South Dakota Journalist’s Extremely Ill-Advised Prank Call Being Treated As A Criminal Act (original) (raw)

from the is-stupidity-a-crime? dept

First off, full disclosure: I live in this state. It’s one of those upper Midwestern states no one seems to live in and yet they do. I continue to endure the Trump-loving antics of our current governor, Kristi Noem, who somehow managed not to kill off a large percentage of the state’s population with her years of inaction during the COVID crisis.

While not encouraging/signing performative legislation, Governor Noem also finds time to get her personal phone hacked. Or, at least, that’s what she claimed earlier this year:

Following the leak of Governor Kristi Noem and her family’s personal Social Security numbers and other private information by the January 6th Committee, Governor Noem’s personal cell phone number has been hacked and used to make hoax calls. Governor Noem had no involvement in these calls.

It’s true the January 6th committee left Social Security numbers exposed when it published documents related to its investigation. How this led to Noem’s phone being hacked, however, is left to our imagination. The official press release suggests the two are related, but says something about “hacked” and says something about “making hoax calls” but never actually connects the two assertions.

What’s being treated as a criminal act by a local prosecutor in South Dakota doesn’t appear to have anything to do with Noem’s phone being hacked. In fact, it doesn’t appear to have anything to do with any recognizable criminal act.

A former Pierre-based reporter is facing charges for a January prank call.

Former KOTA and Dakota News Now reporter Austin Goss, 26, was arrested and charged with making threatening, harassing or misleading contacts, which is a class one misdemeanor. Goss appeared in court Thursday.

There’s no hacking here. That much is apparent from the arrest affidavit [PDF], which makes it clear the recipient of the call wasn’t being threatened or even credibly harassed. He may have been (initially) misled, but that’s about it.

The prank call was allegedly made to former South Dakota GOP chairman Dan Lederman. The alleged crime — “Making Threatening, Harassing, or Misleading Contacts” — doesn’t appear to cover what happened here. The law criminalizes spoofing phone numbers, but this “spoof” was made apparent by the end of the rambling, incoherent message delivered by this particularly stupid journalist to Lederman.

Here’s the phone call, as detailed in the charging affidavit:

“So now, you answer me this… Between the hours of midnight yesterday, and right now, where they disappear to?.. Did you check your basement? How many boxes of the Moderna where there?… Oh you think this is funny?… Yo! You’re making me say way too much on this line already… Marculo’s on the line here too. You best quit messing with me!… You know what? I’m going to tell you, I know what you said the other day…. You telling me, you didn’t tell Vito, that you were going to try to move the three boxes of that AstraZeneca outside this family?… You saying you ain’t said that?!… Oh, I’m getting so angry… You saying, you aint’ said that?!… You come here. Say it to my face…. Yeah, yeah I want you to say it to my face!… Hahahahahaha! You’ve just been pranked by PrankDial.com.”

It was definitely a dumb thing to do. But Lederman was informed by the end of the call that it was a spoof call. The “tone and tenor of the audio” (which Lederman claims “caused him concern for his safety”) is clearly ridiculous, what with its use of stereotypical Italian first names to infer some sort of mob involvement in moving around boxes of (presumably) COVID vaccines.

Dakota News Now and KOTA both terminated the reporter, which is definitely the proper response. But should this be a criminal act? It’s clear from context — not to mention that last lines delivered in the spoof call — that this was a prank. Yes, it probably annoyed Dan Lederman. But even if he was annoyed enough to contact law enforcement, there’s no reason cops and prosecutors should have decided this is a case worth prosecuting.

It’s a waste of limited resources in a state full of limited resources. Let the former journalist suffer through the future he’s created for himself, one that will surely be wanting for decent employment opportunities. But don’t give credence to Governor Noem’s “my phone has been hacked” speculations by pushing this case through the criminal justice system.

Filed Under: austin goss, criminal, dan lederman, kristi noem, prank calls, south dakota