Anthony James Olgeirson, petitioner, Appellant,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A17-1624

Anthony James Olgeirson, petitioner,
Appellant,

vs.

State of Minnesota,
Respondent.

Filed June 18, 2018
Affirmed
Schellhas, Judge

Clay County District Court
File No. 14-CR-14-2791

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Charles Clippert, Assistant Public
Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Brian J. Melton, Clay County Attorney, Moorhead, Minnesota (for respondent)

Considered and decided by Ross, Presid ing Judge; Schellhas, Judge; and Hooten,
Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
SCHELLHAS, Judge
Appellant challenges the denial of hi s postconviction petiti on, arguing that his
convictions of misdemeanor possession of stolen property and felony storing

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methamphetamine paraphernalia in the presence of a child must be reversed because the
state failed to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. We affirm.
FACTS
Law enforcement suspected J.R. of being involved in the distribution of
methamphetamine in the Fargo-Moorhead area. As part of an investigation of J.R.’s
involvement, Moorhead Police Department De tective Torgerson obtained a district court
order to put a GPS tracking device on J.R.’s vehicle. On April 4, 2014, Detective Torgerson
installed the GPS device on J.R.’s vehicle. But later, Detective Torg erson was unable to
retrieve information from the device. Detective Torgerson therefore believed that the GPS
device was malfunctioning, had been powered off, or something else had happened to the
device.
On April 8, 2014, Detective Torgerson a ttempted to retrieve the GPS device from
J.R.’s vehicle. When Detective Torgerson was unable to locate the device on J.R.’s vehicle
or elsewhere in the neighborhood, he knocked on the door of J.R.’s residence to ask J.R. if
he knew anything related to the GPS device. J.R. lived with appellant Anthony Olgeirson,
whose wife answered the door and summoned J.R. to speak with Detective Torgerson.
When J.R. appeared at the door, Detectiv e Torgerson arrested him on an outstanding
warrant and transported him to jail. Once ther e, Detective Torgerson asked J.R. about the
missing GPS device, but J.R. denied having any knowledge of it. Detective Torgerson
returned to the residence, spoke with Olgeirson about the GPS device, and Olgeirson told
him that he would contact the detective if he learned anything about it.

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On April 11, 2014, at 10:00 a.m., Detec tive Torgerson return ed to Olgeirson’s
residence to execute a search warrant for the residence. Olgeirson, his wife, and their eight-
year-old autistic daughter were at the resi dence, and Detective Torgerson informed
Olgeirson that he was attempting to loca te the missing GPS device. Olgeirson told
Detective Torgerson that the GPS device was inside a backpack in a main-floor bedroom.
Detective Torgerson retrieved the backpack and found the GPS device located in it, along
with two empty clear baggies, a digital scale, and hypodermic syringes. The clear baggies
contained a crystalline residue that field-tested for methamphetamine.
Respondent State of Minnesota charged Ol geirson with felony possession of stolen
property and felony storing methamphetamine paraphernalia in the presence of a child.
Following a bench trial, the district court found Olgeirs on guilty of felony storing
methamphetamine paraphernalia in the presen ce of a child, but because the state proved
that the value of the GPS device was only $498 , the court concluded that it could find
Olgeirson guilty of only a mi sdemeanor, not a felony, for po ssession of stolen property.
The court sentenced Olgeirson to 23 mont hs stayed for storing methamphetamine
paraphernalia in the presence of a child and 90 days stayed for the misdemeanor conviction.
Olgeirson did not file a direct appeal. In June 2017, he petitioned for postconviction relief,
which the district court denied.
This appeal follows.
D E C I S I O N
An appellate court review s a denial of a petition for postconviction relief for an
abuse of discretion. Taylor, II v. State, 910 N.W.2d 35, 37–38 (Minn. 2018). “[An appellate

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court] will not reverse the pos tconviction court unless it exer cised its discretion in an
arbitrary or capricious manner, based its ruling on an erroneous view of the law, or made
clearly erroneous factual findings.” Id. at 38 (quotation omitted).
Olgeirson argues that his convictions of misdemeanor possession of stolen property
and felony storing methamphetamine in the presence of a child are not supported by
sufficient evidence, and that the postconviction court therefore erred by denying him relief.
But Olgeirson did not order a transcript of the proceeding s and does not challenge the
evidence that supports the district court’s findings. Olgeirson instead contends that the
evidence, as found by the district court, wa s insufficient to satisfy the elements of the
crimes of which the court convicted him.
An appellate court examining a sufficien cy-of-the-evidence challenge determines
whether the evidence, viewed in a light most favorable to the verdict, was sufficient to
allow the fact-finder to reach a guilty verdict. Loving v. State, 891 N.W.2d 638, 643 (Minn.
2017). Whether particular conduct is encompa ssed by a criminal statute is an issue of
statutory construction that this court reviews de novo. State v. Tomlin, 622 N.W.2d 546,
548 (Minn. 2001).
Misdemeanor possession of stolen property
The district court convicted Olgeirson of misdemeanor possession of stolen property
under Minn. Stat. § 60 9.53, subd. 1 (2012). The elements of this offense are: (1) the
defendant received, possessed, transferred, bought or concealed the property; (2) the
property had been stolen; and (3) the defend ant knew or had reason to know the property
had been stolen or obtained by robbery. Id. Olgeirson argues that the “facts as found by the

