Lee Stranahan, and the manufactured attack narrative against Marty Jackley.

@SoDakCampaigns

stranahan_advI’m on Facebook recently, and I had the following sponsored ad pop up, promoting yet another ridiculous article by former sado/masochism pornography photographer Lee Stranahan, as he continues promoting a campaign against South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley.

This of course came on the heels of a press conference Stranahan held in Washington accusing Jackley of “criminal wrongdoing,” which was ignored with the exact same level of blasé by the Washington DC Area press that South Dakota Reporters previously have had for Stranahan’s silliness.

As you’ll notice in the ad on the left, it talks about how “Marty Jackley’s prosecutors” did this or that. But, that’s not exactly truthful.

In this case, they weren’t “Marty Jackley’s” prosecutors. In any way, shape, or form. They were State Attorneys, elected by the people of their county, and completely independent of the Attorney General.

But that’s pretty typical, and stands as one of the biggest problems with the “news stories” that Lee Stranahan has produced as he throws out stories accusing Jackley. They ignore glaring errors, and play up speculation of things that aren’t known at all.

It’s unclear why exactly Stranahan continues his pursuit, making outlandish accusations against South Dakota state & county prosecutors, and the Judiciary in what he characterizes as a scandal. After serving as a paid Annette Bosworth campaign consultant, and contributing to what most would consider a glorious mucking up of her criminal case, his antics caused at least one of her several attorneys to demand he cease association with Bosworth.

Yet, the silliness continued. And still does.

Stranahan’s storied past, including allegations of scams, cons, and other undesirable acts, don’t exactly paint him as a reliable source of news. Not only that, but as we saw with Bosworth, he has a tendency to harm those he claims to champion.  In fact, given that there have been a series of sponsored facebook ads, it leaves one with a sense of wondering who exactly is paying money to promote the messages?    And why?

Unfortunately, a lot of Stranahan’s antics do a grave disservice to a lot of things, including the truth.

First and foremost, many of these stories (and I use that term in a couple of definitions) are expressly and specifically directed at the Attorney General Marty Jackley. Despite the fact that Marty is peripheral, at best, to the matter that Stranahan goes on about, and didn’t prosecute the case.

What we do know conclusively is that Marty was one of the people stuck dealing with the aftermath.

As Attorney General, Marty Jackley is in charge of DCI, or the Division of Criminal Investigation. The Division of Criminal Investigation in South Dakota is often called in to provide specific expertise that many local law enforcement agencies aren’t able to supply themselves, and Special Agents conduct investigations on major felony cases, as they did in the case of the matter of the Mette investigation.

The investigation in the matter of the Mette family and the abuse of foster children at some point seems to have taken a sour turn, and while never indicated publicly, it seems that several things happened in the conduct of the investigation. Things that we can guess prosecutors thought could cost them the ability to pursue it.

The investigation involved issues of horrific child abuse, a type of case that is well noted among experts in law enforcement to be among the most difficult kinds of cases to work with.  As the FBI notes:

“Traditional law enforcement interviewing methods used in typical adult cases are counterproductive when it comes to child victims or witnesses to crimes,” said Stephanie Knapp, one of the Bureau’s four child forensic interviewers. “Sometimes you see unsuccessful outcomes in cases because of poor interview techniques. In many cases of child abuse, for example, where the victim is the only witness, the interview may be a critical element of the investigation.”

And..

Although they follow time-tested protocols, interviewers acknowledge that working with children is an art as well as a science, requiring experience and intuition. “You have to understand and follow the protocols,” Blackwell said, “but it’s also essential that you connect with the kids so that they trust you.”

Read that here.

Investigators and child advocates came into the case, and after a short time were accused of possibly coaching the children on what to say. Into this scenario came DCI investigator Mark Black, who claimed to both interview the children involved, as well as to investigate accusations of witness tampering. And the ambiguity coming out of what happened here seems to be the focus of much of the rhetoric that Stranahan is trying to twist and gin up in his mindless pursuit of Jackley, because much of “what happened” is not public.

Why? Because it involves underage crime victims. It involves personnel matters. And in either case, there’s not much that’s ever going to come to light.

But once in a while you get a hint dropped along the way like a breadcrumb. As noted by the Argus Leader in 2014 with regards to the 2012 case:

Jackley said he had asked North Dakota investigators to look into Black’s behavior in late February, but that the agent’s questionable behavior extended beyond the high-profile case of former advocate Shirley Schwab and former prosecutor Brandon Taliaferro.

