South Dakota prosecutor: No charges for Noem's airplane use

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

South Dakota prosecutor: No charges for Noem’s airplane use

By STEPHEN GROVES
October 25, 2022

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A South Dakota prosecutor who was overseeing an investigation into Gov. Kristi Noem’s use of state government aircraft announced Tuesday that the investigation found nothing to support a criminal prosecution.

Hughes County State’s Attorney Jessica LaMie said in a short statement that there was “no basis to pursue” any actions on the allegations that the Republican governor had misused the state plane or that the plane’s flight records had been altered. She called an allegation that flight records had been tampered with “frivolous.”

Noem, a potential 2024 White House contender, had used the plane to attend events hosted by political organizations in 2019. Former Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, a Republican, had filed a complaint on the plane’s use to the state’s Government Accountability Board. And the board in August requested the state’s Division of Criminal Investigation to probe Noem’s use of the plane.

State law bars the aircraft from being used for anything other than state business.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/kristi-noem-state-governments-south-dakota-sd-wire-political-organizations-6ca89e0c684ce153042ae480a8d7de35

[Takket]

1. shocking (not)

you know i think in cases like this people should be allowed to request some sort of statement of opinion from the prosecutor. something along the lines of "The penal code says X is illegal and here is what evidence we have that X did not happen."

In other words, the public is entitled to know if that plane wasn't illegally used for personal business, then what evidence was uncovered that shows it was used for state business?

It doesn't need to be legally binding, just a simple explanation rather than just calling the accusations "frivolous" without any sort of context to back it up.