Ah, the good old days... Annette Bosworth and Patrick Davis, September 2013

Patrick Davis finally did the public some good this week by joining the ranks of those debunking Annette Bosworth's constant stream of vengeful and distracting public lies. Interestingly, Troy Jones says Davis erred both in agreeing to work for Bosworth's fake Senate campaign in the first place, then speaking up against his former client.

Davis's price for selling his soul for nine months was at least $36,952, according to payments thus far documented in Bosworth's FEC reports. That price apparently did not include keeping Davis's propaganda for Bosworth around. Last September, Davis put out a supposedly heartfelt appeal for contributions to Bosworth's vanity fund. He even invoked his wife in his pitch, saying "JoAnn and I have slim discretionary income but we've committed $500 to this effort."

That pitch was on Davis's webpage as recently as May 23, 2014. But it's gone now.

Having fulfilled his contractual obligations to Bosworth, Davis is free to put as much distance between himself and the alleged felon as he wishes. He can keep or delete whatever content he wants on his own websites. But Davis's lucrative yet unsuccessful association with Bosworth will hang around his business neck. Davis signed on to represent a candidate whose media forays, philosophical inconsistency, and shady business practices had already made clear she was a nowheresville candidate. He charged this fake candidate nearly $37K, swore to her conservative bona fides, promised "to do everything I can to help Annette get elected," and delivered 5.75% of the GOP primary electorate. That's not the sort of advocacy I'd want on my political consulting résumé.

Davis will catch heck no matter what he does. I don't think he deserves heck from Troy for pointing out a former client's bad-faith lies about her former lawyer. But I'd give him less heck if he'd own and apologize for his role in perpetrating Bosworth's national political fundraising scam.

That singular, stand-above-the-crowd, candidate is Annette Bosworth. She has the grassroots support and professional credentials to unite social, economic, and national security conservatives behind her candidacy, serve South Dakota and represent you and your family with honor and integrity.  We can trust Dr. Annette Bosworth to do this job for us [Patrick Davis, "Please Help Dr. Annette Bosworth," fundraising pitch, 2013.09.17].

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With her telling and treacherous sacrifice of Joel Arends last week, accused felon Annette Bosworth is looking for new legal counsel. Sioux Falls attorney Jeffrey R. Beck filed papers for her last week pertaining to her waiver of her initial court appearance, but the Hughes County courthouse yesterday did not have any documents on file indicating who would be serving as her attorney of record in her trail for petition fraud.

Everyone deserves legal representation. But whoever takes up Bosworth's doomed case should not expect to be paid, at least not directly by Bosworth. She has the money to send her husband and children off on an extended vacation to Alaska, but she doesn't think she should pay her own legal bills. Hence, her sister Peggy Craig is starting a legal defense fund:

Join me in standing with Dr Annette Bosworth. Her courage gives me hope. Support her by contributing to her legal defense fund, send money to the community fund:

Annette Bosworth Legal Support Fund
PO Box 130
Tea, SD 57064

Or

Reliabank Dakota
720 Kevin Dr (PO Box 550)
Tea, SD 57064

For questions email: bosworthlegalfund@gmail.com [Peggy Craig, Facebook post, 2014.06.24]

Bosworth directed a patient to create a "First Amendment Legal Defense" fund for her in May 2013, claiming vaguely that investigations into possible Medicaid fraud and improper employment practices were somehow about "politics" trying to force her to stop helping people. The only other information provided on the Indiegogo fundraising page was a link to a marketing pitch from Bosworth and Haber's blackhat search-engine-optimization henchman Joey Burzynski. That legal defense campaign drew one anonymous $10 donation before Bosworth and husband Chad Haber forgot about it thanks to the distraction of the next bright shiny thing, Bosworth's fake Senate campaign.

Craig's fundraising plea could mean Team Bosworth has decided they cannot spend any of their $1.6 million in campaign donations on legal bills, even though one could argue that Federal Election Commission rules would permit such expenditures. Craig's plea could mean that Bosworth simply doesn't have any campaign funds left.

Or it could just mean that, as usual, Annette Bosworth, a licensed physician with lots of earning potential, doesn't think she should take responsibility herself and pay her own bills. Instead of just going to work to pay her lawyer, her landlord, and her husband's travel agent, she depends on handouts.

Update 09:50 CDT:  The Annette Bosworth Legal Defense Fund has not been registered as a non-profit corporation in South Dakota. That means the recipient of that money, Annette Bosworth, must declare any money sent to her as taxable income on her 1040.

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Sixth Circuit Judge John L. Brown will arraign Annette Bosworth at the Hughes County Courthouse in Pierre tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. A guilty plea would bring relief to her and her children—the truth will set you free.