By February, Black was accused of domestic abuse by his ex-wife, who took out a temporary protection order against him early this year. The order was not made permanent, but a hearing outlining accusations from Black’s ex-wife was held March 13. The temporary order was extended for 10 days and dismissed March 24.

By then, Black had been terminated.

“I think it’s fair to say that (the witness tampering investigation) was a factor,” Jackley said Friday. “If you were to ask about the protection order issues, I would say that was a factor, too. It was the totality of the circumstances.”

Read it all here.

In addition to what happened with Mark Black, Michael Moore the Beadle County state’s attorney prosecuting the matter had brought witness tampering charges against others involved in the case, which were later dismissed for lack of evidence.

We have an investigator accused of questionable behavior, partially in connection with the case. We have others whose conduct in the matter which had been brought into question. And on top of it all, the crime involves children who may or may not have been willing to take the stand, as well as possibly being the only witnesses in the case.

That seems to leave prosecutors in the unenviable position of trying to figure out what’s left to build a criminal case from to accomplish the ultimate goal – to put a bad, bad person in jail for as long as they could.

Richard Mette, the perpetrator in the sexual abuse case ended up getting a plea agreement of 15 years in prison, which might seem light to some. But in an investigation that apparently was experiencing evidentiary problems as this one did, sometimes a prosecutor – in this case, Michael Moore – is forced to move forward and procure the best deal they could. And we ended up with the 15-year plea agreement.

What really happened to cause problems with the case is arguably something we’ll never know. But as noted, what we do know is that – far from the wild accusations that Lee Stranahan makes of ridiculous grand conspiracies of abuse of power and corruption – the State’s attorney put the bad guy in jail, as best he could with what he had to work with. And, as the person responsible for DCI, Jackley was left to clean up an ugly mess contributed to by one if it’s agents, which was cited by the AG as part of the reason for the agents termination.

Lacking conclusive proof as to exactly what happened, anything else is just what those with overly fertile imaginations want to plant as their narrative, with sponsored facebook links and all.

It’s especially telling that in all of the weaving of this fairy tale by Lee Stranahan, all along the path, Stranahan’s smearing and false narrative of Marty Jackley doing bad things is constantly tied back to his prosecution of Annette Bosworth for fraudulently attesting to witnessing petition signatures.

It was in the beginning. And it continues to be to this day.

We can only hope that when the Bosworth trial happens in May that the silliness, and the sponsored facebook ads, finally go away.

As Lee Stranahan should.

54 thoughts on “Lee Stranahan, and the manufactured attack narrative against Marty Jackley.”

  1. these personal attacks on our Attorney General are an insult to him, his family, and our state. Stranahan should go back to whatever state the rock he crawled out from is located

    1. I for one am one of the many who believe Jason Ravnsborg should condemn Lee Stranahan and explain why he fired him from his campaign. Jackley is a great man and a person of integrity. Ravnsborg brought Stranahan to this state with Ken Crow and he should distance himself very far from this lunatic. If he doesn’t I would have a very hard time supporting him for office.

  2. On these types of narsistic posts I almost always wait for someone to bait the hook before posting anything. Some are too good to fail, others hoping for a reaction. Stranahan and company are too insignificant to matter for one reason………………..

    Stranahan wishes us to believe that an elected Top Enforcer of South Dakota Legal Statutes somehow can inject subjectivety into his personal belief system with the whole Legislature watching; and also the SD Supreme Court.

    1. The problem with the looney accusations of ‘conspiracy’ and cover up is that for it to work, everyone needs to be in on it, and no one lets anything slip.

      It just doesn’t happen.

      Occam’s Razor is usually what holds true. The fewer assumptions that are made, the better.

      1. You seem overconfident. You say that “it just doesn’t happen” that public officials get together and agree to not tell the truth to the public. But that’s not true, history makes it abundantly clear that conspiracies in government have indeed occurred.

        It is true that the average conspiracy theory is wrong, but even though conspiracy theories are wrong more often than not there are still some situations where specific conspiracy theories are correct. It’s true that keeping secrets is difficult, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossibly impractical.

        You claim that Stranahan is making up ideas out of thin air, and that seems true. But his failures don’t mean we should instantly dismiss all concerns similar to his about what might be going on in our government. This whole situation is a bad one, and a lot of your post trivializes legitimate failures on behalf of South Dakota’s government. We should not jump to the conclusion that Marty Jackley is corrupt, but neither should we jump to the conclusion that Jackley is an angel or perfectly competent administrator.

