Thanks to geg6 for the guest post. I wanted to write about a couple of local stories, one from NY and one from SD.
If you’ve seen “Pretend It’s a City”, Martin Scorsese’s interviews with Fran Lebowitz, you might remember that Fran said that she’s decided that any accusations about sexual assault or harrassment made by a woman should be considered true until proven false, just to make up for the thousands of years where the opposite was assumed. (That’s a bad paraphrase but I couldn’t find a clip.)
Anyway, with that in mind, here are the details of an accusation against Andrew Cuomo, by former aide Lindsey Boylan, in her own words. She first made the accusations around Christmas last year. Do I believe them? Yes, even without resorting to the Lebowitz doctrine.
I haven’t written much about Jason Ravnsborg, the Republican Attorney General of South Dakota (for now). Ravnsborg was driving home to Pierre from a political event in Redfield, when he struck and killed a pedestrian just outside Highmore. Ravnsborg says he believed he had struck a deer. The sheriff of Hyde County, SD (where Highmore is located) responded to the incident and gave Ravnsborg a vehicle to drive home. The next day, Ravnsborg and an aide discovered the body of Joseph Boever, in the ditch.
Ravnsborg’s story never made sense — hitting a deer and hitting a human will cause two different kinds of damage, and I think most of us would spend more than a couple of seconds looking for what we had hit, if we were in the same position. Because of his position, investigators from North Dakota and prosecutors from other counties investigated. Last week, prosecutors charged Ravnsborg with three distracted driving misdemeanors. Under South Dakota law, he could not be charged with vehicular homicide because that charge requires evidence of intoxication. It doesn’t sound like he was drinking (witnesses at the dinner testified to that effect).
Yesterday, his interviews with the North Dakota investigators came out, and all I can say is that it sure sounds like he should have known he hit a person, not an animal. First, he was outside his lane, in the shoulder, when he hit Boever. Boever’s glasses, broken in half, were found in Ravnsborg’s vehicle. As one of the investigators pointed out, Ravnsborg should have seen the glasses when he reached over to open his glove box to retrieve his insurance. Boever was carrying a flashlight which ended up on the ground, still shining. Ravnsborg denies seeing it. Though he initially denied it, when faced with evidence, Ravnsborg basically admitted that he was on his smartphone checking email when he hit Boever.
The really jaw-dropping part of this whole story is that Ravnsborg apparently thinks he can stay on as AG. Governor Kristi Noem has taken a brief respite from appearing on Fox News and bowing down before Trump to call for Ravnsborg’s resignation. Impeachment articles have been introduced in the legislature, and Republicans and Democrats support them. Since I’m hearing that Ravnsborg is pretty incompetent, it may well be that he’s holding onto his job for a little while just to keep getting a paycheck. What will happen to the Hyde County Sheriff, who’s looking more and more like a co-conspirator, remains to be seen.
MattF
Antifa put glasses on all the deer.
Comrade Colette
That poor man – Boever, I mean.
The arrogance of a white male Republican lawyer can simply never be overestimated.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
The story about Jason Ravnsborg is both completely appalling and completely unsurprising
ETA: do we have a term for being Third?
WaterGirl
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): At the moment, I believe it is last. :-)
The Lodger
@WaterGirl: Not anymore.
Ruckus
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
random poster…
Just Some Fuckhead
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Thirst.
Baud
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
Witch!
Humdog
Both the AG and the Sheriff left a wounded man to die by the side of the road? Or maybe had to pull the man’s head out of the AG’s windshield?
I am not nearly old enough to be saying “whatever happened to having a sense of shame”!
geg6
I read a few stories about this over the last couple of days. Holy hell, this is nuts. And that sheriff! WTF?
WaterGirl
@geg6: One of the stories I read yesterday had some official saying “his face was in your windshield”. There’s no way this guy didn’t know.
Texting while driving is a BFD in Illinois, in that state they apparently don’t care?
cain
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
YES – there is a term for 3rd – WINNAH! You know how hard it is to hit 2 or 3? Very difficult! or 4 posts in a row.. !
Feathers
The Ravnsborg story is pure film noir, all the way. The cops say his cell phone data shows him standing by the body that night. Honestly, I wouldn’t trust the testimony of the people he had dinner with. There would be just too much pressure to bend the truth. Someone was arrested for drunk driving after leaving a poker party at then Governor Weld’s house. The term “amber-colored liquid” thus entered the political lexicon of Massachusetts. Weld was re-elected. I think the glasses on the car floor are the bone saw of this scandal. The detail that won’t leave people’s mind.
And Fran Lebowitz is right about believing women. Do victims lie about rape? The question should be do men lie about raping people? Yes, you do need to check the story, but actual false ones do fall apart fairly quickly. And “not enough evidence to bring charges” does not mean exonerated. And yes, rapes happen in all gender configurations, but pretending that the vast majority are men raping women.
dmsilev
So, if you’re completely sober and you completely deliberately run someone down, that’s all good?
