South Dakota Jury Acquits Parmelee Man of Federal Assault and Firearm Charges

A federal jury in Pierre, South Dakota, acquitted a Parmelee man on May 7, 2026, of Assault with a Dangerous Weapon, Assault Resulting in Serious Bodily Injury, and Using and Carrying a Firearm During and in Relation to a Crime of Violence.

U.S. Attorney Ron Parsons announced the acquittal the following day. The three-count indictment charged the defendant with violent offenses that carried a mandatory minimum sentence on the firearm count under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). The trial lasted until the jury returned not-guilty verdicts on all charges after deliberations in U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota.

The acquittal affects one defendant who faced potential decades in federal prison if convicted on the firearm charge alone. Federal assault statutes of this type are used in Indian Country cases where jurisdiction rests with the United States; Parmelee lies within the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, where the U.S. Attorney's Office routinely handles felony-level violent crime prosecutions.

The verdict restores the defendant's legal status to that which existed before the indictment. No further federal charges remain active in the case, and the U.S. Attorney's Office has no announced plans to retry the matter. Sentencing is canceled, and any pretrial detention or conditions of release are lifted immediately.

Downstream, federal prosecutors must now decide resource allocation on other pending assault and firearm cases in the District of South Dakota. The acquittal also closes this specific prosecution without triggering mandatory restitution, forfeiture, or supervised-release obligations that would have followed a conviction.

The Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Probation Office receive no new commitments from the case.

This marks the latest federal jury outcome in a violent-crime prosecution originating from rural South Dakota. The Department of Justice has pursued similar charges under the same statutes in multiple reservation communities in recent years, where federal jurisdiction covers major felonies committed by or against Native Americans.