  3. I, along with my family are victims of Marty Jackely. A little over a year ago Marty Jackely falsely accused my wife and I of 30 felony counts of child abuse, went on a media smear campaign saying things like “worst case of child abuse in South Dakota history”destroying our name, all our children were removed and place in abusive foster homes and then three months later dropped all charges leaving our family destroyed! He made a mistake and just walked away leaving our family to pick up the pieces. Marty Jackley’s reckless and irresponsible attacks on our family was inexcusable! and if this is the kind of Attorney General South Dakota chooses to elect then so be it. My family has paid a huge price at the hands of this man and I pray for all the victims who are unfortunate enough to be in his path. When did Truth and Justice give way to smear and destroy? This man, in my humble opinion, should not be in such a position of power.
    The Hiland Family, victims of Marty Jackley.

  5. After one wades through your actionable smears against Mr. Stranahan and Mr. Black, one realizes that you are an apparent shameless political cut out for someone like Mr. Jackley or others in State government or the private sector who have a vested interest in the outcome of Mr. Stranahan’s investigation.

    First, the blatant smears against Lee Stranahan are a not-so-subtle attempt to discredit and demonize a storied investigative reporter. His work with Andrew Brietbart and his by-line stories on the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, the “Steubenville Rape Case”, “Trevan Martin/George Zimmerman” trial, etc. are legend among activists on the Right and Left as well as political operatives across the country.

    Lee Stranahan’s body of work substantiates the fact that he is a tenacious investigative journalist who has been intimidated, threatened and insulted by the best. Nice try but no cigar for you.

    Second, you have apparently mixed two complex stories, “The Mette Rape Case” and the ” Shirley Schwab and Brandon Taliaferro Investigation” into one.

    There is absolutely no doubt that Richard Mette maliciously raped two Lakota girls for years in his and his wife’s, Wendy, care. Wendy’s complicity in the family’s grotesque sexual abuse did not land her in jail and Richard was only sentenced to 15-years.

    Finally, the reader is disappointed that you would function as an apparent shill for Mr. Jackley or other political or private-sector entities. This story is not political – it is criminal. Lakota children are routinely kidnapped, mistreated, abused, and sexually violated in South Dakota.

    Did you resort to libel when addressing NPR’s Lakota Children investigation? Or when responding to allegations of illegal conduct by the State of South Dakota made by the Lakota People’s Law Project?

    Throwing mud at Mr. Stranahan and Mr. Black; confusing two separate and distinct cases; and ignoring the facts contained in Mr. Strahahan’s reporting leaves you, sir, standing bare naked on I-90 in a snowstorm.

    The citizens of South Dakota and Lakota parents and children deserve more respect than that proffered by your hit piece.

    1. Yawn.

      In case you missed it, which you utterly did, “The Mette Rape Case” and the “Shirley Schwab and Brandon Taliaferro Investigation” are not two separate matters. They are inextricably part of each other.

    3. i detect upraised dander and high dudgeon from mr waldron. that was an officious posting.

      1. Waldron” sounds like the name of a comic book villain.

        “Spider-man!-You will not defeat WAL-DRON! I will use my abilities to blow hot air at you.”

        “TBTbtbtbt…thbtthbt…. Oh darn it.”

    4. Peter you had an association and worked with Michelle Bachman? If your the same Peter Waldren please go away.

    5. Actionable smears? Actionable smears?? Oh no!

      I get a kick out of adults who make veiled threats on the interwebs. Good luck with the ‘actionable smears’.

  6. Not to mention, as part of the state stepping in to clean up the mess, retired Chief Justice Miller was appointed to preside at the trial, thus further showing the State’s commitment to fairly handle the case after the internecine squabbles in the Brown Co. State’s attorney’s office polluted the waters.

    To blame Jackley for any of this is just the latest chapter of the never-ending Bosworth fraud money raising scheme.

    1. If you are going to comment, please get your facts straight prior to posting.

      Former Chief Justice Miller was appointed and recused himself all in the month of May 2012.

      Retired Circuit Court Judge Gene Paul Kean was then appointed and presided throughout the case including handing down a full acquittal on all charges for Schwab and Taliaferro without having to present a defense.

      Shirley Schwab

      1. My facts are correct. The state stepped in with Judge Miller after Brown County imploded and the process was righted accordingly, including eventual transition of trial judge to Judge Kean.

        1. I don’t see all those ‘facts’ in your initial comment. You left out the ‘facts’ and now it just looks like you’re covering your bases.