Ken
I believe it’s spelled “FREEDUMB!”
Ken
@dmsilev: One of the states in that general vicinity tried to pass a law making it legal for drivers to run over protestors blocking the road. Might have been Montana?
Hob
This is a whole other can of worms but… I was much more sympathetic to the point of view Lebowitz expressed until the first time someone pointed out that I was looking at this as a white person. It hasn’t been “thousands of years when the opposite was assumed”, it’s been “thousands of years when whatever matched people’s prejudices one way or another was assumed”.
cope
@Ken: My sad state of Florida is working on such a law. As in “stand your ground” laws, it would only require that you feel your safety is in jeopardy to roll your jacked up one ton duallie over some protester’s head.
Ken
@cope: Let us hope that the citizens of Florida do not feel too threatened by their legislators, I say piously.
Roger Moore
@Humdog:
I can just imagine their reasoning. See, the dude was dying anyway, and there was no way they could save him. So why ruin two lives by holding the killer accountable?
Just Some Fuckhead
@dmsilev:
This is the part that confuses me. He’s clearly guilty of manslaugher at a minimum. Unless there’s some “he needed driving over” defense I’m not aware of.
Just Some Fuckhead
Is it too late to give South Dakota back to France?
WaterGirl
@Just Some Fuckhead: OT, but it’s not too late for you to test today or tomorrow, based on the the steps in the thread from last night.
Edmund Dantes
I no way believe the “he wasn’t drinking” gambit either.
Also, still can’t figure out how the sheriff is skating so easily. He wasn’t intoxicated (as far we know), wasn’t distracted, assume wide awak, etc. and he couldn’t see this flashlight either?
something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Mart
Lindsey Boylan is a very attractive married woman. How is that Cuomo’s fault?
StringOnAStick
@Roger Moore:
Fixed that for you.
Edmund Dantes
Also having grown up in a rural state. Free deer potentially out of season is not something people just stop looking for.
The time a deer was hit out front of our house late at night, cops went around offering if anyone wanted to take it before it got carted off.
smith
Regarding his state of intoxication (or not), he wasn’t tested until 12 hours later. Supposedly, no one found the body until the next day when Ravnsborg went back to the scene.
Ken
@Edmund Dantes: Ravnsborg cleared up the whole issue of whether or not he was drinking, as quoted in the Argus Leader story linked above:
Because all of us, when going to a party and not drinking, make sure to get the waitress’ name so she can vouch for that. Perfectly normal behavior, not at all like trying to set up an alibi after the fact.
VOR
A little South Dakota color. SD Governor Noem was SD’s only rep in Congress from 2011-2018. The person she replaced had won the seat following a special election in 2004. The special election had been called because the prior seat holder, Bill Janklow, resigned after a conviction for second degree manslaughter after a car accident where his vehicle struck a motorcyclist. I’m sure everyone in SD politics is familiar with the Janklow story.
J R in WV
We saw the video of the interview when the deputy tells him they found the victim’s glasses in his car. The AG was only a tiny bit surprised, must have known that was gonna be an issue. So strange — the whole episode is so weird!!
Not sure who is worst looking in this scene, AG or Sheriff — could the AG have that much swing in the state government?
Just Some Fuckhead
@WaterGirl: k, dunno how long I’ll be working this evening and I’m also making oyster stew.
cwmoss
@Humdog: can’t say this on FB/IG/twatter/etc, but both Ravnsborg and the sheriff who helped him cover up the murder should be taken out back of the barn and shot like rabid dogs. I was certain when this story was first reported that the scumbag AG was drunk, and maybe he was. But it sounds like the explanation might be even stupider than drunk driving. Checking his emails. That fucker should never be allowed to drive again.
RSA
IANAL, but…
I’m hoping that even if Ravnsborg receives a light criminal punishment, he finds out what it’s like to be impoverished.
Another Scott
The SD story has stunk to high heaven ever since I first heard about it. It’s like something out of an old Hitchcock movie or Gaslight. I don’t think anyone outside will trust any of the people involved until there’s an independent investigation.
“Hey, Sheriff, how ya doin’? I just ran over this guy. Can you let me borrow a car until I figure out a sensible alibi? Thanks. You’re a pal!!”
:-/
State governments that “let” that happen are likely rotten through and through. The Feds probably need to look around, too.
Cheers,
Scott.
misterpuff
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Turd
WaterGirl
@Just Some Fuckhead: Okay, given that you did not mention the part where I said “today or tomorrow”, I’m gonna take that as a change of heart about participating. That’s fine, thanks for the initial thought!
Just Some Fuckhead
@WaterGirl: That’s fair. I was just taking it one day at a time though.
