Author: @SoDakCampaigns

Shane Penfield Named Prosecutor of the Year

PIERRE, S.D.  – The South Dakota State’s Attorneys Association has named Shane Penfield as the Prosecutor of the Year.

Penfield is the State’s Attorney for Corson, Dewey, Perkins, and Ziebach Counties. He received the award Thursday during the association’s annual meeting in Deadwood.

“Shane has been a dedicated public servant who is a strong voice for victims of crime,” said South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley.

The Prosecutor of the Year award, established in 2002, is given annually to an outstanding South Dakota prosecutor.

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From Dakota News Now, the station for political reporter Austin Goss, who was arrested for a prank call impersonating Governor Kristi Noem, is announcing his termination from employment:

“We learned of the incident involving Austin Goss late last night. Once we gathered the facts, we decided to terminate his employment with our stations. Dakota News Now and KOTA Territory were unaware of Mr. Goss’ activities and deeply regret the lack of judgment he showed, which violated our policies and is contrary to our commitment to the highest standards of journalistic integrity.”

Read the entire story here.

That’s too bad, as everyone makes mistakes.

But, when you’re a political reporter and choose to impersonate one of the people you’re covering, that’s kind of a tough one for an employer to get past.

According to UJS records, Goss is scheduled to make his initial appearance in court in Stanley County on May 23rd.

Gov. Noem Signs Executive Order Banning Tencent

PIERRE, S.D. – Today, Governor Noem signed Executive Order 2023-06 banning Tencent Holding, Ltd. (“Tencent”) for state government agencies, employees, and contractors using state devices. Tencent is a China-based technology and media conglomerate, is one of the world’s largest companies, and poses similar cybersecurity risks to South Dakota as ByteDance and TikTok. Photos of Governor Noem signing the Executive Order can be found here.

“My number one responsibility as Governor is to keep the people of South Dakota safe. South Dakota started the movement that has swept the country to ban TikTok on government devices,” said Governor Noem. “Now, I am extending that ban to Tencent and other Chinese companies that are threats to our security.”

This Executive Order bans the downloading or use of any application or visiting of any website owned or controlled by Tencent Holdings, Ltd. on state devices, networks, etc. by:

• Employees of the State of South Dakota;
• Agencies of the State of South Dakota; and,
• People or entities who contract with the State of South Dakota, including any state agency, commission, or authority agents thereof.

This Executive Order also gives the Commissioner of the Bureau of Information and Telecommunications the power to ban any other application, website, platform, service, or product whose use or access would be detrimental to state security in the same way as Tencent and Bytedance. The Commissioner will keep a publicly accessible list of entities banned under this Executive Order and Executive Order 2022-10.

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In continuing developments in the Dakota News Now/Austin Goss arrest story, an on-line profile for Goss which was available earlier today at https://www.dakotanewsnow.com/authors/austin-goss-1/…

…is no longer available, and is leading the user to the following 404/Page Not Found website error…

 

Goss’ information has also been removed from Dakota News Now’s “Meet the team” page.

Dakota News Now has not released any information in the matter aside from the story on their website, as well as on their sister station’s website.

KELOland has a fancy infographic with dramatic music on the Austin Goss arrest story that they’re running on their website. Given that Dakota News Now are their big competitors for the televised media space..

You can view it at keloland.com.

Dakota News Now has posted their story on their reporter Austin Goss being arrested.. and they seem to be mincing few words on how they are portraying it:

Political reporter arrested for impersonating Noem

Political reporter Austin Goss of Dakota News Now was arrested for making a prank phone call while impersonating Governor Kristi Noem.

Read it all here.

They’re pretty abrupt about the matter, and it seems like they’ve ripped the bandaid off. We’ll see how this story continues to develop.

In other court news.. besides a convicted felon/track coach/Regents employee allegedly slapping a student, and the arrest of one of South Dakota’s political reporters, former Republican State Senate candidate Joel Koskan is now part of South Dakota’s sex offender registry, with the central clearinghouse for state sex offender information noting his mugshot, crime, and present place of residence at the South Dakota State Penitentiary.

You can look up sex offender information at the state’s Sex Offender Registry website here.

From the Argus Leader comes additional reporting on the story we broke earlier today:

A Dakota News Now reporter has been arrested on charges alleging he made a prank phone call to the former chair of the South Dakota Republican Party using Gov. Kristi Noem’s personal cell phone number, according to court documents.

The Stanley County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that Austin Goss, the capitol bureau reporter for Dakota News Now, had been arrested Thursday morning and released on a personal recognizance bond.

and..

Investigators said given that Goss likely had both Noem’s and Lederman’s cell phone numbers, and that his internet connection was password protected, probable cause existed that he made the call.

Read the entire story here.

I did reach out to former SDGOP Chair Dan Lederman for comment, and he noted that he “wasn’t going to comment on an ongoing criminal investigation.”

In the breaking story today of Dakota News Now reporter Austin Goss’ arrest for a prank phone call that spoofed Governor Kristi Noem’s identity and phone number, I can’t help but be reminded of the decade-old saga of Dan Willard, who along with Gary Dykstra (and unindicted co-conspirator Stace Nelson) was similarly accused of monkey business with phone calls in the political arena.

From the August 29, 2013 Argus Leader story titled “Key Witnesses in robocall trial talks about election effort”:

You might be able to research it more at argusleader.com.

The point being, even if a person thinks they’re anonymous in their pranking, whether it’s in person, or over the Internet, they really aren’t.

And if law enforcement is determined to do so, it might take some time, but the identity of the person initiating this stuff can be discovered.

In a story which is just breaking, Dakota News Now Political Reporter Austin Goss has been arrested for one count of violating SDCL 49-31-31(5)(b), making threatening, harassing, or misleading contacts, and displaying the telephone number of another person.

According to the probable cause statement, “the caller ID of the prank call had been set to appear as though it was coming from South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem’s personal cell phone,” and the complainant “provided law enforcement with a screenshot of this call which showed the Governor’s personal cell phone number and contact information to be displayed.”

The affidavit of probable cause continues to identify Austin Goss of Dakota News Now, noting that “Austin Goss did contact D.L. by telephone or other electronic device with the intent to harass and annoy him, and in doing so intentionally causes a fictitious and misleading caller identification or telephone number (that of Governor Noem) to be displayed.”

The arrest appears to have taken place yesterday, and you can read and judge for yourself the arrest and charging documents below:

AustinGossArrest_ImpersonatingGovNoem by Pat Powers on Scribd

The charge is a Class 1 misdemeanor, which according to South Dakota Law is punishable by one year imprisonment in a county jail or two thousand dollars fine, or both.