Reward Increased to $100K To Help Solve Golden Valley Arson
For most of 2024, Bill Walsh has been an employee without an office.
“We’ve been displaced for months now,” Walsh said. “Since January 28.”
The building along I-394 where he worked for years is now closed to the general public.
“No one’s in this building and probably won’t be for quite some time because of the damage,” said Walsh.
In January, fires believed to be intentionally-set destroyed the Golden Valley headquarters of Take Charge Minnesota, the Upper Midwest Law Center, and Walsh’s organization, the Center of the American Experiment.
“It’s kind of a reminder of the crazy circumstance that we’re in,” said Walsh, director of communications and marketing for Center of the American Experiment. “That someone would actually take the steps to start an arson fire in your office and displace us.”
In February, the conservative think-thank announced a $15,000 reward for anyone with information leading to an arrest and conviction. Now, it’s offering significantly more.
A padlock on the doors of an office complex located at 8421 Wayzata Boulevard in Golden Valley prevents people from entering the building.
Reward offer increased
“We have had no progress on catching the people that did this,” Walsh said. “So the discussion was, should we up the reward? Try to get it back in the news. Try and get more people to find out about it. So, the reward has been upped to $50,000 if you catch one person, $100,000 if there are two people caught, you know, arrested, convicted.”
Walsh knows that someone, somewhere, knows something about what happened that January night. The hope is that the reward encourages folks to speak up.
“You shouldn’t be able to do this kind of thing and get away with it,” he said.
A spokesperson from the ATF says that they have no new information they can share on the investigation.
Meanwhile anyone with knowledge of what happened that night is encouraged to call the FBI.
The Center of the American Experiment employees have worked from home since the fire. However, they plan to move into a new office in Minnetonka later this month.
Bill Walsh is the director of communications and marketing for Center of the American Experiment.
