James Mead, the Alaska man arrested in March 18 near McVille, N.D., left the Grand Forks County jail Friday to be returned to Alaska to face charges of assault and attempted murder.
Mead, 44, had been living and working for several months at farm near the Sheyenne River south of McVille when U.S. marshals, assisted by the Nelson County Sheriff's Department, arrested Mead on the Alaska warrant.
After his arrest, Mead initially declined to waive his right to an extradition hearing, and such a hearing was set for May 7. Shortly before the hearing, Mead said he would return to Alaska without a formal extradition hearing. Federal officials from Alaska picked him up Friday at the Grand Forks County jail, a jail official said.
He is accused of shooting Lance Scott in the leg during an altercation in Scott's residence in February 2009 in Delta Junction, Alaska, which is about 100 miles south of Fairbanks in east-central Alaska.
Mead fled Alaska and sought asylum in Canada, claiming religious persecution, according to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Prosecutors in Alaska described Mead's persecution claim as "bogus."
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But through a paperwork mistake, Mead was deported from Canada into the state of Washington last year and he ended up in North Dakota, where he had lived in the 1990s for a time near Tolna.
He worked on the ranch south of McVille for several months last year and early this year, rarely leaving the place and not socializing with anyone, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke said.
(Earlier reports published in the Herald that Mead grew up near Tolna were inaccurate. He grew up in Alaska.)
Mead's late father, Joe Mead, was known for breeding and selling "curly hair" horses, a sort of exotic breed, near Delta Junction. After retiring in Alaska and moving to the state of Washington in the 1980s, Joe Mead moved to the Tolna area in the mid-1990s with the horses and was considered a national expert in the breed.
James Mead lived in the Tolna area at the time, too, moving back to Alaska several years ago.
James Mead's father died in 2008; his funeral was in Devils Lake.
The rancher who employed Mead at the time he was arrested March 18 said he knew him from when Mead lived in the region in the 1990s.
Mead was "a good guy," who got into "a bad situation," in Alaska, the rancher said.
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A Tolna farmer, Corey Christofferson, told the Herald he employed James Mead in the 1990s and that he was a hard worker and a quiet man who never got into trouble.
Mead had a brother who lived near Tolna until recently and apparently moved back to Alaska, where other siblings live.
Mead was convicted of assault in Alaska in 2005 in a separate case.
The attempted murder charge he faces carries a maximum penalty of 99 years in prison.
Reach Lee at (701) 780-1237; (800) 477-6572, ext. 237; or send e-mail to slee@gfherald.com .
