An 18-year-old woman has been charged with tricking a romantic rival to drive to a Sherburne County, Minnesota lake and then bloodying her with brass-knuckle punches to the head as a crowd watched and someone video-recorded the ambush on a cell phone.
Once that video was analyzed by the U.S. Secret Service, arrests were made of beating suspect Sarah Jean Jarosz of Zimmerman, and alleged accomplice Steven Michael Boyer, 20, of Elk River.
A county computer forensic investigator recovered portions of the video from the phone, which was recorded on March 17 at the public access to Elk Lake in northeastern Sherburne County. That video was sent to the Secret Service, whose experts restored its entirety.
Sheriff Joel Brott said the video was "critical evidence" that helped in Wednesday's arrests more than four months after the beating.
Jarosz and Boyer were both charged Friday with second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon. Boyer is not Jarosz's boyfriend.
According to the criminal complaints against them:
A 19-year-old woman told a sheriff's sergeant that she received text from a male friend's cell phone in the afternoon about seeing a movie together and that they should meet by the Little Elk boat landing.
At the landing, the woman saw several cars and eight or so people standing around. She did not see her friend.
Jarosz approached the woman and asked whether she knew that her friend had a girlfriend. The woman said yes, and Jarosz responded, "I'm his girlfriend."
Jarosz hit the woman in the chest, put on brass knuckles given to her by Boyer and struck the woman three times on the side of the head and twice on the side of her torso. During the beating, Jarosz told the woman that she was the one texting her on her friend's cell phone luring her to the lake.
The bloodied woman went back to her car and got away before a running Jarosz could catch up and land another punch.
Investigators learned that Jarosz got her hands on her boyfriend's cell phone after he left it at her home the night before. She went through it and determined that he had been communicating with the woman.
Jarosz then invited her friends to the lake so they could see her fight the woman.
Multiple witnesses supported the woman's account of being beaten and added that the victim did not fight back but pleaded with Jarosz to stop.
About a month later, Boyer told police that Jarosz let him know about her plot to lure the woman to the lake. He said he provided her with the brass knuckles, which were part of his belt buckle, and drove Jarosz to the lake that afternoon. Boyer also threw away the brass knuckles at Jarosz's orders.
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