Sarah Vogel says North Dakota attorney general didn’t see documents on Bill Gates land deal

FARGO, N.D. — “A really shallow and inadequate investigation” is how Sarah Vogel, a former North Dakota agriculture commissioner and former assistant legal professional common, characterizes the North Dakota Legal professional Normal’s inquiry right into a land deal between a outstanding North Dakota farm and a belief benefiting billionaire Microsoft co-founder Invoice Gates.

Vogel got here to that conclusion after studying paperwork from the North Dakota Legal professional Normal’s workplace after

the company went “inactive”

on its inquiry a couple of

land deal between Campbell Farms and Purple River Belief

.

Within the case of the Campbell/Gates transaction, Vogel says North Dakota Legal professional Normal Drew Wrigley and his division seem to have merely “deemed” the sale to adjust to the regulation with little inquiry. The Campbell Farms, a potato farm based mostly at Grafton, North Dakota, bought greater than 2,000 acres to Purple River Belief, whose lawyer stated the only real beneficiary is Gates.

Drew Wrigley, who was appointed legal professional common in Feb. 8, 2022, after the sudden dying of long-time Legal professional Normal Wayne Stenehjem, stated he’s turning into extra acquainted with the statute’s enforcement. Wrigley, whose time period is up is up for election on Nov. 8, 2022, referred inquiries to Matt Sagsveen, the division’s solicitor common since 2017, who supervises the administration portfolio for the state’s anti-corporate farming statutes. He has been with the division a couple of decade.

Sagsveen acknowledged correspondence concerning the case was dealt with primarily by Kerrie Helm, a senior paralegal within the division, who manages the day-to-day actions of the anti-corporate farming regulation. However he stated he “talked about” the case with Helm, though his signature doesn’t seem as signing off.

He acknowledged it as “not the same old case” for the statue, as a result of it includes a belief. He stated the division’s inquiry has gone “inactive” however stated it might be re-activated if extra data ought to come up. To date, it hasn’t.

The regulation permits trusts “for the good thing about a person or class of people inside the levels of kinship” specified within the regulation. Sagsveen stated the legal professional common’s workplace advises county recorders to report land purchases by firms and restricted legal responsibility firms however at the moment might not advise them to report actions by trusts, per se.

County recorders are supposed to offer copies of “devices” — deeds — for companies or restricted legal responsibility firms, however thus far not for trusts, in keeping with the regulation.

Trusts for the good thing about a person can lease out land for agricultural functions. On that time, the legal professional common’s workplace took the phrase of Matthew L. Thompson, a lawyer of the Vogel Regulation Agency in Fargo, North Dakota, (not associated to Sarah Vogel) representing the belief within the state.

Sagsveen defined that when a lawyer responds to an official division inquiry, he “typically takes them at their phrase except there’s a motive to imagine in any other case.”

Sarah Vogel likes to see issues in black-and-white. She is certainly one of North Dakota’s most high-profile agricultural attorneys.

She gained nationwide notoriety within the Nineteen Eighties as lead legal professional in Coleman v. Block

, a nationwide class motion go well with within the Nineteen Eighties that stopped farm foreclosures by the U.S. Division of Agriculture’s Farmers Dwelling Administration and

has written a memoir ebook in regards to the case

. Vogel went on to be an assistant North Dakota legal professional common, was elected to 2 phrases as North Dakota agriculture commissioner, and continued in her personal apply which participated in nationwide instances. Her grandfather was outstanding within the Nonpartisan League, birthed the regulation within the Nineteen Thirties. Vogel stated the Campbell/Gates sale might or might not be authorized, however she thinks it might be not possible to find out that with the paperwork the legal professional common’s workplace has on the subject.

After studying articles in Agweek in regards to the transaction, Vogel, “out of curiosity,” filed an open information request from the company on July 1, 2022. Initially, Vogel obtained 14 pages of data. However she stated that “didn’t look full” and he or she requested for extra, and acquired 9 extra pages — a complete of 23 pages.

