Bemidji Man Joshua Beaulieu Receives 10-Year Sentence for May 7 Knife Attack

Joshua Lee Beaulieu was sentenced to 120 months in prison by Judge Jeanine Brand on Jan. 9 for a May 7, 2023 knife attack at Grass Lake Mobile Home Park that left a man with lacerations to his face and alarmed neighbors on the 5000 block of Theater Lane in Eckles Township, a few miles west of Bemidji.

Deputies responded about 6:30 a.m. on May 7 to a report of a stabbing at the mobile home park and found a man with cuts to his face, officials reported. The victim told investigators that Beaulieu had asked to borrow his vehicle but had been drinking; when the victim refused, Beaulieu became angry and stabbed him in the face in front of the victim’s child. The injured man was treated at Sanford Hospital in Bemidji.

Witnesses identified then-28-year-old Joshua Lee Beaulieu as the suspect, and deputies reported Beaulieu was chasing people with a knife and attempting to break car windows during the disturbance. Investigators also learned Beaulieu damaged a vehicle with a baseball bat, and law enforcement arrested and booked Beaulieu into the Beltrami County jail following the incident.

A four-day jury trial in December, conducted by Assistant Beltrami County Attorney Michael Mahlen, ended with jurors finding Beaulieu guilty on Dec. 28 of two counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of criminal damage to property. Lakeland News and county filings list the convictions as the basis for the sentence. Lakeland PBS reported Beaulieu’s age as 29 at the time of the sentencing hearing.

Prosecutors sought the statutory maximum because of Beaulieu’s prior assaultive convictions, which the county attorney’s office highlighted for the jury. Court records and press materials cited a 2014 conviction for first-degree aggravated robbery, a 2019 felony domestic assault, a 2020 fifth-degree assault, and a 2021 misdemeanor domestic assault. The jury agreed to allow Judge Jeanine Brand to impose a sentence outside Minnesota’s typical sentencing guidelines and the judge sentenced Beaulieu to 120 months in prison.

Beltrami County Attorney David L. Hanson issued a press release expressing the county’s response to the verdict and sentence. “(I send my) sympathy to the victims in this case,” Hanson said in the release. “(I) would like to thank all of the hard-working members of the Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office who responded to and investigated this crime, as well as the Bemidji Police Department, Minnesota State Patrol and Minnesota conservation officers, who assisted in the investigation.”

The sentence follows the jury’s Dec. 28 guilty verdict and closes the criminal prosecution arising from the May 7 attack at Grass Lake Mobile Home Park. Court records provided conviction counts and sentencing details; authorities have not released the victim’s name or public updates on weapon recovery in the case.