A vote was pending on whether Ravnsborg should be excluded from holding future positions. Jason Ravnsborg, South Dakota Attorney General, speaks during a press conference outside the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on Monday, September 9, 2019. Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg via Getty Images Ravnsborg told a 911 dispatcher on the night of the crash that he may have struck a deer or other large animal, and said he did not know he had struck a man – 55-year-old Joseph Bover – until he returned to the scene. next morning. Crime investigators said they did not believe any of Ravnsborg’s statements. The Republican-controlled Senate voted to convict Ravnsborg, a Republican, of both counts of crimes against him: committing crimes that resulted in the death of a person and abuse of office to defraud law enforcement and abuse his power. Ravensborg’s face showed little emotion as the vote on the first article of the petition ended in the senator’s final vote and passed with the minimum required for sentencing. He held his hand over his mouth, as he did for much of the test, then wrote a note in a notebook in his arms. The convictions required a two-thirds majority. Ravnsborg, who was in his first term, is the first official to be referred and convicted in South Dakota history. Governor Kristi Noem, who pushed for Ravnsborg’s ouster, will appoint a replacement. The referral vote closes a chapter that has upset state policy, bringing Noem against Ravnsborg and some of her party who opposed her aggressive bid to oust her. As the referral trial opened on Tuesday, prosecutors posed a question hanging over the aftermath of the September 2020 crash: Did Ravnsborg know he killed a man on the night of the crash? “He absolutely saw the man who hit the next few moments,” said Alexis Tracy, the Clay County attorney who is leading the prosecution. Prosecutors also told senators that Ravnsborg used his title “to set the tone and gain influence” after the crash, although he allegedly made “quotes and outright lies” to the crash investigators. The prosecutor played a montage of Ravnsborg audio quotes referring to himself as attorney general. While investigating the conflict investigators, prosecutors investigated Ravnsborg’s alleged inaccuracies during the crash, including that he never drove too fast, that he had contacted the Boever family to express his condolences and that he had not his phone while driving home. The prosecution played a series of video clips during the final hearings showing Ravnsborg’s changing account about using his phone during interviews with criminal investigators. The attorney general initially denied using his phone while driving, but later admitted that he was looking at his phone a few minutes before the crash. Ravnsborg claimed he had done nothing wrong and set the referral trial as an opportunity to be cleared. He settled the criminal case last year, citing two counts of traffic offenses, including illegally changing lanes and using a telephone while driving, and was fined by a judge. He appeared in the Senate on Tuesday but did not testify. His lawyer answered questions from senators. The attorney general’s defense focused its arguments on the implications of the referral in its inaugural statements Tuesday, urging lawmakers to consider the implications of their decision on the functioning of the state government. Ravnsborg attended Ross Garber, a legal analyst and law professor at Tulane University who specializes in referral procedures. “This invalidates the will of the voters,” Garber told the Senate. “Make no mistake, this is what you are thinking of doing.” Ravnsborg was driving home from a political fundraiser after dark on September 12, 2020, on a state highway in central South Dakota when his car hit “something,” according to a transcript of his 911 call. He later said it may have been a deer or other animal. Investigators found what they thought were slips in Ravnsborg’s statements, such as when he said he went back to the scene of the accident and “saw” him before he quickly corrected himself and said, “I did not see him.” And they claimed that Boever’s face had gone through Ravnsborg windshield because his glasses were found in the car. “We have heard better lies than in five years,” said Pennington State Prosecutor Mark Vargo, who was acting as a prosecutor of reproach, for Ravnsborg’s statement. Investigators found that the attorney general passed right in front of Boever’s body and the lens that Boever was holding — still lit the next morning — as he looked around the scene on the night of the crash. Ravnsborg said neither he nor the county sheriff who came to the scene knew that Bover’s body was just a few feet from the sidewalk at the shoulder of the freeway. “There is no way you can go without seeing it,” Arnie Roumel, a North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation officer who led the criminal investigation, said in a statement Tuesday. Rummel added that Ravnsborg had hardly acted like someone hitting a deer – a common occurrence on South Dakota highways. Prosecutors also took on an exchange of views Ravnsborg had with one of his staff members three days after the crash, after submitting his phones to investigators. Ravnsborg asked an agent in the South Dakota Department of Forensics what he would appear to be during his cell phone forensics, although the agency allegedly did not participate in the conflict of interest investigation. “We should not have gotten involved,” said retired agent Brent Gromer, as he described why the exchange made him uncomfortable. Ravnsborg’s defense attorney claimed that the attorney general had done nothing wrong and instead cooperated fully with the investigation into the accident. His defense attorney, Mike Butler, described any deviations in Ravnsborg’s memory that night as human error. Butler disparaged the testimony of Rummel, the accident investigator, as an “opinion” that could not be valid in a court of law. Ravnsborg was willing to take a duplicate test, although criminal investigators found that it would not be effective in verifying the attorney general’s truth. During the final battles, Butler said the prosecution found “no criminal guilt” for Bower’s death and urged senators to refrain from repeating the case. “No amount of fire and sulfur changes this fact,” he said. Noem called on Ravnsborg to resign immediately after the crash and later pressured lawmakers to seek referral. Noem also publicly approved Ravensburg’s predecessor, Republican Marty Jackley, for election as his replacement. Ravnsborg has argued that the governor, who has been bidding for a possible White House bid in 2024, has pushed for his removal in part because he has been investigating ethical allegations against Noem. Ravnsborg in September agreed to an unknown deal with Boever’s widow.
