Owner of Buena Vista Ski Area faces felony financial exploitation charge

BEMIDJI — The owner of a ski resort north of Bemidji is facing a felony charge of financially exploiting a vulnerable adult.

Suzanne Thomas, 67, has owned and operated the Buena Vista Ski Area with her husband Don since 1985. She is accused of using undue influence over a relative with a declining mental state to acquire about $1.5 million worth of real estate around the resort.

The criminal complaint states Muffy Dickinson began living at the Neilson Place Assisted Living Facility in 2023 after a fall, having previously been diagnosed with advanced dementia.

Dickinson is Thomas’ aunt, and she established a trust in 1996 to manage her substantial tracts of real property and various financial holdings, on behalf of herself as primary beneficiary and the family of her late brother, Earle Dickinson.

A new will was created in 2021 that excluded one of Thomas’ four siblings and named Thomas as a personal representative. That will was canceled when Dickinson met with a lawyer and informed them she did not understand the documents she had signed a month earlier, and Dickinson vested power-of-attorney away from Thomas to a family friend, Thomas Asbeck, in Three Lakes, Wisconsin.

At a Feb. 29, 2024, meeting at Buena Vista, investigators say Dickinson conveyed 13 properties to Mariann Dickinson — her sister-in-law and Thomas’ mother. Mariann was near death at a different long-term care facility and died a few weeks after that meeting. Thomas petitioned the court that May for formal probate and appointment as personal representative of the estate. Mariann’s 2021 will stated that all real property owned by her at the time of death would be transferred to Suzanne and Don Thomas.

In April 2024, an adult protection social worker interviewed Muffy, who reported she did not recall conveying her property or receiving compensation for it. In February, the court appointed Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota as her guardian and conservator.

Thomas will make her first court appearance on June 20. The maximum penalty for felony financial exploitation is 20 years and a $100,000 fine. KAXE was unable to reach Thomas for a comment.