South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg received a speeding ticket in a separate incident four days before his scheduled trial earlier this month over the death of a pedestrian he had hit with his car.
According to a copy of the ticket obtained by TPM, Ravnsborg was pulled over on Sunday, Aug. 22 for allegedly driving 57 miles per hour in a 35-mile zone. He appears to have been stopped by a sheriff’s deputy just a couple of miles from the state capitol in Pierre.
The speeding ticket came with a fine of $177.50 that the attorney general must pay by Sept. 20 to avoid appearing in court.
Ravnsborg has yet not paid the fine, Hughes County deputy court clerk Tarajo Deuter-Cross told TPM on Tuesday.
Mike Deaver, Ravnsborg’s personal spokesperson, did not respond to TPM’s request for comment.
The speeding ticket, the seventh Ravnsborg has received in seven years, was first reported by local news outlet KOTA.
The attorney general received the ticket before he was set to face the court last Thursday over the traffic misdemeanor charges prosecutors had handed him for fatally striking 55-year-old Joe Boever on the highway last year. Ravnsborg claimed after the incident that he was unaware he had hit a human at the time, even though investigators said they found Boever’s glasses in the attorney general’s car.
But instead of a trial, Ravnsborg’s attorney announced on Thursday that his client, who did not appear at the hearing in person, had reached a deal with the prosecutors and would be pleading no contest to using an electronic device while driving and illegally changing lanes. The attorney general was charged $500 for each misdemeanor plus court fees.
