Independent Minnesota US Senate candidate Marisa Simonetti, 32, has been sentenced to three months in the Hennepin County workhouse after throwing a live tarantula onto the staircase leading to her tenant’s living space in Edina. She was convicted of gross misdemeanour harassment and misdemeanour domestic assault and will serve her 90-day sentence on school and work release. The court also ordered her to serve two years of probation and submit a written apology to the victim.

Simonetti’s sentence comes as she campaigns for a seat in the US Senate, hoping to replace Tina Smith in the November 2026 Minnesota election. Her candidacy has drawn further attention after a video she posted of herself confronting a Girl Scout and the child’s mother over selling cookies without a permit went viral, putting her own conduct under public scrutiny.

  • bcgm3@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    She was convicted of gross misdemeanour harassment and misdemeanour domestic assault

    I guess tarantulas aren’t cute enough to warrant an animal cruelty charge :(

  • pomegranatefern@sh.itjust.works
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    12 hours ago

    Here is another article on this that I found a little bit clearer in terms of what happened. So basically her tenant asked her to fulfill a basic responsibility that landlords are supposed to handle and she had an absolute fucking meltdown? Honestly the tarantula is the tamest part of it. I hope the tarantula is okay and also that the tenant is okay, not because the tarantula was a real danger but because of every other fucking thing this woman did. Good lord.

  • baeb66@lemmy.today
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    15 hours ago

    There’s a whole video of this floating around on the internet. I usually don’t go in for videos that look like the old Cops show, but that one is worth a watch.

    The woman she was harassing was renting out the basement of the house through Airbnb because she was fleeing domestic violence.

    Simonetti didn’t even own the property. She was illegally subletting the basement. The cops showed up and Simonetti was so crazy that the cops weren’t having it.

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    Really not fair to the tarantula, who asked for none of this.

    Tarantula are wildly intelligent. Like, smart dog intelligent.

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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      8 hours ago

      This is a 100% lie and literally anyone here with a single minute to spare could fact check and learn they aren’t very intelligent at all. Nowhere remotely close to a dog or cat, and aren’t even known to be the smartest types of spiders. It’s kind of sad that 28 people straight just blindly up voted this comment without a single one of them knowing it wasn’t true and didn’t bother to check.

      They’re super cool, but they’re still dumb.

    • TootTootComingThru@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      Tarantula are wildly intelligent. Like, smart dog intelligent.

      Yeah I’m gonna go ahead and call bullshit on that bullshit. There is zero chance of that being true.

        • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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          8 hours ago

          I don’t find tarantulas yucky and have had one as a pet.

          They aren’t smart. They aren’t like dogs. You can’t teach them anything. The most you can get out of them is that they will learn you’re not gonna squish or eat them and be cool with you.

          You can look this up “on the internet”. They aren’t even as smart as jumping spiders.

          So yeah. He right on calling bullshit. Because it is bullshit.

          • leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            8 hours ago

            Yeah, jumping spiders is where it’s at when it comes to intelligence in spiders, and even then only in highly specific ways (i.e., hunting, and calculating jumps), and a significant portion of their apparent intelligence is just them having very good eyesight for a spider; dogs, cats, birds, rats, and even probably bees are still much more intelligent than them.

            Tarantulas on the other hand aren’t much smarter than your average politician or CEO.

    • FrChazzz@lemmus.org
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      14 hours ago

      I love tarantulas. My first-ever job was at a pet store and I used to let a large rose-hair chill with me at the register, crawling on my shoulder or head or whatever. Watching people coming in to buy dog food and shakily throwing their money in my direction was a bonus.

      For this reason I still get uneasy feelings whenever I watch Home Alone and Kevin grabs the tarantula. There’s a scene after it’s on Joe Pesci where you can tell it got injured during the shoot because it’s limping.

      • khannie@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        I’ve only had one tarantula experience and it was at an “animal party” for kids. Snakes, lizards, etc were all there. The kids are all really calm, sitting cross legged in a circle and being really gentle with any animal they were offered.

        Anyway it’s tarantula time and none of the kids are biting so I immediately raised my hand. Omg, what a beautiful creature and I got to hold it 😍

        you can tell it got injured during the shoot because it’s limping.

        Oh God that’s awful. I’ll have to keep an eye for it.

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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        8 hours ago

        They aren’t. They’re pretty dumb. Way dumber than a dog or cat. Learning you aren’t a threat to them is about as advanced as a tarantula can get. They aren’t even the smartest spiders.

  • RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    Wait…does the Girl Scout organization not secure legal clearance at all for its scouts to sell? Or is she just a complete moron?

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      Although she initially launched her political career as a Republican and lost two Hennepin County Board races in 2024, the local 3rd Congressional District GOP committee withdrew its endorsement following her 2024 arrest, stating she ‘does not reflect our values’.

      The GOP kicked her out for bad behavior. She’s too much for the addicts and pedophile warmongers.

  • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    20 hours ago

    The bodycam footage of the incident is wild. She’s a complete and total piece of shit.

  • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    19 hours ago

    also blared loud Christian music

    Simonetti, a local real estate businesswoman who runs a house-buying firm

    Jfc this article just gets worse and worse

    AI slop thumbnail though

    • AgentSeven@lemmy.zip
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      17 hours ago

      She’s even worse than that, she’s a professional parasite. She runs a “home buying firm,” which means she routinely fucks people out of an average of $50,000 per transaction. To accomplish this, she uses media (TV, billboards, print, social) to convince homeowners of a lie (they will make the same if not more money using homebuyer services than using the conventional real estate process) by telling them a truth (the transaction will be fast and they will have money in their hands in just a few days).

      It’s an amazing feat of leveraging human desire to absolutely fuck the dogshit out of them: they willingly believe the lie because they want the money in their hands quickly and in so doing, they get fucked out of five figures.

  • Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    Her candidacy has drawn further attention after a video she posted of herself confronting a Girl Scout and the child’s mother over selling cookies without a permit went viral, putting her own conduct under public scrutiny.

    The tarantula thing wasn’t enough?