SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Just months after losing his license to practice law in South Dakota, former Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg is fighting to keep his license to practice law in Iowa.
Ravnsborg has filed an appeal with the state supreme court and has a hearing scheduled for later this month.
KELOLAND News is taking a closer look at the claims in court documents and where the former attorney General has been for the past year.
In his appeal filed with the Iowa Supreme Court, former South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg admits killing a man, while also blaming Governor Kristi Noem for the consequences he now faces.
He wrote that Noem did everything she could to “intimidate, interfere and influence the investigation and hearings, despite a judge and attorneys asking her to stop”.
He also wrote that he remained in office because of ongoing criminal matters involving the governor and a prominent South Dakotan.
He claimed it was his obligation to protect the state even if it caused political loss and attacks.
In the appeal, Ravnsborg claimed those so-called crimes have since been quote “swept under the rug”.
He appears to be referring to investigations into the Governor’s state plane use and her actions involving her daughter’s real estate appraiser license.
However, Ravnsborg didn’t file a complaint about the state plane until the year after his crash and it was later dismissed.
A state ethics board did determine that Noem may have “engaged in misconduct” in connection with her daughter’s appraiser license but faced no public consequence.
The Governor’s spokesman has called both investigations “political.”
The “prominent South Dakotan” the filing refers to may have been T. Denny Sanford, who Ravnsborg later determined committed “no prosecutable offenses.
Ravnsborg does not believe he should lose his license to practice law in Iowa, because facing the same discipline in two states would be “too severe”.
In 2021, Ravnsborg entered “no contest” pleas to two misdemeanors and did not have to serve time behind bars.
In 2022, he was impeached.
According to his letter to the Iowa Supreme Court, Ravnsborg has been on active duty with the military in South Korea for the past year.