“The fascinating factor is that the ‘belief’ that has bought the land — there’s no file of who’s in command of that belief and who’s the beneficiary of that belief,” she stated.

Thompson responded to the legal professional common’s workplace as a neighborhood lawyer representing the belief and stated the only real beneficiary of the belief is Invoice Gates.

“However the legal professional common didn’t even ask for a replica of the belief, which strikes me as being a really, very incomplete investigation,” Vogel stated. “Why take the phrase of an legal professional when you’re a prosecutor for North Dakota farming regulation. You’d wish to see the precise doc, nevertheless it’s not there.”

She nonetheless wonders precisely what’s “Gates’ curiosity.”

“Is it a company that will get advantages? Are there extra entities that get advantages, or is it Gates as a person?” she stated. “We don’t even know if the legal professional was employed that day” or has been a “long-time legal professional for Invoice Gates.”

“My private feeling is that Invoice Gates’ attorneys don’t reside in Fargo, North Dakota,” she stated.

“This is only one transaction,” she stated. “We don’t what number of others are on the market (with the belief). It strikes me that the anti-corporate farming regulation is vital sufficient that it deserves greater than the eye of a paralegal within the legal professional common’s workplace. There’s no reference of a lawyer signing off on this — both an assistant legal professional common, or Mr. Wrigley himself — none,” she stated.

When the land within the Campbell-Gates deal was transferred in November 2021, there wasn’t a county recorder’s report from both Pembina or Walsh counties.

She famous that an legal professional common letter to elected county recorders instructed them to report firms or restricted legal responsibility firm purchases of land, however didn’t inform them to report trusts.

Sagsveen acknowledged that the legal professional common’s workplace doesn’t ask about trusts, though they’re a part of the statutes.

“There could be trusts that really personal land, and that may be problematic, but when it’s a belief for the good thing about a person then presumably not,” Vogel stated. These are probably “pretty frequent,” she stated, however in these instances the deeds are within the identify of the landowner, not within the identify of the lender or farm administration firm appearing as trustee.

“We simply don’t know,” within the Gates/Campbell case, she stated. “I feel the legal professional common’s workplace ought to do a greater job.”

Individually, Vogel can also be intrigued that the Campbell brothers in February 2022 registered with the Secretary of State what’s often known as a “fictitious” common partnership named“Purple River Belief,” with their farm headquarters as its handle. Purple River Belief is similar identify because the Washington state-based belief benefiting Gates.

She famous that Thompson stated the Gates-related Purple River Belief knew nothing about this. In the meantime, Sagsveen stated that Helm had contacted the Secretary of State’s workplace in regards to the transaction.

In the meantime, the Campbells sought and acquired “clearance” from the Division of Monetary Establishments, to make sure that “no person can be misled into considering they had been a ‘financial institution belief division,’ or one thing like that.” The Campbells thus far haven’t responded to Agweek’s inquiries for remark.

“I perceive lots of people are upset, who’ve known as into the agriculture division and elsewhere about this buy,” Vogel stated. “I feel it deserves airing, openness and a radical investigation.”

She stated the legal professional common’s workplace, below former Legal professional Normal Wayne Stenhjem, appeared to offer “a complete blind eye” to a company shopping for a 9,000-acre ranch in 2016 subsequent to Standing Rock Indian Reservation when the Dakota Entry Pipeline went via.

“They got a go on that,” she stated. She stated she is worried about firms shopping for ranchland in western North Dakota, as a defensive measure within the case of spills.

“In different states, comparable to Texas and Oklahoma, firms are discovering it cheaper simply to purchase the ranch than clear up the mess,” she stated.

Vogel stated it’s important that North Dakota’s anti-corporate farming regulation was adopted by an initiated measure within the Nineteen Thirties.

“The individuals of North Dakota put that regulation in,” she stated, including that it has been upheld by the state and federal courts. It has many “good and rational exemptions,” she stated, however added it’s “a part of the very cloth of North Dakota.”