While I disagree with what Bosworth did, I do support the decision in dropping the perjury charges.
I was often baffled how she could be charged with both. She either lied about the documents or she filed false documents. As I watched the court proceedings it seemed obvious to me she was definitely guilty of the false documents charge, but I wasn’t sure she committed perjury.
The ironic part is that the crime she is charged with happens all the time, probably not to the extent of the circulator being out of the country, but I have seen petitioners circulate petitions at events and just let them go from table to table on their own without witnessing every signature, which is very similar to what she did.
I also think while she really screwed up on this and is guilty, I don’t think the charges are serious enough for her to lose her medical license. I guess we will see what the medical board decides.
What’s really unfair is she must fight at her legal expense. Considering the duration here, it’s probably 50k. She doesn’t get back for false charges. The best way to ruin a political opponent and her career is legal wrangling.
There are so many laws that it’s impossible to be sure you’re legal. If you are, you have to prove you are at your expense. There was the recent case of a 6400 citizen petition on the wrong form. A form supplied by the city clerk. Are we free in this state? Yes, if we can afford to keep everybody in court.
Well, the State lost part of this. They lost the Flandreau marijuana case. The EB5 scandal garnered a mere $ 2000 fine. I suspect the State’s GEAR-UP cases will probably implode too, or at least the one where Butler is the defense attorney…. And who is running for governor again?…. I mean as a Republican?…… 😉
Anyone who can read English can figure out what is required in the law to circulate a petition. The law isn’t at all complicated. Yes, candidate petitions are often circulated illegally. That’s because those candidates and their supporters are crooks.
I want people to know, I don’t approve of what Bosworth did, she had it coming. But as you point out Donald, this is not rocket science, but some can’t figure it out. This kind of crap goes on all over the state. Just look at the Hoot Colony in Huron who got immunity to testify against Bosworth. The colony pastor signed everyone’s signatures. I suppose I could go on a rant about how Hoots are not real sharp, but c’mon, the colony pastor didn’t think this wasn’t right?
This was a witch hunt of a political freak. And even as much as I don’t like Annette, her weirdo husband and their bizarre politics, you have to ask yourself, who is next? Jackboots did this based on vengence, that’s it. The SOS could of easily fined her.
This wasn’t a witch hunt by the state.
This was Corey Heidelberger at Dakota Free Press (then the Madville Times) doing some good reporting and some basic research into Bosworth’s petitions at the time of circulation. He did a lot of reserch into a bunch of the shady stuff the Bosworth was doing at the time of the election (fake raffles, fraud in Colorado, medical ethics violations). He laid it out in great detail at https://madvilletimes.com/tag/annette-bosworth/ and to a pretty large extent the state didn’t have any choice but to dig into it. Now had Bosworth shown ANY level of contrition or at any point issued a mea culpa, this would have turned into a slap on the wrist. She decided to fight this, even though she was obliviously guilty.
Now her loss of her medical license: This wasn’t her first medical ethics violation that was brought to the state medical board. Again, had she shown contrition prior to their ruling, she may have gotten off with a slap on the wrist. She didn’t.
This is, basically, a case where she decided that the law didn’t apply to her and she got caught. She could have pretty easily made this go away, but she decided to fight this at every turn.
http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/six-charged-in-ballot-probe/article_b7e7f9ab-53c3-58ea-ab4f-a0a037d4f881.html
Bosworth got thrown under the bus.
This reminds me of the 2004 SD Republican Notary Massacre. The republicans would let their own go free when this happened before.
That one in the article from Pennington County later worked for the SD State Dept of Tourism.