Former Minnesota legislator released to halfway home after underage solicitation charge

A federal judge has ordered Justin Eichorn, the Minnesota state senator who resigned last week after being charged with allegedly soliciting prostitution from a detective posing as a 17-year-old girl, be released to a halfway house.

Bloomington police arrested the Republican legislator on March 18 after Eichorn arrived at an arranged location to meet with a teen girl, police said. He has been charged with attempting to solicit a minor for sex.

Eichorn, 40, appeared in federal court on Wednesday and U.S. Magistrate Judge Shannon Elkins ordered him released when a halfway house bed is available, according to court records.

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Eichorn was among five Minnesota state Republican senators who gained national attention earlier this month after proposing a bill to add “Trump derangement syndrome” to the state’s definition of mental illness. The bill described the syndrome as “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of (Trump)."

Eichorn resigned from the state senate on March 20 just before a vote to expel him was held.

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The U.S. attorney's office filed a motion on Sunday asking the judge to detain Eichorn, who is from Grand Rapids, Minnesota, based on an FBI-conducted search of his apartment in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched the apartment on March 21 and found a bag with items including $1,000 in cash, a handgun with ammunition, a laptop and iPhone, according to court documents. Before the search, agents had stopped a woman from entering the apartment to retrieve a computer.

Eichorn had said he did not have a firearm at the apartment and had "orchestrated an effort to retrieve a computer from his St. Paul apartment to deprive investigators of the opportunity to examine it," argued Lisa Kirkpatrick, the acting U.S. attorney for Minnesota, along with assistant U.S. attorney Daniel Bobier, in the government's motion.

The iPhone found by investigators had recently been put in "factory reset" mode, "suggesting that someone with access to the phone’s accounts attempted to wipe it," the attorneys argued. Investigators had not looked at the laptop, the attorneys said in the filing.

Also in the motion were details of phone calls Eichorn made from jail on March 19 and 20 with "Individual A," the same person met by FBI agents at Eichorn's apartment. Their discussion included references to a computer and smartphones.

Eichorn should be held in jail, the attorneys wrote, because his "post-arrest conduct reveals a willingness to mislead, to frustrate the government’s investigation, and to preserve his pretrial access to firearms."

Neither attorneys representing Eichorn nor the U.S. Attorney's office for the District of Minnesota responded to requests for updates from USA TODAY.

Contributing: Fernando Cervantes and Kinsey Crowley, USA TODAY

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Former MN rep released to halfway house after sex solicitation charge