Natvig to run for South Dakota Attorney General as Ravnsborg hints uncertainty of candidacy

PIERRE — Kimball-native and present director of the South Dakota Division of Felony Investigation (DCI) David Natvig introduced Tuesday he’s throwing his hat within the ring for the place of South Dakota Legal professional Common.

“I’ve spent my time at DCI constructing a powerful crew, making enhancements and efficiently combating the challenges dealing with the State,” Natvig mentioned. “I hope to proceed these efforts as Legal professional Common, combating drug sellers, placing new consideration onto chilly circumstances, and defending the rights of all South Dakotans.”

Rising up in Kimball, Natvig graduated from South Dakota State College with a bachelor’s diploma in Political Science.

He holds an in depth historical past within the U.S. navy. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant by way of the Reserve Officers’ Coaching Corps; served as a Captain on lively obligation as a paratrooper with the 18th Airborne Corps at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina; was deployed as a part of Operations Desert Defend/Storm; served because the Officer in Cost of the Inexperienced Beret Parachute crew and traveled all through america selling the Particular Operations Command. He’s acquired two Military Commendation Medals all through his navy tenure.

After his navy service, Natvig returned to South Dakota and graduated from the College of South Dakota Faculty of Regulation, later serving because the Brule County State’s Legal professional between 2003-2019, prosecuting hundreds of crimes.

Along with his service to Brule County, he additionally served because the Buffalo County State’s Legal professional and prosecuted prison circumstances for the Crow Creek Sioux Tribal Courts, all whereas additionally managing an in depth civil observe by way of the Natvig Regulation Workplace.

In 2019, Natvig turned the director of the DCI, by which he sought to apprehend and pursue the prosecution of main drug sellers and prison organizations. He served partly to make use of the primary T3 Wiretap carried out by state regulation enforcement in a long time, producing a case that led to the arrest of Hells Angels members in Minnesota and Colorado, regarding a drug and gun-running conspiracy with a Mexican cartel.

Throughout his time with the DCI, he has constructed a working relationship with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that has led to the indictment of 5 Mexican Nationals who’re the sources of methamphetamines, cocaine, and fentanyl in South Dakota.

In 2021, Natvig was elected the Vice-Chair of the Excessive-Depth Drug Trafficking Administration, which consists of state and federal regulation enforcement from six Midwestern states. On this place, he labored for funding to help in prosecuting complicated prison circumstances with the U.S. Legal professional’s workplace to prosecute circumstances federally, which Natvig mentioned saves South Dakota taxpayers tens of millions of {dollars}.

The DCI is a division of the Workplace of Legal professional Common, that means Natvig is seeking to unseat Jason Ravnsborg, who’s at present suspended from his place pending the results of an impeachment trial.

Ravnsborg was impeached by the South Dakota Home of Representatives in April

for “crimes and malfeasance in workplace” stemming from

a September 2020 site visitors crash the place Ravnsborg struck and killed Joe Boever,

a pedestrian strolling alongside a freeway at night time, together with his car.

In response to a letter from Brent Gromer, a supervisory particular agent with the DCI, to investigators with the North Dakota Bureau of Felony Investigation, Natvig was current within the room when Gromer defined what a forensic search of Ravnsborg’s telephones would encompass.

Gromer’s letter made no indication that Natvig mentioned particulars of the case with Ravnsborg, aside from to notice the 2 have been briefly alone in Natvig’s workplace earlier than Ravnsborg started asking in regards to the forensic search.

Ravnsborg, who was getting back from a marketing campaign occasion in Redfield on the time of the crash, is “weighing his choices” as as to if he’ll proceed his candidacy for legal professional normal,

in keeping with KOTA Territory.

Ravnsborg’s impeachment will head to the South Dakota Senate in June for a trial to determine whether or not or not he shall be faraway from workplace. If two-thirds of the chamber vote to convict, a second two-thirds majority vote may disqualify him from workplace.

Natvig’s marketing campaign didn’t instantly return a cellphone name in search of touch upon Nativg’s marketing campaign and the state of his relationship with Ravnsborg.