BREAKING: Ravnsborg convicted on two impeachment charges, removed from office

June 21, 2022

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — The South Dakota Senate has convicted Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg of two impeachment charges stemming from a 2020 fatal accident, removing and barring him from future office.

The votes Tuesday were a stinging rebuke that showed most senators didn’t believe his account of the crash.

Ravnsborg told a 911 dispatcher the night of the crash that he might have struck a deer or other large animal, and has said he didn’t know he struck a man — 55-year-old Joseph Boever — until he returned to the scene the next morning.

Senator Lee Schoenbeck of Watertown, the chamber’s top-ranking Republican, said there was no question in his mind that was a lie.

Schoenbeck says Ravnsvorg “ran down an innocent South Dakotan.”.

Ravnsborg declined to address lawmakers. He has maintained he did nothing wrong.