Former state Sen. Justin Eichorn's federal jury trial set for March

ST. PAUL — A federal district court judge issued an order Tuesday, Feb. 17, largely upholding a magistrate judge's opinions on how the trial of former state Sen. Justin Eichorn will proceed.

Eichorn, of Grand Rapids, was initially charged with soliciting a minor in April 2025 after a prostitution sting operation in Bloomington that March, where an undercover officer posed as a 17-year-old online.

Eichorn’s defense team has argued for the identity and true age of that undercover agent.

“The government argues that the undercover officer is not material to Mr. Eichorn’s defense,” Eichorn’s defense wrote in a Jan. 16 response.

“The jury must be able to hear the undercover officer’s true age — whether the individual in the photographs is 17, 27, or 37 — to be able to properly assess Mr. Eichorn’s belief of her age based upon the photographs.”

U.S. District Court Judge Eric C. Tostrud, in a lengthy order and opinion, affirmed a magistrate judge’s previous opinion that the age of the agent is material to Eichorn’s defense, but nothing further.

“The undercover officer’s role was minor,” Tostrud wrote. “She was not an ‘active participant’ nor was she a ‘witness’ to the offense.”

Eichorn’s defense attorneys have also moved to dismiss the case, claiming Eichorn was targeted in vindictive and selective prosecution.

Eichorn’s defense pointed to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office shortly after the indictment.

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office has no tolerance for public officials who violate federal law — particularly those laws meant to protect children,” stated then-acting U.S. Attorney Lisa Kirkpatrick. “I am grateful to the Bloomington Police Department, to the FBI, and to all law enforcement officers who use undercover operations to identify and arrest child sex predators to prevent them from abusing real children,”

These dismissal motions were previously rejected by Magistrate Judge Shannon G. Elkins, who pointed to the three other defendants involved in the sting who were charged in federal court. Tostrud affirmed Elkin's opinions on these motions in his Tuesday order.

“[Eichorn] argues instead that, because the other three federally-charged defendants were indicted more than two weeks after him, the ‘only rational inference’ is that ‘they were charged in an attempt to weaken any potential selective prosecution claim,’” Tostrud wrote. “That is not persuasive.”

In the Tuesday order, Tostrud also rejected Eichorn’s objections over what his defense viewed as a warrantless search and seizure at the time he was arrested.

“As he sees it, the text messages between Mr. Eichorn and the undercover officer merely demonstrate that Mr. Eichorn was ‘inquiring about meeting with the undercover officer, and not specifically for sex acts,’” Tostrud wrote. “Discussion between Mr. Eichorn and the officers centered around topics including (1) finding a time and location to meet up; (2) discussing the rates and sexual services provided by the decoy; (3) photos to confirm the decoy was real; and (4) the decoy’s age.”

In the defense’s motion to suppress evidence from the search of Eichorn’s Toyota Tundra, where cash and a condom were discovered, Tostrud deemed the arrest to be lawful and the search supported under probable cause, as previously ruled by Judge Elkins.

Attorneys in the case will appear for a pretrial conference on March 25, with the trial slated to begin March 30.