A woman who reached a $3 million settlement with Ramsey County last year after alleging that correctional officers used excessive force in the county jail was charged Monday with stealing from a St. Paul Target store and assaulting a police officer.

Police responded to Target at 1300 University Ave. about 10 a.m. Saturday on a report of a woman who hid items in a bag and swung it at a security guard.

Mira Monique Mozuch-Stafford (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Officers located a woman matching the suspect’s description walking on University Avenue with a pink bag. She was identified as Mira Monique Mozuch-Stafford, 31, of St. Paul.

While in the back of the squad car, Mozuch-Stafford screamed profanities and said that if the officer was on the street she would beat her up, charges say.

A Target employee identified the bag as the one Mozuch-Stafford used to steal the items and swing at the security guard, charges say. The value of merchandise she stole was just shy of $210.

While being transported to jail, Mozuch-Stafford repeatedly kicked the back of the driver’s seat, yelled profanities and spit at the officer through slits in the window partition of the squad car, according to the charges.

At jail, because of her “disorderly behavior,” Mozuch-Stafford was not immediately booked and had to be isolated, according to the criminal complaint charging her with felony fourth-degree assault of a peace officer and misdemeanor theft.

Mozuch-Stafford made a first court appearance on the charges Tuesday and remailed jailed in lieu of $35,000 bail. Her public defender did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Civil rights lawsuit

In late 2022, Miri Mozuch-Stafford filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Ramsey County and various sheriff’s office correctional officers, alleging they took her to the ground in the jail on Feb. 8, 2021, badly breaking her leg, and that she “languished in agony” for 17 hours before receiving hospital treatment. Her tibia was fractured and an artery was severed, the lawsuit said.

Miri Monique Mozuch-Stafford sued Ramsey County and employees over injuries she sustained at the jail on Feb. 8, 2021. (Photo filed with the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Minnesota)

Mozuch-Stafford had more than $360,000 in medical expenses. She is a nursing assistant by training and experience, but “will be partially or totally unable to perform such work or similar work,” the lawsuit said.

The county denied the allegations about the takedown in its legal response to the lawsuit.

A judge approved the $3 million settlement, which included covering attorney fees and court costs, in June 2023 and, as a result, dismissed the lawsuit.

Other trouble

Mozuch-Stafford has three additional open criminal court cases.

Last month, she was charged with motor vehicle theft and fifth-degree assault for allegedly jumping into a man’s running car as he went into a St. Paul restaurant to grab his food order. After the man opened his driver’s side door, she punched him in the arm several times, the charges say. She was granted a conditional release to treatment pending further proceedings, according to court records.

She was charged with felony fifth-degree drug possession (methamphetamine) in Goodhue County in September and December. In early January, she was found to be incompetent to proceed with the cases and failed to appear at hearings later that month, court records show.

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Former Minnesota hockey greats Natalie Darwitz and Krissy Wendell-Pohl were teammates with the Gophers from 2002-05, and now they’ll be going in together to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

The pair of former Gophers and U.S. Olympians will join Colin Campbell, Pavel Datsyuk, David Poile, Jeremy Roenick and Shea Weber to make up the 2024 class when it is inducted Nov. 11 in Toronto.

Wendell-Pohl got emotional when she found out they’d also be going into the hall together, especially as another sign of the growth and appreciation of women’s hockey.

“It’s crazy,” she said. “To think of how far the game has come in such a short amount of time but yet feels so long ago when you think of where it was back when we kind of started playing on boys (teams) and the opportunities now that girls have to play.”

Darwitz and Wendell-Pohl led Minnesota to back-to-back national championships in 2004 and 2005, and Darwitz was named the Frozen Four Most Outstanding Player in 2005.

Darwitz tallied 42 goals and 72 assists for 114 points in 2004-05, breaking the NCAA record for points in a single season. In just 99 career games, the three-time All-American currently ranks first in program history in points per game (2.48) and assists per game (1.45).

Wendell-Pohl was the 2005 Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award winner for the nation’s top player. The Brooklyn Park native ranks second in program history in points per game (2.35), goals per game (1.05) and assists per game (1.30).

On the international stage, Darwitz and Wendell-Pohl combined for five Olympic medals and 14 IIHF women’s world championship medals with Team USA. Both are members of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame and the ‘M’ Club Hall of Fame.

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MADISON, Wis. — Supporters of former President Donald Trump submitted 16 more valid signatures than needed to force a recall election of Wisconsin’s top elected Republican depending on what district the recall should be held in, based on a review by the state elections commission released Tuesday.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission will meet Thursday to vote on whether to order a recall election targeting Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. But the key question for the commission will be whether signatures to force the recall needed to come from the district Vos was elected to represent in the 2022 election, or if they should have come from his district created under new maps in effect for the 2024 election.

If the old maps are used, petition circulators gathered just enough signatures to force a recall, the elections commission staff said. If the new maps are used, they fell more than 3,000 signatures short. The staff took no position on which maps should be used.

The commission’s decision on whether to call the recall election can be appealed to circuit court.

Recall organizers targeted Vos, the longest-serving Assembly speaker in Wisconsin history, after he refused calls to decertify President Joe Biden’s narrow win in the state. Biden’s win of about 21,000 votes has withstood two partial recounts, numerous lawsuits, an independent audit and a review by a conservative law firm.

Vos further angered Trump supporters when he did not back a plan to impeach Meagan Wolfe, the state’s top elections official.

Vos, who has derided those targeting him as “whack jobs and morons,” said in a statement that he was confident the petitioners have not gathered enough legal signatures and will make that argument to the commission on Thursday.

The elections commission asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to clarify whether any recall election should take place in the district where Vos was elected to serve, or under new district boundary lines that take effect for the regular November election.

The court in April declined to further clarify or amend its December ruling that found the current maps to be unconstitutional and barred their future use.

Vos asserted that the recall effort must be rejected because of the Supreme Court’s order barring any future elections using the old district lines. But petition circulators said it can go forward because the state constitution allows for the recall of any incumbent.

Elections staff did not take a side, leaving it up to the bipartisan commission to decide what to do.

If the commission decides to order a recall election, it would be held on Aug. 6. If more than two candidates run in a recall election, the primary for that would be Aug. 6, with the recall election Sept. 3.

The state’s regular fall primary election, where Vos will be on the ballot seeking another two-year term, is Aug. 13. Even if there is a recall election and Vos loses, he would only be out of office through the end of the year. He could win the general election and be back in office starting in January. The Legislature is not scheduled to be in session again until January.

Trump supporters, including former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, on May 28 submitted more than 9,000 signatures to trigger the recall election.

They needed 6,850 valid signatures to force a recall election in the district where Vos was elected to serve. There were 6,866 valid signatures collected from that district.

There needed to be 7,195 from Vos’s new district for a recall, but only 3,807 were collected from that one, the elections commission report said.

In March, the group submitted more than 9,000 signatures, but the elections commission determined that only 5,905 of them were valid.

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