The attorney general of South Dakota – who said he hit a deer after hitting a pedestrian with a stick last year – allegedly had the victim’s glasses inside his car, according to the newly released interview.
State Public Safety Department on Tuesday Released recording Investigators questioned Jason Reavesborg about the Sept. 12 crash in which 55-year-old Joseph Boever died.
The footage shows that during a September 14 interview, detectives told Ravensburg that they had discovered a pair of broken glasses on the front passenger floor of their vehicle.
During a second sit-down on September 30, interviewers again asked about the glasses, telling Ravensborg that they belonged to the victim.
“They are Joe’s glasses,” says an agent referring to Boever. “So that means that his face has come through your windshield.”
Hearing this, Ravensburg looked down and before shaking his head, the footage shows.
“I didn’t see those glasses until you showed them to me,” he said.
The agent told Ravensborg that “the only way out for him is through the windshield.”
“Your face was in your windshield, Jason.” Think about that. “
Ravensborg said he had not seen the spectacle until investigators showed him – and he did not really realize – that he would hit a person at the time of the accident.
“I didn’t see him. I didn’t see anything,” Ravensburg insisted. “I didn’t know it was a human until the next day.”
An investigator replied that: “You think you had an idea that it was something other than a deer?”
“I believe it was a deer.” Ravensberg replied. “I do.”
After the accident, Ravensborg told officers that he thought he had mortgaged the 2011 Ford Taurus as a deer or some other large animal, as he arrived on US Highway 14 at 10:30 pm.
He was on the way home from a GOP fundraiser at the Rostore’s Bar and Grill, according to the South Dakota GOP website, with a chance to win a handgun engraved with then President Trump’s name.
The 44-year-old Republican was charged in last week’s incident and facing three counts of careless driving, operating a motor vehicle while using a mobile electronic device and exiting his lane.
Authorities said the evidence does not support more serious felony charges, and Ravensburg was not intoxicated at the time of the incident.
Ravensborg, who was elected for his first term in 2018, was distracted by swimmers in a boeuvre that climbed on the highway’s shoulder, according to accident investigators.
South Dakota House lawmakers on Tuesday began impeachment proceedings against Ravensburg, following the release of interviews and other investigative materials.
The lawmakers argued in the motion for impeachment that Ravensborg should be removed from the post “because of his crimes or causing death to those who misbehave in office”.
Gov. Christie Noam, a Republican, also called Ravensburg to resign shortly before the impeachment motion was filed.
“Now that the investigation is closed and allegations have been made, I believe the Attorney General should resign,” He tweeted. “I have reviewed the material starting today, and I encourage others to review it as well.”
But according to his spokesman Mike Dever, Ravensborg would not proceed.
“As a lawyer and a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, AG Reavesborg has fought for the rule of law and personal liberty and would expect him to afford the same rights and etiquette,” Diver said in a statement said in.
With post wires
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