A Minnesota jury found Marisa Simonetti, guilty of gross misdemeanor harassment, misdemeanor domestic assault and disorderly conduct on Friday, March 13.
Simonetti was running for a seat on the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners at the time of the incident and is now running for U.S. Senate as an independent. The case involved events at her family home in Edina.
Jacklyn Vasquez had rented space in Simonetti’s basement through Airbnb and was studying for the bar exam when the incident took place, according to the criminal complaint obtained by the Star Tribune.
Shortly after Vasquez moved in, tensions rose after Vasquez asked Simonetti about hiring a pest control company to combat “large spiders” in the unit, the complaint says.
On June 21, 2024, Vasquez called 911 several times, first when Simonetti began banging pots and pans together while Vasquez was trying to study, and then when Simonetti shut off the home’s internet service, the complaint says.
Vasquez called 911 yet again saying Simonetti and a man who came to the home entered the basement unit by taking a door apart, the complaint says.
Saying she felt “scared,” Vasquez hid in her room but left her laptop at the bottom of the stairs to record what was happening, per the complaint.
After a torrent of small balls and other items cascaded down the stairs, Simonetti can be heard yelling “spider infestation!” before dumping what appears to be a tarantula and dirt in a plastic container onto the staircase.
Officers called to the scene found, “pins, tacks, nails, a live tarantula, which was moving around, what appeared to be the contents of a terrarium dumped down the stairs, and several small toys,” the complaint said.
Simonetti claimed she was upset because Vasquez refused to leave the unit after Simonetti canceled the reservation, even though short-term rentals that are not allowed in Edina.
In an interview with NBC News in 2024, Simonetti alleged that two weeks after Vasquez moved in, the woman began irking her by doing things such as speaking loudly on the phone at 10:30 at night.
"I’m just sitting up here ... thinking this is not going to go well," Simonetti said.
She said she bought the tarantula from a pet store after Vasquez “barricaded herself in my basement like she had no intention of leaving.”
Telling the media that she watched the movie Home Alone while growing up, she said, “If I’m scared or hurt, I try and make jokes. And I was so scared, I was just like, I didn’t know what to do, and so, yeah, I got the spider.”
Vasquez in a separate interview said that she “desperately wanted to [leave]” but couldn’t because Simonetti created “a hostile environment. ... I didn’t refuse to leave. Only when she was arrested, I fled.”
Simonetti, who represented herself in the trial after parting ways with her lawyer, said she believes she lost because she didn’t fully understand court procedures.
She is scheduled to be sentenced on May 1.
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