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district court do not establish that [he] po ssessed stolen property” because when “police
voluntarily placed the GPS on [J.R.’s] car, . . . they gave up their right to possess the GPS
tracker.” We disagree.
“Stolen property” means “[g]oods acqui red by larceny, robbery, or theft.” Black’s
Law Dictionary 1645 (10th ed. 2014). A person acquires property by theft if, among other
things, the person “finds lost property an d, knowing or having reasonable means of
ascertaining the true owner, appropriates it to the finder’s own use or to that of another not
entitled thereto without first having made reasonable effort to find the owner and offer and
surrender the property to the owner.” Minn. Stat. § 609.52, subd. 2(6) (2012).
Here, the district court found that Olgeir son told police on April 11, 2014, that the
GPS device was inside a backpack in a bedroom of his house, and a search of that backpack
proved the accuracy of his st atement. This finding establis hes the first element, that
Olgeirson possessed the property. As to the sec ond element, the district court found that
police obtained a court order to place a GPS device on J.R.’s ve hicle, that police actually
placed the device on J.R’s vehicle, and that Detective Torgerson “only intended to install
the device temporarily and did not intend to leave the device on the vehicle or give it away.”
The district court further found that Detectiv e Torgerson later attempted to retrieve the
GPS device, and discovered that the device had been removed from J.R.’s vehicle. The
district court also found that, according to Detective Torgerson, “GPS devices do not just
fall off, but remain affixed to the vehicle through the use of magnets.”
The district court also found that afte r Detective Torgerson discovered that the
device had been removed from J.R.’s vehicle, he questioned both J.R. and Olgeirson about

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the device’s whereabouts, and both denied ha ving “any knowledge” of the GPS. This
evidence establishes the third element, that Olge irson knew or had re ason to know the
property had been stolen or obtained by robbery. See Minn. Stat. § 609.02, subd. 9(2)
(2012) (stating that ‘“[k]now’ re quires only that the actor belie ves that the specified fact
exists”). Olgeirson argues that the record contains no evidence that explains how the GPS
device “ended up in [his] possession,” but hi s argument is unpersuasive. “It is well
established that unexplained possession of stolen property within a reasonable time after a
burglary or theft will in and of itself be sufficient to sustain a conviction.” State v. Bagley, 286 Minn. 180, 188, 175 N.W.2d 448, 454 (1970).
The evidence supports the district cour t’s findings, and the findings establish all
three elements of Minn. Stat. § 609.53, subd. 1. The district court’s findings, when viewed
in the light most favorable to the verdict, are sufficient to establish that the GPS device was
stolen. The evidence therefore was sufficien t to sustain Olgeirson’s conviction of
possession of stolen property.
Felony storing methamphetamine paraphernalia in the presence of a child
Olgeirson argues that the evidence was in sufficient to sustain his conviction of
storing methamphetamine paraphernalia in the presence of a child in violation of Minn.
Stat. § 152.137, subd. 2(a)(4) (2012). To sustain a conviction under this statute, the state
needed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Olgeirson (1) knowingly stored any
methamphetamine paraphernalia (2) in the presence of a child. See id. (listing elements of
crime). Methamphetamine paraphernalia is defined as “all equipm ent, products, and
materials of any kind that are used, intended for use, or designed for use in manufacturing,

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injecting, ingesting, inhaling, or otherwise introducing methamphetamine into the human
body.” Id., subd. 1(d) (2012).
Olgeirson argues that the evidence was in sufficient because the baggies discovered
in his backpack “do not meet the definition of methampheta mine paraphernalia,” and the
substance in the baggies wa s “never tested to determ ine if [it] was really
methamphetamine.” But in addition to th e baggies, Detective Torgerson discovered
syringes in Olgeirson’s backpack. Syringes satisfy the definition of methamphetamine
paraphernalia if they are used or intended to be used for injecting methamphetamine into
the human body. See Minn. Stat. § 152.137, subd. 1(d) (defining methamphetamine
paraphernalia as “equipment” that is intended for “injecting . . . methamphetamine into the
human body”). Although the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension did not test the
substance in the baggies to confirm that it was methamphetamine, such a test was
unnecessary because Olgeirso n was not charged with po ssession of methamphetamine.
Rather, the evidence must establish that Olgeirson used or intended to use the syringes to
inject methamphetamine into a person’s body.
The district court found th at the baggies contained a crystalline residue that field
tested positive for methamphetamine, Olgeirs on admitted that he is a methamphetamine
addict, and the court found that J.R., a susp ected methamphetamine dealer, resided with
Olgeirson. Viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the verdict, the district court’s
findings establish, beyond any reasonable d oubt, that Olgeirson was in possession of
methamphetamine paraphernalia.

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The district court also fo und that Detective Torgerson located Olgeirson’s backpack
in a main-floor bedroom, and that Olgeirson’s eight-year-old daughter was present on the
main floor when Detective Torgerson located the backpack. The district court’s findings
establish the second element of section 152.1 37, subdivision 2(a)(4). The court therefore
properly concluded that the evidence was sufficient to convict Olgeirson of storing
methamphetamine paraphernalia in the presen ce of a child under Minn. Stat. § 152.137,
subd. 2(a)(4).
Affirmed.