(I edited the text, but the creator of the Facebook page chose the background image, just as Annette chose to be photographed in front of the B-word.)

Her husband, Chad Haber, and her media and legal advisor, Les Stranahan, probably won't let a guilty plea happen. Haber is off burning up the family savings on a vacation to Alaska while Bosworth's sister begs for donations for Bosworth's legal bills. Stranahan is playing Bosworth's own Tea Party confidence game, exploiting her publicity and other South Dakota residents and new stories to boost his own profile and fundraising. Seeking JusticeForAnnette.com has too much fundraising potential to be short-circuited by an honest guilty plea.

With everyone around her offering false and legally irrelevant defense strategies, let's get clear on the felony charges to which Bosworth must enter her plea tomorrow.

Bosworth faces twelve counts: six felony counts of offering false or forged instrument for filing (SDCL 22-11-28.1) and six felony counts of perjury (SDCL 22-29-1, 22-29-8, and 22-29-10). According to the affidavit of Division of Criminal Investigation agent Bryan Gortmaker, Bosworth filed a nominating petition for her Senate candidacy that included six sheets on which Bosworth swore an oath that she witnessed every signature but which bear voters' signatures that Bosworth did not witness. I list those sheets below, with the sheet numbers I applied while analyzing and challenging the petition this spring:

We know Bosworth did not witness some of those signatures because Bosworth was in the Philippines on the dates that the voters signed in South Dakota. We also know Bosworth did not witness some of those signatures because fifteen petition signers testified to the grand jury on June 17 that Bosworth did not witness their signatures.

The indictment charges Bosworth with false oath and perjury on four of the sheets that my team identified in the April petition challenge based on what we knew about the Philippines trip. But the Gortmaker affidavit and the grand jury indictment go beyond the Philippines. The Philippines trip had Bosworth out of South Dakota from January 5 to January 15. Gortmaker and the indictment point to 83 improperly witnessed signatures, not the "37 signatures" Bosworth has said were in question. 52 of those 83 signatures took place January 2–4, January 16–17, January 28, and February 19–23.

In other words, when Bosworth talks about "37 signatures," she's not even addressing half of the indictment.

Four of the sheets on which the indictment is based came from Hutterite colonies. Agent Gortmaker thought it "unlikely that candidate Bosworth would visit each of these same colonies numerous days in a row to collect these signatures." Interviewing members of the colonies confirmed his suspicions. Consider what witnesses on the Millerdale Colony told Agent Gortmaker about Sheet #24:

This Colony had been contacted by phone by Dr. Bosworth and one (1) nominating petition came to them by mail, asking that the petition be signed and she would take care of the rest. A follow-up call was also received in which Dr. Bosworth was asking about the nominating petition as she needed them back in her office by the end of February. None of the signatories on the nominating petition that I interviewed signed in front of Dr. Bosworth, and one individual signed for several others on the nominating petition before it was mailed back to her [Bryan Gortmaker, Division of Criminal Investigation, affidavit supporting arrest of Annette Bosworth, 2014.06.03]

Sheet #20 includes one completely falsified signature. Agent Gortmaker testifies that one member of the Riverside Colony near Huron told him and other agents "that their spouse signed it for them and verified the signature on the nominating petition wasn't their signature at all." No charge has been filed for that falsification, but that's exactly the sort of falsification that the circulator's oath exists to check, and that's exactly why we take the circulator's oath so seriously, because it serves as the first, best protection of the integrity of the petition and the ballot.

Notably missing from the indictment is Sheet #203, with first signer Robert Leigh Johns. This sheet bears the signature of Bosworth's sister, Peggy Craig, dated January 7, and the signature of Bosworth as circulator. Our petition challenge cited this sheet as part of the evidence that Bosworth had falsified her circulator's oath. Bosworth has admitted she did not witness her sister's signature, yet the grand jury did not compel Craig to testify, and the indictment does not mention the sheet bearing her damning signature.

Also missing from the indictment is any mention of petition sheets allegedly circulated early at a Hutterite colony south of Plankinton. I broke this story the week before the primary; Shad Olson of KNBN News followed up the day after the primary. Bosworth has since launched an online intimidation campaign against a source identified so far only by first name. Bosworth advisor Stranahan has said this "witness... seems to have a truth problem," yet this "witness" was not a witness before the grand jury. Neither the grand jury indictment, the arrest warrant, or Agent Gortmaker's affidavit make any mention of illegal early circulation of Bosworth's petition.

