ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A Republican Minnesota state senator who was caught in a sting operation resigned under fire Thursday after he was charged with soliciting a minor for prostitution, stepping down before the Senate could vote on whether to expel him.
Justin Eichorn, of Grand Rapids, submitted his resignation in a brief email to Gov. Tim Walz, saying: “I must focus on personal matters at this time. It has been an honor to serve in the Minnesota Senate.”
His former colleagues expressed relief.
“Decisive action needed to take place, and we did not want this to cloud up the issues of the budget going forward, and the things that Minnesotans really need,” Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, of East Grand Forks, told reporters. “So we want to take care of this quickly and be done with this.”
Eichorn, 40, has been jailed since his arrest in Bloomington on Monday in an undercover operation targeting commercial sex involving juveniles.
At Eichorn's first court appearance Thursday, Magistrate Judge Shannon Elkins ordered his release to a halfway house with GPS monitoring once a space opens up. She ordered him to have no unsupervised contact with minors and only restricted, monitored access to computers and the internet. He did not enter a plea. His next court appearance is set for Wednesday.
Federal defender Aaron Morrison, who represented Eichorn only for the purposes of Thursday's brief hearing, told the court that Eichorn was still in the process of hiring a private lawyer. Morrison declined to take questions afterward.
The nameplate on Eichorn's desk in the Senate chamber was removed before Thursday's floor session. Afterward, Johnson said the charge was “so severe” and the charging documents so “very damning” that his members agreed unanimously that the rare step of expulsion was justified and they were prepared to vote him out.
“This would’ve been a cloud hanging over the Senate. We don’t need another one of those," he said. "So now we’re able to get back to work.”
Investigators had placed multiple ads online offering sex for money, according to the charging documents. Eichorn exchanged text messages with an undercover officer purporting to be a 17-year-old girl for several days until they arranged a meet-up, where he was arrested.
“I saw your post and (sic) chance you are still available tonight?” one asked, according to an FBI affidavit, while a later message asked, “What’s a guy gota do to get with the hottest girl online tonight.”
After his arrest, officers seized two cellphones, a condom and $129 in cash.
The federal charge is attempted coercion and enticement of a minor to engage in prostitution. Six other suspects were arrested in the sting, prosecutors said. Federal prosecutor LeeAnn Bell declined after Thursday's hearing to say why federal authorities had taken over the case from the county prosecutor.
According to Eichorn’s profile, which has now been removed from the Senate website, he is married with four children. He listed his profession as entrepreneur and was first elected in 2016. He got some national attention earlier this month as one sponsor of a not-very-serious bill that would have designated “Trump derangement syndrome” as a mental illness.
The governor, who had been among the many Democrats who also called for Eichorn's resignation, will have to call a special session to fill the empty seat. Until then, Senate Democrats will have a two-seat majority. The northern Minnesota district voted heavily for President Donald Trump in the November election.
Senate Democrats have come under GOP fire for protecting Democratic Sen. Nicole Mitchell, of Woodbury, who was arrested last spring on a felony charge for allegedly burglarizing her estranged stepmother’s home.
Democratic leaders, who have resisted GOP efforts to force her out, say she deserves to have the legal process play out first. Mitchell was absent from Thursday's floor session where the vote to expel Eichorn would have taken place.
Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, of St. Paul, said she was glad that Eichorn resigned, but drew a distinction between his case and Mitchell's. She said letting him return would have put interns and other Senate employees at risk.
“It is hard to conceive of a way that Mr. Eichorn could have returned to this Capitol to operate in any way other than putting others at risk," Murphy told reporters. "It is a night and day situation, and they’re not comparable.”
The chair for Minnesota state Sen. Justin Eichorn, a Republican from Grand Rapids, sits empty in a Senate hearing room in the State Capitol complex in St. Paul on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, a day after his arrest in Bloomington for allegedly soliciting a minor for prostitution. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski)
SCHOENEICHE, Germany (AP) — The U.S. government is on a global egg hunt, seeking exports from countries in Europe and elsewhere to ease a severe shortage that has caused egg prices at grocery stores to hit record highs.
Germany, Italy, Poland and Sweden are among the nations the U.S. Department of Agriculture approached to address the shortage brought on by a bird flu outbreak, according to European industry groups.
But supplying Americans with eggs would be complicated for foreign producers — and not because of political tensions over the myriad import tariffs President Donald Trump has imposed or threatened to impose on his nation's top trading partners.
Even if they were eager to share, European countries don’t have many surplus eggs because of their own avian flu outbreaks and the growing domestic demand ahead of Easter.
One of the biggest obstacles, however, is the approach the United States takes to preventing salmonella contamination. U.S. food safety regulations require fresh eggs to be sanitized and refrigerated before they reach shoppers; in the European Union, safety standards call for Grade A eggs to be sold unwashed and without extended chilling.
“These are two systems that could not be more different,” said Hans-Peter Goldnick, the president of the German Egg Association.
It is common in parts of Europe, for example, for consumers to buy eggs that still have feathers and chicken poop stuck to them.
