Michael O. Freeman

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For other persons of the same name, see Mike Freeman (disambiguation).

Michael O. "Mike" Freeman, (b. May 7, 1948), is a Minnesota attorney and politician in the United States. He is currently the County Attorney for Hennepin County (the city of Minneapolis is the county seat). He is the son of Orville Freeman, former Governor of Minnesota and Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Freeman received a B.A. from Rutgers University and a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School.

Freeman was elected to the Minnesota State Senate as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) candidate from Richfield (a suburb of Minneapolis) in District 40. He served in the State Senate from 1983 to 1991, and served as Majority Whip for his second term (1987 – 1991).

He was elected County Attorney for Hennepin County (which includes Minneapolis), serving the first time from 1991 to 1999.

He ran twice for Governor of Minnesota, but lost the DFL endorsement to John Marty in 1994. He won the DFL party's endorsement but lost in the primary election to Skip Humphrey in 1998. Humphrey was defeated by Jesse Ventura in the general election.

Mike Freeman was elected again to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office in 2006 by a wide margin and is the current incumbent.