South Dakota Attorney General Will Avoid Trial, Take Plea Deal Over Deadly Pedestrian Crash

South Dakota Attorney General Ravnsborg will forgo a trial in favor of a plea deal after striking and killing a pedestrian in his car last year, a prosecutor said Wednesday. Ravnsborg was supposed to appear in court on Thursday to face three misdemeanor charges that each could have resulted in 30 days of jail time and fines of up to $500, the Associated Press reported.

Beadle County State's Attorney Michael Moore, a prosecutor in Ravnsborg's case, told the AP that "there won't be a trial and there will be a plea entered" on Thursday. Moore didn't offer any more details on the deal, citing a judge's order that prevented him and other state officials from revealing any more information.

Joseph Boever, 55 at the time of the crash, was walking along a rural highway when he was hit by Ravnsborg. Boever's widow, Jenny Boever, has said that she intends to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the attorney general.

For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.

The attorney general's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ravnsborg, who was elected to his first term in 2018, initially told authorities that he thought he had struck a deer or another large animal while he was driving home to Pierre from a Republican fundraiser late on September 12. He said he had searched the unlit area with a cellphone flashlight and didn't realize he had killed a man until the next day when he returned to the scene on U.S. 14 near Highmore.

Crash investigators said in November that Ravnsborg was distracted when he veered onto the shoulder of the highway where Boever was walking. But prosecutors took months more to make a charging decision in the crash, launching an investigation that considered cellphone GPS data, video footage from along Ravnsborg's route and DNA evidence.

In videos released by Governor Kristi Noem this year, criminal investigators confronted Ravnsborg with gruesome details of the crash, including that Boever's eyeglasses were found inside Ravnsborg's vehicle. At one point, they told him: "His face was in your windshield, Jason. Think about that."

Ravnsborg seemed unsure in the videos about how he had swerved onto the shoulder, but detectives told him bone scrapings were found on the shoulder's rumble strip.

"I never saw him. I never saw him," Ravnsborg told the detectives.

Noem called on Ravnsborg to resign in February after the investigation concluded, but Ravnsborg resisted those calls, saying he was still capable of fulfilling the duties of his office and asking that he be given due process under the law. Three law enforcement groups, the South Dakota Fraternal Order of Police, the South Dakota Chiefs' of Police Association and the South Dakota Sheriffs' Association, joined the governor's calls for him to step down.

The Republican-dominated Legislature considered impeaching the attorney general at the conclusion of criminal proceedings, but momentum quickly died out.

Ravnsborg's attorneys filed a motion last month alleging that a pattern of alcoholism and prescription drug abuse by Boever led at least one family member, a cousin, to believe that a depressed Boever killed himself by jumping in front of Ravnsborg's car.

Ravnsborg hasn't said whether he will seek a second term next year, but his predecessor, Marty Jackley, is running for his old job. Jackley served for 10 years in the post before losing the Republican primary for governor to Noem in 2018.