Barbara
@smith: The fact that he went back to the scene suggests that he never really believed the story he has been telling all along. Of course nearly anyone who lives or routinely travels through a rural area in North America has their story of “I nearly hit a deer” (including me) or “I did hit a deer” (just about everyone in my husband’s family). He could not have been looking at the road at all not to see the thing in his headlights, however, fleetingly. And if he didn’t see anything, then how did he have the right to assume he hit an animal and not a person? If he didn’t actually see the deer then he had to assume it was not a deer. Deer are not small.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Barbara: I was driving around West Virginia looking at property for a summer cabin years ago and a deer fell off the high ridge beside the road, landed in the middle of the road, then got up and bounded over the next ridge down before I could even hit the brakes. It was crazy but it was clearly not a dude.
Annie
I am probably going to regret writing this.
But I am horrified by Fran Lebowitz’ idea of assuming any woman’s accusation of abuse by a man is true until proven false.
No one should assume that about anyone’s accusation, against anyone, about anything.
I have worked in law firms and courts for more than 36 years and I have learned, often the hard way, that there are a lot of people out there who lie. When I did litigation there was someone who lied about something in every case. Every. Single. Case. A lot of these people were women. Sometimes the liar was the plaintiff we were representing in a civil case. Sometimes it was just embarrassing trivia – though it got a lot more embarrassing when the lies were discovered and the liars were confronted in a deposition.
But sometimes the lies were major – like, whether anything happened at all. Without doing any research or digging through any files – just off the top of my head – I can recall 3 instances in which women lied about being sexually assaulted. Two of these were teenagers whose parents did not want them to date. They were seeing the boys on the quiet and got caught. They insisted the boys were strangers to them. They were found out when the texts on their phones were subpoenaed and showed several months’ worth of relationship. The third was a girl who said her grandfather molested her, then said she had lied because she didn’t like his efforts to discipline her. The grandfather did time. A fourth case featured a woman who insisted the man who kept coming to her home was a stranger who was stalking her. Turned out it was her husband. The couple had separated, and all he wanted was to pick up his clothes. She eventually admitted that she was angry and just wanted to get her ex in trouble. Luckily, that one never got as far as charged being filed against the guy.
And don’t even get me started on parents in dependency cases – those are the ones where the government is removing a child due to abuse. Somehow, the child’s bruises and broken bones are always because the kid is clumsy. Or there’s the mother who had her 14-year-old daughter removed from her custody because Mom let her drug dealer run a train on the girl to pay off a drug debt. Mom insisted at first that nothing had happened. Then the girl was willing. Then the girl led the dealer on The final story was that the girl was old enough to learn about sex.
And what about the Karen-type who accused the Black kid of stealing her phone? Should her accusation have been assumed to be true? And why should accusations of sex abuse be privileged above other kinds of assault or abuse.
Bad, bad idea.
cwmoss
@Barbara: SD deer must be nearsighted. Hence the bloody eyeglasses in the car.
WaterGirl
@Just Some Fuckhead: You are more than welcome to join in the testing at any point.
Geminid
@cwmoss: I’ve twice hit deer at night, once at 60 miles an hour. I was lucky both times, hit them just right and got away with a dented car. Judging from my experience, there can be no way Ravnsborg could have hit that man and thought he was a deer. I think South Dakotans know this, too. I’d be very surprised if Ravnsborg ever won political office again. Hopefully the victim’s next of kin can sue for wrongful death. They’ll win, and win big if punitive damages are allowed.
ljdramone
@cope: “one ton duallie”?
My old two-seat ’77 Datsun 280Z had a curb weight of well over a ton (2,875 lb.)
A stock Ford F-150 weighs more than 5,000 lbs, and a Dodge Ram 3500 is about 7,000 lbs.
cope
@ljdramone: One ton refers to the maximum hauling capacity, hence half ton, three quarter ton and one ton pickup designations. However, it is more complicated than that as you can read below if you care. A dually (I mis-spelled it previously) refers to a truck with an extra set of wheels on the rear axle.
https://www.topspeed.com/cars/car-news/what-does-1-2-3-4-and-one-ton-mean-ar170528.html
billcinsd
@Barbara: Ravnsborg had to go back to the scene as his car was still there, I believe.
Also, he’s not even being backed by the state Republican high muckety-mucks. Noem wants him to resign and the state house has brought impeachment charges co-signed by leading members of both parties. He probably will get off lighter than Janklow did. Janklow after all blew through a stop sign while speeding when he killed a motorcyclist. The motorcyclsits family got like a million dollars from the Federal government as Janklow was determined to be doing his job as Congressperson.
OzarkHillbilly
He did know. One does not call the sheriff for the relatively minor inconvenience of hitting a deer. One calls a tow truck. He called the sheriff and the 2 of them cooked up this cockamamie story.
As for his not seeing the glasses, that is actually plausible. I spend half my time in the shop looking for things right under my nose because I didn’t return them to their proper location. Pretty sure that if I was looking for my insurance card amidst an attempt to come up with a reasonable sounding story to give me cover for hitting and killing a person , I would be so distracted I could literally put my hand on them and not notice it.