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Miranda Charbonneaux, Minot, found guilty of felony burglary, misdemeanor menacing

A jury found Miranda Dawn Charbonneaux, 28, Minot, guilty on Thursday of Class C felony burglary and Class A misdemeanor menacing. She is scheduled to be sentenced today on the charges.

Charbonneaux went over to her ex-boyfriend’s residence on May 30, 2019, to demand money and food for the children she shares with him. Her current boyfriend was outside the residence in a vehicle with the children at the time and had also been yelling at Charbonneaux’s ex-boyfriend before the incident, according to the statement the victims gave police, but that man did not physically threaten the victim.

According to court documents and testimony at the trial, Charbonneaux technically had physical custody of her two children with her first ex-boyfriend, but they had been living with their father for the five months prior to the incident because Charbonneaux lost her housing. The father of her two oldest children told police that he was still paying Charbonneaux child support even though the kids were living with him. On May 29, 2019, Charbonneaux had been scheduled to have visitation with the children but had gotten angry with the children’s father and took them away from the residence overnight. She then returned the next day and was upset because she didn’t have food for the children or money to care for them, according to testimony given at the trial.

Charbonneaux entered her ex-boyfriend’s trailer via an unlocked door without permission and was holding a softball bat when she made threats to physically assault her ex-boyfriend and his current girlfriend, who was also in the residence at the time. The children’s father told Charbonneaux he would give her the money she was asking for the next day and their children could eat supper with him that night if they were hungry, but Charbonneaux was still angry and was not appeased. She then left and hit her ex-boyfriend’s current girlfriend with the door as she was leaving the trailer.

There was some discrepancy between the statement the victims gave to police and their testimony at trial regarding whether the victims believed Charbonneaux was going to physically harm them with the bat or if she was just holding it and moving it around while she was making verbal threats. The female victim testified at trial that she did believe at one point that Charbonneaux would strike her. Charbonneaux had originally been charged with Class C felony terrorizing, but the jury found her guilty of the lesser charge of Class A menacing instead.

There is still an ongoing dispute over custody of Charbonneaux’s older children, according to testimony at the trial.

Charbonneaux also has other, unrelated, charges still pending against her in district court in Minot.

She is charged with Class C felony unauthorized use of personal identifying information for allegedly using her ex-boyfriend’s personal information to change the log-in information on his bank account and to attempt to withdraw money from his account without his permission in June 2019 and with a Class A misdemeanor for allegedly violating a no contact order preventing her from having contact with the ex-boyfriend.

In another case, Charbonneaux and Benjamin Perdue, the father of her youngest child, were each charged in district court in Minot with Class C felony child neglect for allegedly exposing their 3-year-old son to drug paraphernalia and a dirty house in August 2019.

Perdue was also charged with Class B misdemeanor domestic violence causing bodily injury for allegedly assaulting Charbonneaux and Charbonneaux was charged with Class C felony possession of methamphetamine.

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