Agricultural Persecution: How the Maude Family Fought Back Federal Overreach

For more than a century, the Maude family has worked the same stretch of ranchland in South Dakota. Since the early 1900s, five generations have poured their sweat and sacrifice into building a cattle and hog operation near Caputa. So when a simple fence line disagreement with the U.S. Forest Service arose over roughly 25 acres of adjacent Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, it should have been handled as a routine civil boundary dispute. Instead, under the Biden administration, it escalated into federal felony charges for “theft of government property.”

In June 2024, Charles and Heather Maude were separately indicted for allegedly cultivating and grazing land their family had managed for decades behind a fence dating back to the 1940s or 1950s. What had long been treated as an understood boundary suddenly became the basis for criminal prosecution. The Maudes faced up to 10 years in prison, staggering fines, and the potential loss of their ranch. For 16 months, this family lived under the crushing weight of a federal case that threatened their home, their livelihood, and their children’s future.

This case was about far more than 25 acres. It exposed a dangerous trend: using federal power to turn civil disputes into criminal charges. Instead of working with ranchers who help feed the country, the Biden administration treated them like criminals. Regulation became weaponized. Enforcement replaced common sense. Families who produce America’s food were forced to defend themselves against the very government meant to serve them.

In April 2025, that course was corrected. The Trump administration’s Department of Justice dropped all charges against the Maudes, clearing them of wrongdoing. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins rightly called the prosecution politically motivated and took steps to end what she described as “regulation by prosecution.” The Maude family was finally free to return to their ranch without the shadow of federal prison hanging over them.

That commitment was reinforced in February 2026 with the launch of the Farmer and Rancher Freedom Framework,  a comprehensive effort to protect producers from politically driven enforcement, defend land and property rights, eliminate burdensome regulations, and restore partnership between government and agriculture.

This is exactly why the CPAC Ranchers Coalition stands firmly in support of the Maude family. Independent ranchers are the backbone of rural America. Their property rights are not negotiable. Civil disputes should never be weaponized into criminal threats. When the government overreach targets family farms, we will speak up. When ranchers are forced to fight alone, we will stand with them.

The Maudes’ 16-month nightmare is over, but the mission continues. America’s ranchers deserve protection, not prosecution. And CPAC’s Ranchers Coalition will continue fighting to ensure no family operation faces this kind of government overreach again.