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.

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[–] 113 points 1 month ago (7 children)
  • [–] 43 points 1 month ago* (6 children)

    I know they're not fucking toys. They're lovely animals too.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (5 children)
  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)
  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Well I happen to know some pretty fucking dumb dogs.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    yeah, i like to go visit the local sheepdog trials. it's always hilarious when the sheep outsmart the dog. or shepherd, really not sure.

    if all of my encounters with them (and all the stories i got from my second boss, who fled a sheep farm for the city) were consistent with normal sheep behavior, sheep are godsdamned idiots. even more stupid than ducks.

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  • [–] 85 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I wonder why she's running as an independent. Couldn't be more qualified to be a Republican.

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  • [–] 64 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 56 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 33 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    I’ve seen this too, these people are terrifying. Here’s the link to the full body cam. Get ready for a whole helping of crazy eyes

    https://youtu.be/gRyjqsHNQOU

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  • [–] 43 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    She was convicted of gross misdemeanour harassment and misdemeanour domestic assault

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

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    if it was a venomous spider that can seriously harm people, it wouldve assault with a weapon.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 weeks ago

    It's a tarantula. They're like 8 legged dogs. They want nothing more than to eat small game and cuddle up somewhere warm and safe. As a kid in a day program at a zoo, the handlers would sometimes let us hold them.

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  • [–] 39 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 weeks ago

    From what i saw of her cop-slop episode it wasn't even her property. She was illegally subletting it.

    Both by the terms of her rental contract and that short term lets were illegal in the city.

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  • [–] 72 points 1 month ago

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

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  • [–] 33 points 1 month ago* (1 child)

    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

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  • [–] 22 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    the Hennepin County workhouse

    the what now?

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  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    some places never really had that veneer that slavery ended.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

    Hate to break it to you but slavery did not end in the United States, it outlaws it's use except in the case of lawful detention. Ie. The state and the feds can own people but you nor I cannot.

    Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

    Section 2

    Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    Tarantulas aren't cheap pets. That's definitely sending a message.

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  • [–] 44 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    They're also incredibly delicate animals :(

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  • [–] 32 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    For the curious, falling more than a few inches is often fatal due to a burst abdomen.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    That seems.... Unworkable in the wild? Are they a purely captive species at this point?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    It's just one of the downsides to having an exoskeleton while being so large. They're a big bag of spider soup with a thin, fragile shell, and any cracks in their exoskeleton are permanent until their next molt.

    Even a tiny wound has a high chance of them bleeding to death, and since they move through hydrostatic pressure, bloodloss also essentially paralyzes them.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    So do they exist in the wild? How?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    By sticking on the ground, mostly. They don't climb and make webs like other spiders, they crawl and actively hunt or ambush prey.

    The forest floor (with its thick layer of detritus) is also a much better cushion than concrete or rock, so they can more easily weather small falls in nature.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Wow, attacking girl scouts AND THEN POSTING THE VIDEO YOURSELF. Completely lost the plot.

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  • [–] [S] 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

    Showed the headline to a friend and asked him what he thought she did for a living.

    'Realtor' was his first guess.

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  • [–] 19 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 20 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    She's perfect for US Senate except for being about 50 years too young.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    And she’s a 32 year old landlord too.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month 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?

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago

    You know, I think headlines like these might be getting to the point where they don't even qualify as onion-like. The Onion headlines are at least clever jokes that make sense when you think about them. This is more like someone playing "yes and" with a bunch of crazy people.

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  • [–] 12 points 4 weeks ago

    That poor spider.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month 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?

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    Marisa "Karen" Simonetti

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago

    I watched some of the video and It kind of looks like the tarantula is picked up and put back in a terrarium by one of the officers. hope it wasn't injured.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago

    US Senate Candidate Who Confronted Girl Scout and Mother for Selling Cookies Without a Permit

    Oh, yeah, she's in lockstep with the community on this one. Hatred of Girls Scouts crosses all lines, we can all agree on this.

    fucking /s

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    Glad to read that this was a Senate "Candidate" and not a "Senator", though there are more than a few who are just as jackassed.

    Feel kinda bad for the tarantula though.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 weeks ago

    video she posted of herself confronting a Girl Scout and the child’s mother

    She thought that was a winning interaction to post of herself?

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  • [–] 19 points 1 month ago (14 children)

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

    Tarantula are wildly intelligent. Like, smart dog intelligent.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month 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.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [+] -11 points 1 month ago (3 children)
  • [–] 17 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month 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.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Change society. We need to stop letting these people continue their paths of destruction.

    Things like this should prevent you from ever being able to hold a job again. We just need stronger laws against this kind. A new country would fix this shit so fast. I'd rather be in a place where we celebrate each other and kick out those who choose to oppress others.

    In my country, this would be cause for deportation. Send the monsters to an island. Idc.

    It may sound harsh, but our only currency is time and these people continue to rob us of our time. We all have to work to support a system that allows people like this to carry on with a slap on the wrist.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 weeks ago

    The changes that I would like to see

    • Obligatory psychology tests for those wanting to enter politics. Narcissists and psychopaths should be automatically disqualified, sorry.

    • wealth caps (would have to he world wide for it yo work) where each person can only own or control up to (for example) 5 million dollars. Once you hit that net worth, your income (any income) tax bracket goes to 100%. This way nobody will have crazy amounts of mo ey of power ever again

    • re-create the UN (Uited Nations), and give it teeth this time. Remove any and all veto powers. Allow it to intervene only in any country that is at war to stop the war (if invaded to remove and destroy the invader,if invading to destroy the regime attacking), or is not a democracy ( to topple the dictatorial regime). This could stop every war in the world right now.

    • allow only parliamentary democracies, preferably without allowing political parties as those always end in corruption and friends politics

    • make voting obligatory world wide, anyone 18 and up. Teach politics in all schools world wide

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  • [+] -6 points 1 month ago (11 children)

    I shouldn't be this attracted to such crazy women but here we are

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  • [–] 28 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    duckface mugshot? instant turn off

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    I don't think that's duckface, it could just be lip filler

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  • [–] 18 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    lip filler mugshot? instant turn off

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    To each their own I guess? She has a evil look in her eyes.

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