  7. To backtrack just a bit; in no way did I mean that Schoenbeck or Powers were being narsistic. I could easily expand my four years on the Judicary Committee into respect for South Dakota’s Judicial system but those who think themselves above the Law would construe it as somehow being altruistic.

  8. Get this – now Stranhan has his clown show calling me disgusting names on Twitter. South Dakota shouldn’t have to be besmirched by the likes of he and his strange project Haber-Bosworth

    2. He criticized your position on the scandal, then you called him a nutjob, then he questioned your professionalism as a lawyer, then it descended into an immature back and forth. Neither of you gets moral superiority here. Don’t play the victim.

      https://twitter.com/stranahan/status/578742193780699136

      Unless you were referring to a different set of tweets or insults?

  9. PP,

    Thank you for exposing this liar for what he is. Lee Stranahan is a stain on the political process in South Dakota. I do not understand why he was brought here or why he is still meddling in our state.

    They don’t come with more integrity than Marty Jackley. You are a good man PP!!!

  10. Jackley, Schoenbeck, Powers:

    Sometimes the highest compliment is having bad people threatened by you. It means you are exposing their demons.

  11. I agree with Lee… As soon as I see Bosworth-Stranahan-Haber associated with a story I normally skip it… I admit saw the activity on the side board here and checked it out.

    Lets have the trial already, convict her and be done with these circus clowns…

  12. Pornahan needs to go back to hell where he came from. Just look him in the eyes once, its obvious something is mentally wrong with this dude.

    1. Didn’t Jason Ravensberg bring this guy to South Dakota?

      Grudz did you ever have breakfast with this Stranahan fellow?

      1. Yes. Ravnsborg brought Stranahan here to film Mike Rounds at events and follow him around – he was a Mike Rounds video stalker – hoping he would catch him doing something that Ken Crow (Ravnsborg’s campaign guru) could use against Rounds. Ravnsborg’s FEC report http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?14020403318 shows giving Stranahan $4k in the 2014 GOP primary.

        Bringing Stranahan into a campaign shows a huge lapse in judgement on his part.

        Because he is here he is now smearing Marty Jackley and I find it offensive. Very offensive. Ravnsborg should be leading the charge to expose Stranahan and prevent him from tarnishing good peoples reputations.

        Because there wouldn’t be a Lee Stranahan in SD without Ken Crowe and Jason Ravnsborg.

        1. Bringing Stranahan to SD shows terrible judgement but unless Ravnsborg wants to run for statewide office again it doesn’t matter.

  13. I find the bias and assumptions in this post and comments very disturbing.
    1. Are we to totally discredit Strananhan just because he used to video porn? and totally discredit Black just because he may have hit his wife? And totally discredit the whole story just because Bosworth is promoting it? I didn’t vote for Bos, and I think she’s a flake, but let’s look at the FACTS in this case !
    2. The Mette’s were referred to investigators several times over the years for questionable activity. The DSS came and looked around, found lots of porn and othe weird stuff and did nothing. Foster girls contimued to be sent there.
    3. Taliaferro and Schwab dared to confront and expose both the Mette’s and DSS. THEY (Taliaferro and Schwab) became the targets of Brown County State’s Attorney Kim Dorsett, with the backing of Jackley and his office. Doesett. incidentally, has a lucrative contract working for DSS on the side! (Huge conflict of interest)
    4. Dorsett signed false affidavits and had Black sign false affidavits which she knew were lies. Instead of prosecuting Dorsett, they tried to prosecute Taliaferro ( yes, with Jackley’s blessing-he wasn’t an innocent bystander). Judge Kean rightly threw out the case before the defense even had to testify since the prosecution’s case was so weak!!!
    5. Jackley has always covered up for DSS, the Sec of State’s office, the Governor’s office, etc., every time they have broken the law or been accused of breaking the law. Has he EVER found them guilty of anything??? This is why we have to rely on “strange” out-of-state reporters to try to bring us the truth on our out-of-control state government. All the in-sate media are scared of them. Just like the sorry state of affirs in Washington with a rogue US Attorney General. Few dare to confront him for fear of the IRS, ATF, or whomever may come after them. Is that the same here in SD ???
    6. Although Taliaferro was never found guily of anything, Dorsett/Jackley refuse to expung his record and clear his name. He and Shwab had to spend 10’s of thousand of their own money defending themselves against OUR STATE when they were innocent and just trying to do their jobs, while the State was only trying to protect the DSS’s backside.

