South Dakota’s senior law enforcement officer avoided crimes because he allegedly hit and killed a man with his car in the summer, when he initially said he believed he had hit an animal like a deer. officials recently announced.
South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg was charged Thursday with three offenses and could face up to 30 days in prison and a fine of up to $ 500 on each charge: reckless driving, driving off his lane and driving a motor vehicle while on his phone.
Ravnsborg said he was grateful the justice system accepted his innocence, while relatives of the man killed during the clash, 55-year-old Joseph Boever, said they were disappointed, but not surprised, that the attorney general was just standing trial. On misconduct.
NEWS FROM SOUTH DAKOTA MAN KILLED IN BASIS REGARDING STATE AG SEARCHING ANSWERS, JUSTICE
Hyde County Deputy State Attorney Emily Sovell said the evidence simply did not support the charges of manslaughter or manslaughter, which could mean years in prison. She noted Ravnsborg was not intoxicated and that a charge of manslaughter would require the state to show that he disregarded a material risk “consciously and unjustifiably”.
Jason Ravnsborg, Attorney General of South Dakota, speaks at a news conference outside the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on September 9, 2019. (Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“His conduct was at most negligent, which is insufficient to file criminal charges in South Dakota,” Beadle County Secretary Michael Moore said.
THE NODE OF SOUTH DAKOTA AG, WHICH CONCERNS A DEADLY DEADLY PERSON WHO WALKS ON THE STREET, CAN REST ON THE WASTE TEST
Public safety secretary Craig Price, who led the crash investigation, said Ravnsborg was distracted before driving on the shoulder of a darkened stretch of highway but did not provide further details. Boever walked along the road and showed a kind of light when Ford Taurus of Ravnsborg hit him in 2011, according to Price.
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Ravnsborg issued a statement shortly after the crash, saying his vehicle “hit something I believe is a large animal (probably a deer).”
Ravnsborg said he called 911 and used the flashlight on his cellphone to investigate a ditch near the area, but could not see anything.
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“I looked around in the dark in the vehicle and saw nothing indicating what I had hit,” he said in the statement. “All I could see were pieces of my vehicle lying on and around the driveway.”
When sheriff Mike Volek arrived there, he also investigated the damage at the crime scene and Ravnsborg’s vehicle, the state AG said.
“None of us at one time suspected that I was involved in an accident with a person,” his statement read. Ravnsborg, whose car was too damaged to drive, borrowed Volek’s personal vehicle to get home, he said.
Ravnsborg described how he and his chief of staff drove to the scene that morning to return Volek’s vehicle when they stopped at the crash scene.
‘When I walked along the shoulder of the road, I discovered the body of Mr. Boever in the grass just off the road, ‘he wrote. “[I]t was clear that Mr. Boever died. ‘
The Boever family questioned Ravnsborg’s report and expressed frustration when five months elapsed while awaiting a charge decision.
NEWS FROM SOUTH DAKOTA MAN KILLED IN BASIS REGARDING STATE AG SEARCHING ANSWERS, JUSTICE
Victor Nemec, left, and Nick Nemec pose outside Nick Nemec’s home in Holabird, SD, Friday, January 29, 2021. (AP Photo / Stephen Groves)
Nick Nemec, Boever’s cousin, said on Thursday he was “disappointed but not surprised” by the charges. He calls the South Dakota homicide law ‘weak’ and says he expects his family to take civil action against Ravnsborg.
“I was afraid the charge would be something to cross the white line,” Nemec said. “And that’s exactly what the charge was.”
Ravnsborg said in a statement: “I appreciate more than ever that the suspicion of innocence placed within our legal system still works.”
He added that he could not imagine the “pain and loss” of Boever’s family.
Moore, the state’s attorney, said the charges of misconduct were the ‘right decision’, but that he did not feel good about it.
“It is clear that when someone dies, we want to know what happened. But we are limited by the investigation and by the facts,” he said. “And we can not force anyone to tell us. I mean, there is just nowhere else to go.”
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Despite the charge Ravnsborg accused of being on his cell phone, he was not actually on his device at the time of the crash, authorities said. They said phone records show he had used his phone about one minute before.
Prosecutors determined from cellphone recordings that Ravnsborg was walking near Boever’s body while he was walking the crash scene with his cellphone flash. But Sovell noted that it was a ‘very dark night’ with no lighting on the road, and that there was no evidence that Ravnsborg or the sheriff responding to the accident saw Boever’s body.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.