Farmer David Karlsch described the simple process that gets eggs from hens to customers of the family-owned Saballus poultry farm in Schoeneiche, a town just outside Germany’s capital: The eggs are taken from nests, placed into cartons and sold on the premises or from a refrigerated vending machine just outside the property.
“The demand at Easter time is of course very, very high, as many children naturally want to paint eggs,” Karlsch said.
Poland, a major egg exporter, fielded a U.S. query about the availability of eggs, according to Katarzyna Gawrońska, director of the National Chamber of Poultry and Feed Producers. The issue of washed vs. unwashed was a major factor as European officials considered such requests, she said.
Eggs are not cleaned in most of the 27 EU member nations because of concerns that removing the natural protective coating from eggshells makes them more vulnerable to bacteria, Gawrońska said.
Polish veterinary officials are trying to determine if the country and its farmers can meet U.S. requirements, such as whether the exporting country has a comparable food safety inspection system or a significant bird flu outbreak.
Although European Union regulations state that table eggs “shall not be washed or cleaned,” member countries have some leeway if they authorized egg baths at packing plants decades ago.
Danish Egg Association CEO Jørgen Nyberg Larsen said national customs are part of it; washed eggs are the norm in Sweden, for example. But Sweden and Norway have informed the U.S. they don't have extra eggs to export, Larsen said.
For now, any increased U.S. egg imports from Europe are more likely to arrive in powdered form or other products that can be shipped frozen or dried, Larsen said.
That's the response Poland's trade association gave U.S. officials. If the U.S. certifies Poland as a source, the organization's members would have a limited number of shell eggs to sell but could supply “very large volumes of egg processing products,” Gawrońska said.
Processed eggs usually are pasteurized to prevent foodborne illnesses and then used in food manufacturing or by restaurants, hospitals and nursing homes, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Baked goods, pasta and sauces like mayonnaise are some of the commercial products made with egg powder.
U.S. officials also tried to sound out farmers in northern Italy's Veneto region for emergency egg supplies, according to Coldiretti, the main Italian agricultural lobbying organization.
But Italy only produces enough eggs to cover the national demand so most of the region's producers said they could not help. Bird flu outbreaks since the start of last year also have taken a toll on the Italian poultry industry.
Germany cannot contribute much either. Its domestic poultry industry generates about 73% of the eggs consumed in the country, “and we ourselves essentially have to import eggs from Holland every day to keep everyone satisfied," the German Egg Association’s Goldnick said.
“We have around 45 million eggs that we can collect from the chicken coops every day, and in America, there’s a shortage of around 50 million eggs a day. That shows how difficult it is,” he said.
Other countries the U.S. government contacted include Austria, Norway, Spain and Denmark. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it secured new egg commitments from Turkey and South Korea in recent months, although it did not specify the amount or type.
Imports of liquid, frozen and dried eggs may help free up some domestic shell eggs for consumers, but the U.S. made its appeal for foreign eggs amid a significant deficit; last month, the country produced 720 million fewer table eggs than in February 2024, a decline of nearly 10%.
The U.S. also cut its own egg exports to boost supplies at home, the Agriculture Department said.
While the informal trade talks continue, the U.S. market has shown signs of improvement. It’s been nearly a month since a major bird flu outbreak impacted egg-laying hens, the department said. It reported the national wholesale price for large eggs dropped to $3.27 per dozen as of March 21, or less than half its peak of $8.15 per dozen on Feb. 21.
U.S. consumers are just starting to see those falling wholesale prices translate to lower prices on grocery shelves, the department said. The big demand for eggs that usually accompanies Easter and Passover could cause prices to edge up again next month.
Trump hasn't exactly walked on eggshells with the people of Europe since starting his second term. The president's repeated threats to seize Greenland, a Danish territory, infuriated many in Denmark. His posture toward Ukraine and disparaging remarks from top members of his administration have alarmed America's European allies.
The European Union, which is the third-largest trade partner of the U.S., was not exempted from the tariffs Trump ordered on steel, aluminum and automobiles. Bracing for more, it has prepared counter-tariffs on American products.
But many officials in Europe say none of that would rule out exporting eggs.
Goldnick said an egg producer friend recently told him that “if the price is right, then I’ll deliver.” Any deals made or not would come down to business decisions, he said.
“I have two souls in my chest. On the one hand, I would say, 'No, we can’t support this system,' but that’s not the right answer," he said, referring to the new U.S. tariffs on European goods.
“The right answer is we have to help where we can. And it concerns the people. It doesn’t concern the government. You wouldn’t prop them up or anything, but it’s just people’s demand at Easter, for eggs, and that’s just as important to satisfy in America as it is here.”
Gera reported from Warsaw, Poland. Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit, Giada Zampano in Rome and Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report.
A farmer displays eggs from his chickens in Wehrheim near Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday, March 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
FILE - A shopper checks an information sign about eggs and empty shelves at a grocery store in Vernon Hills, Ill., Feb. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
A farmer displays eggs from his chickens in Wehrheim near Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday, March 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