    1. I agree completely with all of this, thank you for the effort you took to write out this comment.

      1. at the heart of this the ad hominem blasting of jackley still shines through and most of us still reject that.

    2. “This is why we have to rely on “strange” out-of-state reporters to try to bring us the truth on our out-of-control state government. All the in-sate media are scared of them.”

      Here we go again with the conspiracies. All the media in SD are in on it. And that’s why we had to have the porn guy show all us dumb hicks where the corruption is.

      1. We have like three real newspapers in the entire state. Also, no one is saying the newspapers are involved in a conspiracy, just that they’re not investigating this issue to find out who did something wrong.

        It doesn’t necessarily take outlandish scenarios to make it realistic that the owners of our three newspapers might decide to not investigate an issue. One newspaper might have a Republican view and be biased in favor of the government. Another might want to be polite to the government in order to maintain their access to public officials and important events. A third might think that the evidence is suggestive, but not conclusive enough to make a story which will sell well.

        1. 1. there are more than three newspapers in the entire state. 2. at least three are demonstrably never in the mood to play nice with the state or republicans. 3. the broad brush is never accurate when you’re painting such a complex picture. the reason there may be no reporting such as you desire is because there is no story to report, or the story they report is not to you liking.

          1. Andrew I’m not sure about that. They have been pretty soft regarding their reporting.

              1. i’m not andrew, but i’m a person who’s seen enough guilty people and their defenders try and cram their false narrative wherever they can cram it. usually in forums like this where they can anonymously slander whoever they like, and of course, indeed ‘who cares?’ because there’s no way posting in this forum affects anything, really.

        2. The AAN covered this case fairly intensely for a while. Jackley was never a part of it because he didn’t have anything to do with it. those are rumors and lies.

          1. I think I might have misread your comment a bit, my apologies. I’m going to go look up some old AAN articles, see what kind of criticisms they did or did not make. I might have just overlooked them at the time.

      2. i want to respond again to the charge that journalism in this state isn’t up to the task of reporting. i’m reading what is possibly the best written and presented series on a specific injustice that i have ever read – tom griffith’s series for the rapid city journal on the mistreatment of the hiland family at the hands of what appears to be a very inept child welfare process in this state. fix it. btw, jackley doesn’t figure prominently as a prime villain in that story. just sayin.

  14. If I was Marty, Ravnsborg, Lee (Schoenbeck) and anyone else I’d ignore these characters and this baseless story. Who cares??, it is at best a web story they are trying to push. They tried to smear Marty last year and he won against Mr. Haber running away.

    Let’s not forget this is all noise and not lose perspective.

    Bosworth is GUILTY…this is just the last gasps of a person about to get convicted of a felony and lose her medical license.

    1. WHO CARES ??? Anyone with a heart or a conscience should care ! The children of Mr. Hiland were put in abusive foster homes after the STATE took them from the parents they loved and who loved them. Jackley himself crucified the family in the press despite ANY evidence. The Butte Co. States Attorney based her case on nothing but outright lies. The children left in the abusive Mette house and other bad homes are also inexcusably scarred for life. The DSS agents told The Hilands that if they complained about the foster parents, they would NEVER get their kids back ! How low on the food chain is any person who would exploit young, innocent children for money ??? And if it isn’t for money then why? Follow the DSS/ foster care/ child protection services $$ and we will find some answers.

      1. Where did Jackley crucify anyone in the press? Please provide a link, or some basis for your accusations.

        The only “news” I can find on the issue was the press release (http://news.sd.gov/newsitem.aspx?id=15323) put out by the Office of the Attorney General that provided that the Hilands had been arrested and charged with the child abuse counts. It also stated they are presumed innocent. Nothing stated in the limited release can be construed as “crucifixion” as it was only simple facts provided. Please stop trying to manufacture rage, Stranahan. No one cares.

      1. Jackley doesn’t run the DSS any more than he runs the DMV. The office of the attorney general acts as the attorney FOR the state, and unlike those in private practice, cannot choose its clients. There is only one person that all of state government must answer to, and it is NOT the attorney general.
        Also, it’s been said before, but for those in the cheap seats or those who are a little slow, the AG had nothing to do with the sentence of Mette. That was between the county prosecutor and the Judge. Next time you want to make sure someone gets more time in jail, you force the child to take the stand and describe in detail how they were ravaged. Then you can tell me if it was worth it for 5, 10, or 20 more years.
        Have you ever been embarrassed by something you had no control over? Have you been forced to tell strangers that embarrassing fact over and over and over, reliving it with every telling? I didn’t think so.

Comments are closed.