Koskan story goes from bad to worse. Court documents accuse candidate of child abuse involving sexual grooming.

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Court documents filed in the case against District 26 State Senate Candidate Joel Koskan illustrate that this case may be far worse than the early reports made it sound. And it sounded pretty bad before.  Dakota Scout has followed up to their earlier story, and according to court documents filed today, the prosecution is using the term “sexual grooming” in conjunction with the horrible allegations:

The Attorney General’s Office is alleging that Joel Koskan, a 44-year-old Republican candidate for state Legislature in District 26, sexually groomed a minor over the course of six years, according to a criminal compliant made Thursday in Mellette County. The charge is one count of exposing a minor to foreseeable harm, a class 4 felony that could land Koskan behind bars for up to 10 years.

The South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation investigated the case, which involves a victim who is now 20 years old and was allegedly groomed by Koskan starting in 2014.

Read it here (Subscription required).

The thing is, this is alleged to have gone on since 2014. So, the prosecution is saying it went on during the time while Koskan was a candidate for legislative office in 2018 and 2020.   I think it goes without saying that if convicted, Koskan would be ineligible from being seated. According to the State Constitution:

§ 4.   Disqualification for conviction of crime–Defaults on public money. No person who has been, or hereafter shall be, convicted of bribery, perjury, or other infamous crime, nor any person who has been, or may be collector or holder of public moneys, who shall not have accounted for and paid over, according to law, all such moneys due from him, shall be eligible to the Legislature or to any office in either branch thereof.

Read that here.

While not specific, i think “infamous crime” would cover this, and also according to the constitution, each house gets to determine who is and who is not qualified.

His family are awfully nice people, especially his parents, and I can’t imagine what they are going through as more and more revelations are made in the case, including more details coming in open court, as noted in the article.

I’d ask that you offer your prayers for the victim and the family, but it goes without saying, if not seemingly a bit trite. Maybe you should offer your prayers for an adequate measure of justice and healing. Because it seems that in cases like this, those involved never seem to see a sufficient amount of either.

9 thoughts on “Koskan story goes from bad to worse. Court documents accuse candidate of child abuse involving sexual grooming.”

  1. I don’t care what party child abusers and human traffickers belong to. If they’re proved guilty and convicted, the maximum sentence should laid upon them. PERIOD!

  2. If he is guilty he is truly a sick human being. He belongs in jail and his nuts chopped off. Abuse can ruin a Childs life forever. So disturbing.

  4. “His family are awfully nice people.”
    The complaint alleges that his wife knew. And are we to believe that his parents and others in the family (yes, and even the other kids) were completely taken by surprise that Koskan was–for years–keeping a young indigenous girl in his home as essentially his personal sex slave?

    That’s tough to swallow, given the details in the complaint.
    Unless by “nice people,” you mean “people willing to ignore crimes against a child adopted into their family in order to avoid public shame and potential prosecution.”

  5. The complaint does not allege the wife knew but that she told the girl sex was a special event. There is nothing to say the wife explicitly knew although it would be hard to imagine she didn’t and I believe should be charged as well pending more details. The other children are minors still and will be for years. They may or may not know what has went on but regardless they are not to blame. Children who grow up in home with abuse often do not talk until much later and we don’t know what the home environment was like but from all accounts, the children seemed to love him and not fear him outside the home. There is also no way to know if his parents or anyone outside the home knew this was happening. You cannot blame an entire family for the actions of one man when you have no proof they knew. It is clear this man needs to be in jail but everyone who knows him was shocked my this.

  6. Some of you need to actually read the articles rather than just making assumptions and responding to headlines.

  7. Do NOT vote for this pervert and child rapist. The judge in this case, and the prosecutors should be ashamed of taking his plea.

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