In diverting Tesla vandalism charges, Mary Moriarty again finds herself at the center of a firestorm

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty found herself in a familiar place Wednesday afternoon.

It was not the Brooklyn Park library, where she held a press conference announcing a new initiative that will make gun locks free at 11 libraries in Hennepin County, it was, instead, at the center of a political firestorm.

“That is the reality, I guess, of this job, this work,” Moriarty said.

Moriarty placed 33-year-old Dylan Bryan Adams into an adult diversion program rather than filing criminal charges after he keyed six Teslas around Minneapolis last month totaling more than $20,000 damage. As a result, her political critics exploded.

In recent months, people across the country and in the Twin Cities have vandalized Tesla vehicles in protest of Elon Musk, an advisor to President Donald Trump, and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as they significantly cut federal workers and programs.

Moriarty said Wednesday that her office made the decision outside of any political consideration.

“We try to make decisions without really looking at the political consequences,” Moriarty said. “Can we always predict how a story will be portrayed in the media or what people will say? No.”

The Daily Mail called Moriarty “America’s wokest” county attorney. The New York Post said Moriarty let a “thug” walk and it was “open season on Team Trump.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley appeared on FOX News Wednesday morning and said the keying of the Tesla was domestic terrorism and the crime was being ignored by “progressive, woke politicians.”

“Political violence of any type is completely unacceptable and shame on the Democrats for encouraging it, rather than trying to fight it,” Whatley said.

That Adams is a state employee, working for the Department of Human Services as a program consultant, opened the door to insinuations about the influence of Gov. Tim Walz in the dismissal.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in a statement that his department “did its job.”

“Any frustration related to the charging decision of the Hennepin County Attorney should be directed solely at her office.”

The Hennepin County District Court passed 10,000 criminal complaints for the year on Wednesday — the calculus for what crimes get charged is case specific and depends on the law enforcement investigation and how the Attorney’s Office views the strength of the evidence presented.

Cases around felony first-degree property damage are common and require more than $1,000 in estimated damage. This is what Adams would have been charged with if Moriarty’s office prosecuted him.

In the last week, there have been four people charged with the crime in Hennepin County — that includes a man who allegedly fled police and rammed a state patrol car causing $4,878.93 in damage and another man who allegedly broke 10 windows at the Burrito Loco in Dinkytown and caused $50,000 in damage.

But one case is striking for the argument Moriarty has made around Adams being a first-time offender.

A 19-year-old Robbinsdale woman with no criminal record was charged with first-degree felony property damage on Monday after she allegedly keyed her coworker’s car at the White Castle in Brooklyn Park. The damage to the car was estimated at $7,000. She is due to make her first court appearance in two weeks.

When asked how she could balance that charging decision with the decision to not charge Adams, Moriarty didn’t directly respond. She said her office’s main goal 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. She said all of that will happen in Adams’ case, and if he fails to complete the diversion program criminal charges will be filed.

“Should we have treated this gentleman differently because it’s a political issue?” Moriarty asked. “We made this decision because it is in the best interest of public safety.”

Moriarty lamented that instead of discussing the emotionally devastating consequences of gun violence to young people and children, she was instead forced to talk about damage to Teslas.

Throughout her tenure as county attorney, Moriarty has tried to push forward with the reform platform she was elected on — to philosophically reexamine criminal prosecution in Hennepin County.

Whatever thoughtful movements she makes, though, tend to get overwhelmed by controversial decisions that enflame her critics and the law enforcement offices she works with.

She has openly accepted this criticism in the past as part of her job.

Her handling of the murder of Zaria McKeever — including two plea deals for the teenagers who killed her at the behest of Erick Haynes — resulted in Walz remvoving the case from her and assigning it to Attorney General Keith Ellison. One of the brothers accepted the plea deal before it was taken over by Ellison and is currently at a residential after-care program. The other brother was sentenced to 11-years in prison and is set to be released to probation in 2030. Haynes got a life sentence.

In her first week on the job, Moriarty dismissed a rape case four days into trial after it was discovered that a veteran prosecutor lied to the court and tried to cover it up after she was passed a fairly inconsequential note from a victim advocate. The decision to dismiss was criticized by other legal experts and a juror.

The Attorney’s Office had to remove itself from resentencing Brian Flowers because Moriarty had a personal conflict of interest, as she had counseled Flowers before being elected county attorney. Ramsey County handled that case and Flowers is moving toward being released from prison.

A no-prison plea deal was given to Husayn Braveheart for his role in the death of Steven Markey during a carjacking in 2019. Braveheart, who was 15 at the time of the crime, pleaded guilty to attempted assault, a charge that infuriated Markey’s family. An initial plea deal negotiated by Moriarty’s office in that case was rejected by Hennepin County Judge Michael Burns as being too lenient. Braveheart was later charged with fleeing police in Dakota County, but was found not guilty of the crime at trial.

Most notable was Moriarty’s handling of the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II by Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan. She initially charged Londregan with second-degree murder, manslaughter and assault after Cobb was killed during a traffic stop on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis in 2023.

Moriarty later dismissed the charges amid a flurry of criticism from police supporters, Londregan’s attorney Chris Madel and political figures in the state, including Walz. Moriarty said new expert analysis of video from the traffic stop led her to drop the charges. She also claimed Walz was going to take the case from her because of her sexual orientation, which prompted Walz to tersely respond that was “false.”

That dismissal also came after the Attorney’s Office spent $578,000 to hire outside counsel after the assistant Hennepin County attorney on the case removed himself.

The stakes in declining the Tesla charges were obviously smaller — no one had been assaulted or killed — but the conversation was the same: an enormous swell of controversy from a decision by the county attorney.

On Wednesday afternoon, Moriarty announced her gun lock partnership with Hennepin County libraries in front of a row of children’s books. A group of community leaders and members of Moms Demand Action stood alongside Moriarty as she introduced an initiative to try and help limit gun violence in her community.

But not many people were talking about that.

Paul Walsh, Kim Hyatt, Liz Sawyer and Andy Mannix of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this report.