ST. PAUL - The man accused of fatally shooting a clerk in a law office housed above a popular restaurant in St. Paul will be held in jail in lieu of $1.5 million bail, Ramsey County District Court Judge Gary Bastian decided Monday.
Ryan David Petersen, 37, is accused of second-degree murder in the shooting that occurred in a law office above the W.A. Frost & Co. restaurant on Selby Avenue in St. Paul’s Cathedral Hill neighborhood Thursday.
A criminal complaint alleged that Petersen was unhappy with how he was being represented in a criminal case in Washington County in which he was charged with punching a Woodbury police officer who was arresting him for DWI in November.
Daniel Adkins, an attorney with the North Star Criminal Defense firm, had just begun representing Petersen in the Washington County case. Adkins arrived at his office Thursday to find his 23-year-old clerk, Chase Passauer, shot to death. The criminal complaint said that Petersen texted a friend on that day saying “I just shot my lawyer.”
On Monday, Petersen appeared with a new lawyer, Cynthia Waldt, a former public defender now in private practice in the Twin Cities.
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Petersen’s next court appearance will be May 9.
