Richmond man found guilty of stalking, attempting to harm neighbors due to racism

A Stearns County jury has found a Richmond man guilty of stalking, violating restraining orders, property damage, vehicle theft and second degree assault, the county attorney’s office said.

The jury also found that several of the charges were motivated by bias against Black or biracial men or teen boys, which was a repeated theme of incidents described in the criminal complaint.

After being found guilty Monday, Benton Louis Beyer, now 33, was ordered to remain in custody until his sentencing, which is currently scheduled for Nov. 18, 2022.

As previously reported in summer 2021, the Stearns County Attorney’s Office charged Beyer of multiple crimes in connection to incidents from May-July 2021.

Beyer was arrested at the end of summer 2021 in Cold Spring after a stolen vehicle he was believed to be driving crashed into a Cold Spring home, and both the vehicle’s owner and the woman who lived at the address said they believed it was Beyer. The complaint says the woman told police one of her children was sleeping on the couch in the living room, which was close to where the car struck the house, at the time of the crash.

Police verified that the woman who owned the home had filed a restraining order against Beyer in May 2021, which he been arrested several times for violating in July 2021.

Beyer’s mother also filed a restraining order against him in May 2021, according to the complaint.

The investigation documented in the complaint details allegations that Beyer had physically and emotionally abused his then girlfriend, and that many of the offenses he was found guilty of committing in September 2022 were in response to a single time his girlfriend allegedly cheated.

However, the family Beyer was found guilty of committing offenses against, including the car crash, was not connected to Beyer in any way besides living several blocks away from where he temporarily lived with his mother and girlfriend for some time.

During Beyer’s trial, the jury also found that the stalking and assault charges were motivated by racial bias against Black or interracial men, or families with Black or interracial men. The aforementioned family is said to have a Black father, biracial children – at least one of which is male – and a white mother.

A portion of the complaint states: “The defendant exhibited paranoia that, having once cheated with a black male, (his then-girlfriend) was bound to do so again. This paranoia was not always isolated to a specific male, but instead to every black male… The defendant’s jealousy and anger toward (his then-girlfriend) devolved into bias-crimes inflicted upon a bi-racial household.”

Beyer also has a prior qualified domestic violence-related offense conviction for second-degree assault in 2012.