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Stearns County Prosecutor William MacPhail built a successful case against the farmer by falsely insinuating that the
raw milk Schlangen provided a family was responsible for making their child sick with campylobacter poisoning even
though MacPhail knew there wasn’t a shred of evidence that the raw milk was the cause of the illness. The prosecutor
had a Minnesota Department of Health veterinarian testify at length about foodborne illness while never connecting
any illness to the food Schlangen delivered. MacPhail was looking to put doubt in the jurors’ minds about whether an
unregulated farmer should be delivering food even if the farmer had a perfect track record for safety.
The one conviction the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) wanted the most was on the food handlers
charge; it was the grounds for the department exercising control over Schlangen’s private distribution of food. Forcing
the farmer to obtain the food handlers permit would mean that Schlangen would not be able to deliver raw milk to
the club members—a point both he and FFC witness, Kathy Johnson, made in their testimony at the trial. Even though
MacPhail withdrew a charge of selling raw milk before the trial began, the case was—as Schlangen’s attorney, Nathan
Hansen, said—ultimately about raw milk. Schlangen has not decided whether he will be appealing his conviction.

In addition to the Stearns County conviction, an administrative case involving the farmer concluded in July with the
judge recommending that MDA order Schlangen to stop delivering food unless he obtained a food handlers permit;
MDA Commissioner Dave Frederickson adopted the recommendation. Violation of the order could be grounds for a
future criminal or civil action against Schlangen.
MINNESOTA – MIKE HARTMANN
The state of Minnesota continues its efforts to shut down Gibbon farmer Michael Hartmann’s business. In the early
hours of the morning on August 8, a state trooper pulled over Hartmann in his truck on a highway in Anoka County as
the farmer was in the process of making food deliveries to the patrons of his farm. The pretext for the stop was that the
farmer was driving with part of his truck over the white fog line on the right side of the highway; the trooper created
the pretext by tailgating Hartmann’s truck. When the trooper pulled up behind the truck, Hartmann—thinking the
trooper wanted to pass him—moved over to the right to give the trooper a better line of sight to pass.
Once the state trooper confirmed that the truck was Hartmann’s, he had the truck towed to a gas station across town,
leaving the farmer stranded on the side of the highway. Agents from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA)
searched the truck at the station, confiscating all food they found. Hartmann eventually recovered his empty truck
that afternoon.

Shortly after the stop and seizure, a Sibley County prosecutor announced that the state was going to file a motion to
have Hartmann jailed, claiming the farmer had violated the terms of his parole. In October 2012, Hartmann pleaded
guilty to two counts of violating the state food and dairy code, receiving a $585 fine and six months probation. There
is currently a contempt of court action for violating that probation and the state is planning to bring two separate sets of
criminal charges against the farmer as well for alleged violations of the state food and dairy code within the past year.

Hartmann has maintained for years that he is not violating the law because the Minnesota Constitution gives him the
right to sell and peddle products of the farm without a permit or inspection.

MDA is continuing to go after Alvin Schlangen and Hartmann because it knows it can eliminate a substantial amount
of the raw milk shipped into the Minneapolis-St. Paul area if it shuts down the two farmers. MDA refuses to make
any distinction between the public and private distribution of food; at this time, Minnesota remains by far the most
draconian state in terms of raw milk enforcement.

PROPOSED RAW MILK REGULATIONS – ILLINOIS & SOUTH DAKOTA

Proposed regulations threatening access to raw milk in Illinois and South Dakota continue in the rule-making process
(see Wise Traditions Summer 2013 issue for background).
In Illinois, raw milk advocates were making progress in developing more favorable regulations than those originally
proposed by a dairy workgroup last winter. The balance of power in the workgroup had shifted to the point that raw
milk producers and consumers now made up the majority of those actively working on the new regulations. The focus

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