The South Dakota Senate 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.
Lee Schoenbeck, the chamber’s top-ranking Republican, said there was no question in his mind that was a lie. Ravnsborg “ran down an innocent South Dakotan,” he said.
Ravnsborg declined to address lawmakers. He has maintained he did nothing wrong.