Mother of the South Dakota rancher facing prison over pre-1950 fence calls on Trump for help
Heather and Charles Maude each face 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines over an inherited fence built before 1950.
“President Trump keeps saying, ‘I am standing in the way; they are really going after you,’” says Randi Hamilton. “Those words keep going around in my head. These are just ordinary people trying to make a living.”
Randi and Tom Hamilton are asking the Trump Administration to intervene in their daughter and son-in-law’s case with the Forest Service (USFS), which goes to trial next month. Heather and Charles Maude each face up to a decade in prison and $250,000 in fines over the placement of an inherited boundary fence built before 1950.
“I know Trump and his team have a lot going on,” Randi says. “But the government is on steroids to make people’s lives miserable. Socially, financially, emotionally—in every regard. It’s beyond my comprehension that anyone would do this.”
As previously reported, the South Dakota ranching couple were indicted in June 2024 when a fence between their legacy ranch and USFS land was called into question by an unidentified hunter. The fence line has been acknowledged as the official boundary by the federal government every year since the start of the National Grasslands program in 1960. For over a century, the Maude family has farmed and irrigated the land with no objection, according to Randi. Through several generations, their permits have been renewed and transferred. That all changed last June, when Charles and Heather were charged with theft of government property. Both are under a gag order, unable to speak about their case with the media or each other. They have each had to retain separate council. Their trial is set for April 29.
Randi and Tom traveled from their home in Wyoming to look after their two grandkids during the couple’s recent hearing. “My little granddaughter is 7. She said, ‘Grandma, what’s going to happen to us if mom and dad go to jail today?’ It broke my heart.”
Like their daughter, Randi and Tom are ranchers.
“People like us don’t think this way, we’re not geared this way,” Randi says. At several points during our conversation, she breaks down in tears. “We’re geared to take care of the land and the animals. If a calf dies or we hurt the land, we have to stand and take the consequences of that. These government forces apparently don’t.”
20 Years in Prison Over a Fence Built Before 1950
The Maude family’s ordeal started on March 29, 2024, when a hunter allegedly complained about a “No Hunting” sign on a fencepost. USFS requested the Maudes take the sign down. They complied.
“They’re busy trying to make a living,” Randi says. “That fence was put there before they were born.”
To her knowledge, this mysterious hunter has never been identified.
“I don’t believe any hunter would have accidentally discovered an issue with that fence,” Tom says. He claims that onX, a navigational app hunters used to determine property lines, did not have the line correctly marked at the time. “I think it was someone who knew way more about Forest Service land than a hunter.”
The couple then met with District Ranger Julie Wheeler. Forest Service Special Agent Travis Lunders was also present.
The Maudes sought a solution, suggesting a special use permit or a land exchange under the Small Tract Act. They were told the Forest Service would first need to re-survey the land to determine property lines. The Maudes agreed. They were told this would occur at some point in the next year.
Instead, Lunders and a survey team arrived at the Maude ranch five days later. Lunders surveyed the fence in dispute. Without permission, Randi says, Lunders then crossed the rectangular piece of private property the Maudes own in the middle of USFS land to also examine their fence on the opposite side. The Maudes have a pivot irrigation system; a machine that waters an area in a circular pattern. While there is no dispute that all permanent components of the pivot are on private ground, Lunders allegedly decided the wheel and end of the pivot at the far end of the line may cross into USFS land.
Lunders came back to the ranch on June 24, in full tactical gear and with indictments.
“How did this happen so fast?” Randi says. “Who gave the OK? This was so extreme. The Forest Service is refusing all resolution. Under the Small Tract Act they can exchange land, switch it out, buy it out. Charles and Heather presented all of this to Julie Wheeler. USFS didn’t answer. Next thing you know, they’re indicted.”
Just 87 days passed between the mystery hunter’s alleged complaint and federal indictments for the young couple. Like the original complaint by the unnamed hunter, the survey has also been withheld.
