In the Matter of: Sarah Beth Larson and On Behalf of Minor Children, Respondent,

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A25-0300

In the Matter of:
Sarah Beth Larson and On Behalf of Minor Children,
Respondent,

vs.

Jamie Raymond Alsteen,
Appellant.

Filed October 20, 2025
Affirmed
Slieter, Judge

Clay County District Court
File No. 14-FA-24-4336

Joshua Nyberg, Nyberg Law Office, PLLC, Fargo, North Dakota (for respondent)

Leo Patrick O’Day, O’Day Law Office, PC, Fargo, North Dakota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Bjorkman, Presiding Judge; Bratvold, Judge; and
Slieter, Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
SLIETER, Judge
On appeal from the district court’s grant of respondent’s petition for an order for
protection (OFP), appellant argues that insufficient evidence exists to issue the OFP and
that the district court’s evidentiary rulings were an abuse of discretion which require
reversal. Because the district court found testimony which supports the presence of
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domestic abuse credible, sufficient evidence exists to issue the OFP, and any errors in the
district court’s evidentiary rulings did not prejudice the appellant, we affirm.
FACTS
On December 11, 2024, respondent Sarah Beth Larson petitioned for an OFP
pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 518B.01 (2024) against appellant Jamie Raymond Alsteen. The
parties married in September 2018 and divorced in March 2023 and were no longer living
together. The parties reconciled in the fall of 2024, and Alsteen moved back into the family
home. Larson testified that three nonjoint children and one joint child reside in the family
home.
Larson testified that Alsteen abused her and the children throughout their marriage.
After the parties reconciled and moved into the family home, Alsteen apologized to Larson
and the children for abusing them. Larson testified that on at least three separate occasions
Alsteen forced her to have nonconsensual sex with him and that the parties’ joint child,
who was five years old at the time of the hearing, was present.
Larson also testified that Alsteen was physically abusive to her and all four of her
children. Larson testified that in early December 2024, Alsteen was upset and told the
parties’ joint child that he was “lucky he doesn’t pop him in the f--- ing mouth.” Larson
also described that Alsteen walked over to the parties’ joint child, put his finger in the
child’s face, and told him, “that he’s lucky he doesn’t beat his a--.” Alsteen testified that
the event did not occur as Larson described it.
The district court followed its oral factual findings and conclusions with a written
order. The district court orally stated, “that this is a determination basically, of the
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credibility of the witnesses.” The district court orally indicated that it found Larson’s
testimony to be credible. It found that Alsteen had engaged in nonconsensual sex with
Larson on multiple occasions, physically assaulted Larson, and committed acts of domestic
violence against the parties’ joint child and Larson’s children. The district court granted
Larson’s request for an OFP.
Alsteen now appeals.
DECISION
I. Sufficient evidence exists for issuance of the OFP.

To obtain an OFP, a petitioner must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that
the respondent has committed “domestic abuse.” Oberg v. Bradley, 868 N.W.2d 62, 64-65
(Minn. App. 2015); Minn. Stat. § 518B.01, subds. 4, 6. Domestic abuse includes any of
the following committed “against a family or household member by a family or household
member: (1) physical harm, bodily injury, or assault; (2) the infliction of fear of imminent
physical harm, bodily injury, or assault ”; or (3) various enumerated crimes, including
criminal sexual conduct. Minn. Stat. § 518B.01, subd. 2(a). These acts must be established
by a preponderance of the evidence, which “requires that to establish a fact, it must be more
probable that the fact exists than that the contrary exists.” Oberg, 868 N.W.2d at 65
(quotation omitted).
“We review the district court’s decision to grant an OFP for an abuse of discretion.”
Ekman v. Miller, 812 N.W.2d 892, 895 (Minn. App. 2012). “A district court abuses its
discretion by making findings of fact that are unsupported by the evidence, misapplying
the law, or delivering a decision that is against logic and the facts on record.” Woolsey v.
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Woolsey, 975 N.W.2d 502, 506 (Minn. 2022) (quotation omitted). We review the district
court’s factual findings for clear error and will not reverse those findings unless they are
“manifestly contrary to the weight of the evidence.” Ekman, 812 N.W.2d at 895 (quotation
omitted). “We defer to the district court’s credibility determinations and do not reconcile
conflicting evidence.” Butler v. Jakes, 977 N.W.2d 867, 871 (Minn. App. 2022) (quotation
omitted).
Alsteen maintains that “the evidence is sparse, amounting only to bare bones
testimony” and that Larson’s testimony is “ unsupported by any corroborating evidence
whatsoever. There are no photographs, videos, audios, medical records of injury, no police
involvement concerning serious felony allegations, no [Child Protective Services]
involvement, no guardian ad litem report or involvement, no psychologist report or social
worker involvement.” Alsteen also asserts that Larson’s claims of sexual abuse are
questionable because she admits to “having consensual sex with [Alsteen] in the same days
and weeks leading up to her filing the petition.”
As we stated above, “[w]e defer to the district court’s credibility determinations and
do not reconcile conflicting evidence.” Id. (quotation omitted). Although Alsteen offers a
competing version of the incidents (which he argued before the district court), the district
court found that Larson’s testimony was credible, a finding to which we defer. Id. And
by issuing the OFP, the district court determined that Larson had established that a
preponderance of the evidence supported its decision. See Oberg, 868 N.W.2d at 64
(holding that the standard of proof for a petition for an OFP under the Domestic Abuse Act
is a preponderance of the evidence). It is not this court’s role to reweigh conflicting
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evidence. Butler, 977 N.W.2d at 871. Rather because the district court’s findings are not
“manifestly contrary to the weight of the evidence,” we uphold those findings. Ekman,
812 N.W.2d at 895 (quotation omitted).
The district court made several findings related to its conclusion that Alsteen had
committed domestic abuse. In relation to Larson, the district court found that Alsteen
engaged in nonconsensual sex with Larson on “multiple occasions where the parties’ joint
child was present in the bed with the parties.” It also found that Alsteen “has physically
punched [Larson] and threatened to come to the home and beat her. ” In relation to the
parties’ joint child, the district court found that Alsteen had “pinched [the parties’ child]
and hit him on occasions that [had] caused [him] to cry and ask [Alsteen] to stop; ”
“threatened to hit [the child] in the mouth;” and on a separate occasion, “told [the child] he
was lucky [Alsteen] did not beat him, which caused [the child] to cover his head and
cower.” And finally, the district court further found that Larson “has also credibly testified
as to other instances of domestic abuse against the children, both [their joint child], as well
as [Larson’s] minor children, which involved pinching and otherwise roughhousing or
hitting to such a degree that the children expressed that they were not comfortable with it,
that they were crying.”
Because the record supports the district court’s findings regarding domestic abuse,
it acted within its discretion to issue the OFP.
II. Any erroneous evidentiary rulings the district court made were not prejudicial.

