatening harm to an employee of a health care facility and dismissed the count of felony bail jumping but accepted Knutson’s plea of no contest for the unlawful use of a telephone to threaten harm and entered a plea of no contest for the charge of OWI fifth offense. The judge found him guilty on both charges..
The two felony counts were dismissed but were read into the record for sentencing.
In addition to 18 months of initial confinement, Judge Wagner sentenced Knutson to 18 months of extended supervision and ordered the defendant to pay a fine of $2,272.
Knutson’s driver’s license was revoked for three years, and he was ordered not to possess or consume alcohol and not to enter any bars, liquor stories or taverns.
For the count of unlawful use of a telephone threatening harm, Knutson was ordered to pay $463 in court costs.
Mayo Clinic
According to the criminal complaint, a day-shift assistant manager for security at Mayo Clinic in Menomonie reported on June 9, 2022, to the Menomonie Police Department that Maurice Knutson had threatened staff by telephone earlier in the day and had threatened a physician and had made comments about bringing an AK-47 rifle to the Mayo Menomonie Clinic.
The night shift assistant manager for Mayo Security confirmed the threats had been received and said Mayo Clinic Health System wanted to have charges considered and that the Menomonie hospital and clinic had been locked down in response to the threat.
A Mayo dietician told the investigator she had been working with Knutson as a patient for the past few weeks. The last time she had seen him in person was May 27 and that for the past week, she and Knutson “had been playing phone tag.” She had left a message for him earlier in the day on June 9, and Knutson had called her back around 3 p.m., according to the complaint.
Knutson was unhappy about treatment he had been receiving, and he became upset by some of the options the dietician had suggested, so the dietician had attempted to explain the options better.
The dietician said it seemed to her that Knutson was not understanding what she was trying to tell him, which increased his frustration and caused him “to escalate.”
Knutson made comments about not liking the last physician who had been working with him and expressed frustration about medical decisions previously made and became increasingly upset, the complaint states.
While talking about the physician, Knutson made a comment similar to “needing to go beat him up.”
“While discussing his frustration with his overall care through Mayo, Knutson made a comment similar to, ‘Do I have to come in with an AK-47?’ The Mayo dietician stated she was very surprised by this comment and had not known how to respond. The conversation had died off and the line eventually went dead, according to the criminal complaint.
Later on, after Knutson had been taken into custody, he told investigators that on June 9, he had been speaking by telephone with a Mayo dietician about his displeasure with the physician.
“He advised he became very upset while ‘venting’ to the Mayo dietician and did raise his voice several times on the phone. Knutson stated while talking about the Mayo physician with the dietician, he stated he wished he could ‘punch him in the head.’ Knutson stated he had said this out of frustration and had no intention of acting on it. He stated he was not a physical person and did not resolve conflict through violence,” according to the complaint.
When told about the charges against him, Knutson “advised he had never meant to act on any of the things he said and was sorry he said them,” the complaint states.