“There’s a human side to this,” Randi says. “Heather volunteers with the local farmer’s market. Charles is the local volunteer fire chief and a first responder. He has worked with the Forest Service on fires. He goes above and beyond in volunteering and serving his community. He has never gotten so much as a speeding ticket. They both do so much.”
The case has sparked national outrage. Political leaders and ranching groups have spoken out in defense of the couple, including Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Congresswoman Harriet Hageman (R-WY). Randi has reached out to both the Biden and Trump administrations, so far with no success. She was told former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack never received her letters. In the last few weeks, in desperation, she has called the White House, the DOJ, the FBI. She hasn’t heard back.
“You’re not guaranteed that the fence in your yard is on the line.”
Fencing in rough country is an inexact science. In the vast and rugged rangeland of backcountry South Dakota where the Maudes have grazed cattle since before the Forest Service existed, fence lines constructed prior to modern tools and technology are at times crude in tracing boundaries across thousands of acres of imperfect, mountainous terrain.
At the spot in dispute, the Maude’s fence was suspended over Cheyenne River breaks.
“The Forest Service has about the same number of Charles and Heather’s acres on their side of the fence as Charles and Heather have of the Forest Service’s,” Randi says. “It’s just due to the practicality of putting fences where they belong. The Maudes have always allowed that land to be treated as public property. It’s rough country.”
Drawing on her years growing up in Colorado before its urban boom, Randi says urban Americans can relate to murky questions surrounding boundaries, too. She recalls an acquaintance who had a dispute with a neighbor after buying a house in town and building a fence two inches off the line. Imagine this on an enormous scale, she says, where a property owner has to account for terrain and the curvature of the earth.
“I explain it to town people like that. You’re not even guaranteed that the fence in your yard is on the line.”
The result is a chilling effect on ranchers who share boundaries with state and federal agencies. After last year’s devastating wildfires near Gillette, Wyoming, she says many ranchers are too afraid to rebuild their burned fences.
“This scares a lot of ranching people because nobody’s fences are on the line,” she says. “I tell them I wouldn’t do it. If the government will do this Charles and Heather, they will do it to you.”
Randi said the couple has tried to have the property resurveyed, but no company will touch the project due to the government’s involvement. To her knowledge, the USFS has never made a copy of their survey available.
Bigger Picture?
The local South Dakota ranching community is terrified. Neighbors say they have also been harassed by the Forest Service.
“Heather and Charles are being made an example of,” Randi says. “If they lose this deal, it’s going to affect everybody. You never think it’s going to happen to you. But it is.”
Many of the ranchers in this community believe they are being persecuted intentionally by government agents. Some think these agents, including Lunders, are seeking to secure a wildlife corridor between the Badlands National Park and the Black Hills National Forest.
“Heather and Charles and a couple other neighbors are right in the middle of that corridor,” Randi says. “Every rancher that borders that proposed corridor has had more problems than average with the Forest Service. You try not to be a conspiracy theorist but when they won’t give you any answers—in all that dead silence, theories get tossed around.”
The ordeal has taken a toll on the whole family.
“Now when I’m there with the kids, if they see a vehicle they don’t know, they’re just immediately scared it’s the Forest Service.”
Cowboys vs. Government Gangsters
The Maude’s story is another example in what begins to resembles a targeted harassment campaign against working Americans by the federal government—in particular, farmers and ranchers.
Randi and Tom are desperate to help their daughter and son-in-law. They are surprised they have not yet heard from anyone in the Trump Administration, especially Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. Escalating a question over the placement of a century-old fence to the point of imprisoning two young parents is an example of the overreach Trump campaigned on ending.
“I started reading Government Gangsters by Kash Patel and I couldn’t finish it, because what they were doing to him they are doing to Charles and Heather,” Randi says in tears. “This has to be resolved. We don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”
And this is why people hate the government....
Father God, I bind evil away from this family and pray Your intervention for them. May no weapon formed against them prosper. May you hear and answer their prayers and may good come from this. In Jesus Name I pray. Amen