The Minnesota Rules of Evidence apply to domestic-abuse hearings. In re Olson
ex rel. A.C.O. v. Olson, 892 N.W.2d 837, 841 (Minn. App. 2017). We review the district
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court’s decision to admit evidence during an OFP hearing for an abuse of discretion. Id.
Because an OFP is a civil remedy, Alsteen must demonstrate “prejudicial error” to be
entitled to a new trial or hearing based on an erroneous evidentiary ruling. Id. (quotation
omitted). “An evidentiary error is prejudicial if it might reasonably have . . . changed the
result of the [proceeding].” George v. Est. of Baker, 724 N.W.2d 1, 9 (Minn. 2006).
Stale Criminal Conviction
Alsteen argues that the district court abused its discretion when it allowed
impeachment by evidence of his previous Wisconsin sexual-assault conviction because the
conviction evidence was “stale” under the Minnesota Rules of Evidence. See Minn. R.
Evid. 609(a) (addressing admission of evidence of convictions more than ten years old).
We will assume without deciding that the district court abused its discretion by allowing
the prior conviction as impeachment evidence.
Making that assumption, we next determine whether the admission of the evidence
prejudiced Alsteen. Nowhere in the district court’s oral findings, nor in its written order,
does the district court reference Alsteen’s prior criminal conviction when finding that
domestic abuse had occurred. Instead, and as we have noted, the district court found
Larson’s testimony credible. Furthermore, the risk of unfair prejudice to a party is reduced
because there is comparatively less risk that a district court judge, as compared to a jury of
laypersons, would use evidence for an improper purpose or have his sense of reason
overcome by emotion. See State v. Burrell, 772 N.W.2d 459, 467 (Minn. 2009) (explaining
that risk of unfair prejudice is less in proceedings decided by district court judge rather than
by jury because “there is comparatively less risk that the district court judge, as compared
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to a jury of laypersons, would use the evidence for an improper purpose or have his sense
of reason overcome by emotion”) . Exclusion of the prior criminal conviction would not
reasonably have changed the result of the proceeding. Therefore, any error in admitting
the evidence is not grounds for reversal.
Hearsay Evidence
Alsteen argues that the district court abused its discretion in admitting, over his
objection, a hearsay statement. Specifically, he challenges the admission of Larson’s
testimony that the parties’ joint child purportedly commanded Alsteen to stop harming his
mother while the three were in bed during a nonconsensual sex incident. An out-of-court
statement made by a nonparty that is offered for the truth of the matter asserted is generally
inadmissible hearsay. Minn. R. Evid. 801(c), 802.
Again, we will assume without deciding that the statement’s admission was an abuse
of discretion, but we decide that any error in its admission does not require reversal because
any error was not prejudicial. The same prejudice rules we articulated above also apply
here. Alsteen has not shown that the exclusion of the evidence might reasonably have
changed the result of the proceeding. Indeed, the district court found numerous instances
of domestic abuse and made no reference to this statement from the parties’ child.
1

1 Alsteen also contends that the district court abused its discretion by excluding evidence
of a physical altercation that occurred between Larson and his girlfriend, as well as other
evidentiary rulings. However, Alsteen fails to make a legal argument to support these
claims and “on appeal error is never presumed. It must be made to appear affirmatively
before there can be reversal . . . . [T]he burden of showing error rests upon the one who
relies upon it.” Loth v. Loth, 35 N.W.2d 542, 546 (Minn. 1949) (quotation omitted). We
therefore decline to consider these arguments.
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In sum, there exists sufficient evidence to support issuance of the OFP and any
purported errors in the district court’s evidentiary rulings do not warrant reversal.
Affirmed.