A man was sentenced Friday to three years of probation and ordered to pay restitution for breaking into Vadnais Heights motorsports dealership on Christmas morning and taking an all-terrain vehicle on a rampage that caused nearly $300,000 in damages.
Austin Michael Erickson (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)
Video surveillance from Tousley Motorsports shows Austin Michael Erickson crashing a Polaris all-terrain utility vehicle into motorcycles, snowmobiles, ATVs and other merchandise. He then plowed through two overhead garage doors on his way out, barely missing a Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy who had arrived on scene on a report of a glass break alarm just before 6:30 a.m. Dec. 25.
Deputies caught up with Erickson after he ran from the vehicle toward a wooded area. He was wearing a Tousley jacket and a red helmet that he also stole from the business.
Ramsey County District Judge Joy Bartscher sentenced Erickson, 31, of Little Canada, under terms of a plea deal he reached with prosecution in June.
In exchange for pleading guilty to first-degree criminal damage to property, two other felony charges — second-degree burglary and motor vehicle theft — were dismissed. A one-year prison term was stayed for three years, during which time Erickson will be on supervised probation, and he was given 221 days in jail — time that he has already served. He remained at the Ramsey County jail on Friday involving a separate 2023 case.
Bartscher ordered Erickson to pay Tousley Motorsports restitution in the amount of $94,707.86, which represents damages not covered by its insurance and deductibles for the building and wrecked vehicles.
“Mr. Erickson chose my business at random to attack and destroy,” Tousley Motorsports owner and president David Glassman said in a statement read in court by his attorney, Michael Vetter.
According to Glassman, Erickson caused $10,299.37 in damage to customer vehicles; $63,933.15 in damage to inventory; a “staggering” $169,313.10 in damage to the building and property; and nearly $40,000 in income the business missed out on while being closed for a day to clean up the mess.
“The money is only one part of the issue that was caused by Mr. Erickson’s actions,” the statement read. “This all took place on Christmas. My employees volunteered to come in to try to get the place boarded up and the lot secured. They did this at the expense of their families.”
In a phone interview after the sentencing hearing, Glassman said restitution is the “minimum that (Erickson) should have to do.”
Glassman said he is “extremely disappointed” that Erickson was given the opportunity to make a plea deal. “And then … it’s just probation and time served,” he said from Las Vegas, where he’s attending a Polaris dealer meeting. “You know, so what kind of message does that send to everybody else? Not a very good one.”
The break-in
After his arrest, Erickson told deputies in an interview that he had contacted a friend from high school and agreed to meet him at Tousley Motorsports, which is along County Road E, west of U.S. 61. “They did dope,” walked to Tousley and climbed the fence, the criminal complaint said of what Erickson told deputies.
Erickson said he used a trailer hitch to break glass to get inside, and he relayed information to his friend who was “outside scouting and watching.” Deputies did not find another person on the scene.
At the time, Erickson had three ongoing Ramsey County court cases filed in 2023 that he was out on bond for — motor vehicle theft, threats of violence and second-degree assault. The cases remain open.
In a Dec. 27 hearing on the Tousley charges, prosecutors asked Ramsey County District Judge Paul Yang to set Erickson’s bail at $200,000; Yang set it at $5,000 bail or bond with no conditions or $500 cash bail with conditions.
That prompted Glassman to send out a statement to the media in which he called the $500 bond a “joke” and added, “To say we are shocked is an understatement.”
Glassman mentioned then how Erickson has an extensive criminal history and added, ”Had he been properly prosecuted for his past crimes, he wouldn’t have been able to commit the multiple felonies on Christmas which were all eyewitnessed by our surveillance cameras and law enforcement on site.”
Erickson’s criminal history includes two convictions for marijuana possession in 2017 and four others from that same year: fleeing police, tampering with a motor vehicle, disorderly conduct and violating a no-contact order. In January 2023, he was cited by the Forest Lake city attorney for possession of drug paraphernalia and improper transport of a firearm (a shotgun) after being stopped on an interstate for going 94 mph in a 70 mph zone.
Court records also show that Erickson on Oct. 24 pleaded guilty to a charge of possessing a firearm by an ineligible person stemming from the second-degree assault case in which he allegedly pointed a gun at his ex-girlfriend on Feb. 6 in North St. Paul.
Under terms of a plea deal, the assault charge would have been dismissed at sentencing along with two other 2023 cases. Erickson posted bond the same day he entered the plea and was released from custody, with an order to appear for sentencing on Jan. 19. His new sentencing date is scheduled for Oct. 21.
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