She said she decided to tell her story to MPR News after exhausting other means to hold her father accountable, including a 2017 investigation by local law enforcement. No charges resulted. She provided MPR News with extensive documentation about her attempts to get help.
Laura Knoblach, 23, said she first remembers her father, an eight-term state representative, touching her when she was 9 years old. He came into her room after she'd gone to bed and climbed in and laid down behind her.
"He would put his arm around me and not let me get up or get away and he would lick my neck or bite my ear," she said in an interview with MPR News.
These visits to her room, or similar kissing across her arms and neck and biting her ears while they watched movies on the couch, happened so often throughout her childhood and teenage years it became a defining part of her relationship with her father, she said.
There were other routine behaviors, she said, including more than 30 instances where her father approached her from behind and pressed his body against hers in the kitchen of their home, pinning her against the refrigerator or dishwasher and using his weight and strength to keep her from getting away.
On one occasion as a 15-year-old girl, she said her father held her down and asked her if she liked the kissing and playing, and that she responded yes because she felt afraid and like she had no choice.
Susan Gaertner, Jim Knoblach's attorney, said while her client denied the allegations, he "does not want to drag his family through six weeks of hell."
Gaertner suggested Laura Knoblach disagrees with her father's political beliefs and her actions are politically motivated.
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But Laura Knoblach said the inappropriate behavior continued from ages 9 to 21, including an incident in 2015, when she was 20, where she said her father pinned her against a car and licked and kissed her neck.
In December of 2016, after she moved away from her family to Boulder, Colo., she posted to her Facebook page that her family had tried to "silence" her about the behavior she described but that it was important to speak out. After a burst of media attention and pressure from her family, she said she removed the post, but that an uncle of Laura's contacted the police.
In January of 2017, the St. Cloud Police Department and Sherburne County Sheriff's Office opened an investigation into the case and two officers traveled to Boulder to interview Laura Knoblach.
Two months later, the case was closed and the Sherburne County Attorney's Office declined to press charges because there was "insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jim Knoblach had committed a crime.”
The transcripts and audio establish a timeline of more than a decade, when Laura Knoblach continuously reached out to various people for help, telling one friend that her father treated her in ways that were "more appropriate for her mom."
The case file is detailed, including written transcripts of interviews, copies of old diary entries and handwritten notes, but it makes no mention of law enforcement reaching out to Jim Knoblach to be interviewed.
Gaertner said Jim Knoblach doesn't believe he will get a fair airing by the voters in November.
"These claims are hurtful, these claims are damaging to his reputation, these claims are untrue," she said. "These claims are being made in an environment, the #MeToo era, that makes it extremely difficult to defend yourself."
Laura Knoblach's case file reveals she reached out to various people throughout her life to express concerns about her father's behavior, including her mother, Janet Knoblach.
On several occasions, Laura Knoblach said she told her mother that her father was making her feel uncomfortable, but that her mother usually shrugged it off, saying Jim didn't grow up with sisters and implying he didn't understand how to interact with girls.
His influence in the community was a focus of many of Laura Knoblach's immediate family members, who have repeatedly tried to keep her from going public.
…But in emails between Laura Knoblach and her grandmother included in the case file, Hughes told her that her father is an important figure in the community and she should consider how speaking out about his behavior will impact his ability to do his work.
"The community loses because there will be no more events that raise $36,000 in one evening to keep the Salvation Army going at it's low point every fall," Hughes wrote to her granddaughter. "But you, yourself, will be the greatest loser in the long term. You will lose your family."
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In January of 2017, after she reported the allegations to the police, Laura Knoblach said she reached out to her mother because she was struggling financially. She says her mother told her she was upset with her for reporting her allegations to police.
"She goes, 'I don't ever want to speak to you again,' and just hangs up the phone, and I was like, oh my God, I don't know what to do," Laura said.
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She's not speaking with her immediate family members anymore, who she said are trying to paint her as untruthful and unstable.
"My entire family had been like, 'You'll lose your family and you're doing this terrible thing, and if he loses the next election it is your fault," she said. "And you know, even after I posted this on Facebook they're like, 'Your dad's boss said this to him and that's your fault.'"
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