Michael Dale Gustafson, 49, and Susan Kaye Scheel Coons, 52, both of Carpio, are accused of stealing farm equipment from a farmstead in Mountrail County on March 16.

Both are charged with Class B felony theft of property in district court in Ward County.

According to the probable cause affidavit filed with the court, property missing from a farmstead in northwest Mountrail County included a John Deere Gator UTV, valued at $3,500, a 2009 ABU Trailer valued at $750, and a John Deere 7600 tractor with a 740 loader, valued at $30,000. The items belonged to the Home on the Range of North Dakota. Coons and Gustafson were seen removing the property from the farmstead and the items were located at their residence.

Authorities made contact with Coons, who told she owns the items through an estate. She wasn’t able to produce any documentation of ownership for the items.

In a separate case, Coons had been charged with defrauding a Ward County family of more than $1 million worth of land in Ward and Mountrail Counties, according to the Ward County Sheriff’s Department. Coons is charged in Ward County with Class A felony forgery, Class B felony deceptive writings, and running a fraudulent website, a Class C felony. In Mountrail County district court, she is charged with two counts of Class A felony forgery, two counts of Class B felony deceptive writings, and Class A misdemeanor violation of a disorderly conduct restraining order. According to a complaint in the Ward County case, Coons forged and created false deeds that she registered with the Ward County Recorder’s Office to take possession of land to which she was not entitled and used the web site to advertise land for rent in which she had no valid interest and used the personal information of the alleged victims to transfer real estate to herself.

In another case, Coons pleaded guilty to Class A misdemeanor harassment in 2019 in Mountrail County and was sentenced to two years of unsupervised probation. She had originally been charged with Class C felony terrorizing in March 2019 and had been accused of threatening to kill a Mountrail County woman in a text message and had accused the other woman of destroying a farm.