PIERRE, SD (AP) – South Dakota’s Republican Attorney General has been charged with careless driving offenses after hitting and killing a man with his car, authorities said Thursday.
Jason Ravnsborg is also charged with felony driving a motor vehicle while using a mobile electronic device and leaving his lane, announced Emily Sovell, Hyde County State Deputy Attorney. Authorities said he was not on the phone at the time of the crash.
Each charge is punishable by up to 30 days in prison and up to a $ 500 fine, Sovell said.
Sovell said the evidence did not support more serious allegations of crime, such as vehicle murder or manslaughter. She noted that there was nothing to indicate that Ravnsborg was intoxicated at the time of the crash. She also said that in order to prove manslaughter, the state should have shown that Ravnsborg “knowingly and falsely” ignored a substantial risk.
Ravnsborg has said he is confident he did not commit a crime and that he did not drink before the crash. He provided a blood sample and handed over his electronic devices to investigators. A toxicology report of a sample taken about 15 hours after the crash showed no alcohol in Ravnsborg’s system.
Boever’s family has questioned Ravnsborg’s story and expressed their frustration five months passed while they waited to find out if he would be charged.
Nick Nemec, Boever’s cousin, said on Thursday that he was “disappointed, but not surprised” by the prosecution’s decision. He called South Dakota’s law “weak” when it comes to homicide. He said he expected family members to file a civil suit against Ravnsborg.
“I was concerned that the charge would be something on the order of crossing the white line,” said Nemec. “And that’s exactly what the charge was.”
Beadle County state attorney Michael Moore who helped with the case said the Boever family had been notified of the decision in advance.
“I don’t feel good about it, but it’s the right decision,” said Moore.
He added, “Obviously, when someone dies, we want to know what happened. But we are limited by the investigation and the facts. And we can’t force someone to tell us. I mean, you have nowhere else to go. “
Ravnsborg did not immediately comment.
Ravnsborg, who was elected to his first term in 2018, initially told authorities he thought he had hit a deer or other large animal when he drove home to Pierre from a Republican fundraiser in late September. He said he did not know he had murdered a man until he returned to the scene of the accident the next day.
Crash investigators said in November that Ravnsborg was distracted when he turned the verge of the highway where 55-year-old Joseph Boever walked. But it took prosecutors months longer to press charges in the crash and launched an investigation that took into account GPS data from cell phones, video footage from Ravnsborg’s route, and DNA evidence.
A Wyoming crash reconstruction expert and the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation assisted the South Dakota Highway Patrol in the investigation. Such accidents would usually be investigated by the South Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which is accountable to the attorney general’s office. The other agencies undertook the investigation to avoid conflicts of interest.
South Dakota law requires pedestrians to walk on the side of the road opposite oncoming traffic when walking along highways such as the one where the crash occurred.
This story has been corrected to remove an erroneous statement that Ravnsborg could face a year in prison; The prosecutor said each of the three offenses is punishable by up to 30 days in prison and a fine.