While Easter Monday was a slow news day (except for the tremendous rate of snow melt) today will be more of a bombshell in South Dakota politics, as former State Senate candidate Joel Koskan will be arraigned on alternate charges on allegations of sexual abuse in Pierre after the rejection of a plea agreement. The arraignment starts at 10 a.m. before Circuit Court Judge Margo Northrup in the courtroom of the Hughes County Courthouse.
No indication of what the alternate charges are, as the Attorney General’s office cannot legally file the alternate charges until the defendant waives his right to a preliminary hearing. That will happen today.
I suspect the content of the new charges may hinge on whether they were able to obtain testimony from the victim, and their willingness to participate in the prosecution of Koskan, a three-time legislative candidate who ran in the State Senate race in District 26 in 2018, 2020, and most recently in 2022.
The allegations of abuse were particularly graphic and shocked the conscience. And South Dakota is a small state. There are a lot of people in political circles, myself included, who had met the victim. I believe she served as a legislative page, and she is well thought of. No one would wish that kind of violence or violation of her person on her. The accusations are of such that if true, they are the ultimate betrayal of a person who said they would nurture and protect the alleged victim.
Aside from allegations of a terrible crime on a child, this case brings a sense of betrayal for many Republicans – including myself – as in past elections we’d supported Joel’s efforts to run for office. Only to find in 2022 as charges against him were being investigated – and apparently negotiated – no one on the political end knew or suspected anything until it was too late. We found out when everyone else found out. When all of the plea agreements and investigation supposedly started, there would have been time for him to withdraw from the ballot and be replaced. Instead, Koskan remained mute while people put time and money and resources into his race.
As the news broke, luckily for the Senate GOP Candidate PAC, their donation of $10,000 had not been cashed.. and they were able to stop the check the day they heard. Crazy people on the internet might claim they sent him money to fight the charges or for bail, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Unfortunately for others, such as the State GOP, postcards had already gone out in the race, and were far enough in the postal chain that they were impossible to claw back. I have a postcard I could show you.. but unfortunately, I’d be compelled to blur significant portions, as this one went out with a picture of the alleged victim on it.
For those involved in the political process, there’s a lot of us feeling disgust at being used. It doesn’t compare to what the victim is said to have gone through over nearly a decade, so the best you can hope is that today will provide healing for them. The rest of us will always be left standing around wondering why any of it happened in the first place.
I don’t know if today will bring closure for anyone, as much as an end to a process.
I find it hard to believe that with the initial charges that the DA did not include charges of Witness Tampering since Koskan was actively texting the victim while she was speaking with with investigators about his abuse. Hopefully they are included this time in a long litany of charges to put him away forever.
Joel Koskan, Bud May, and Tom Pischke are all cut from the same cloth. It’s past time for the SDGOP leadership to excise those tumors from the party and take a more-proactive approach to purge predators from their ranks.