Team Bosworth has said a lot in the preceding weeks, more than one would expect of a suspect charged with twelve felonies. But a careful reading of the grand jury indictment and available evidence suggests that she herself has not read the charges. Little of what Bosworth and her associates have said pertains to the charges that will be read to her tomorrow in Hughes County. Nothing of what she has said contributes to her defense against these charges... assuming she decides that waging a prolonged defense against these charges will profit her.

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In the Small Potatoes Department, I notice Annette Bosworth's former campaign coordinator Daniel Freeman has moved on from having to say silly things on a fake candidate's behalf. He now has time to work on his own image. Freeman has revamped his business website, Midwest Graphic Design, taking my advice and removing all the seamy text and female objectification. Freeman now touts his experience with political campaigns. Among the specialties her crafted at Bosworth's feet, he lists...

1. E-mail and telephone support... which is funny, given that Bosworth's new media hack was struggling right after the primary to rebuild Bosworth's media contact list, and reporter David Montgomery said the Bosworth campaign had "had troubles for weeks or more with emails not getting through to media."
2. Event planning... which is funny, because from January 1 on, Bosworth's campaign itinerary consisted mostly of just showing up at Lincoln Day Dinners, followed by a mad flurry of attention-grabbing but embarrassing press conferences. In terms of productive campaign events, I'm aware of one local fundraiser held at the home of one of Dr. Bosworth's patients. One.
3. Volunteer recruitment... which is funny, because I'm not aware of Bosworth's volunteer corps ever extending beyond patients and employees of her clinic. When Freeman did try to troll for new volunteers via e-mail, he invited Douglas Brown, the Florida ad man whose company, SSC, had produced lots of graphics, photos, and video for Bosworth, only to be stiffed $20,000 by Bosworth (actually $20,750, the outstanding debt reported as of May 15 on Bosworth's pre-primary FEC filing, and money still not paid, according to a source close to the finances).

Bosworth appears to have rubbed off on Freeman in their months together. Turn to Freeman's online freshly scrubbed portfolio, and you'll find him proudly displaying two of his ads for the Bosworth campaign, including this flyer:

Daniel Freeman portfolio image of Annette Bosworth campaign flyer, screen capture, downloaded 2014.06.30

"Thank you, Meade County?" For what, giving over 95% of your votes to someone other than Bosworth? Wait—his ads? That photo is a still from the farmy/Kristi Noem-y shoot Douglas Brown's SSC did for Bosworth last summer, a shoot that produced Bosworth's campaign video... which SSC pulled from circulation when Bosworth refused to pay. My source also tells me the Bosworth logo at the bottom left of that flyer was designed by SSC. Freeman appears to be rearranging and pasting together someone else's work and claiming it as his own to advance his own interests... just like Annette Bosworth. I think they both may be hearing again from SSC in Florida.

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...Says Bosworth Spokesman Peddled Porn

When Annette Bosworth was a useful story to distract from Mike Rounds and to attack me personally, Pat Powers cheered the fake U.S. Senate candidate, heeling to her beck and call and peddling her propaganda as gospel. When my team discovered irregularities in Bosworth's nominating petition that signaled violations of law that should have disqualified her from the primary ballot, Powers yawned at those findings.

But now, when Team Bosworth responds to felony charges for petition violations with a media campaign attacking Pat's Republican patrons, including a late-to-the-party exposé of corruption in the foster care system titled "South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley's Big Pedophilia Problem," Powers finally gets off his ideological backside and asks real questions.

Two months after the initial petition challenge that led to the charges on which Bosworth was arraigned Monday, Powers decides to look at the petitions (or perhaps is encouraged to look at the petitions by his maligned GOP pals?) and finds, lo and behold, even more signatures that Bosworth said she witnessed but apparently did not. Only Pat Powers is surprised... but notice also that, at this point, Powers does not substantiate his claim by pointing to specific names or on-the-record testimony.

Powers also raises a question about the validity of signatures on a group of petition sheets dated March 20–22. Powers finds it suspicious that Bosworth claims to have collected signatures from a bunch of folks from Minnehaha and Lincoln counties on the same days that other sheets show her collecting numerous signatures from folks from Pennington and other Black Hills counties. My petition review team raised the same questions about petition sheets like #31, #42, #190, and #196. We considered including those suspicions on our petition challenge but, wanting to keep the petition challenge on solid legal and evidentiary grounds, chose not to. We saw at least reasonable doubt in the fact that State AA basketball was taking place in Rapid City March 20–22. (I attempted to explain this to Pat and his readers in his comment section, but he still can't bear to publish evidence that suggests I was right all along about Bosworth while he front ed for her.)

It is conceivable—not certain, but conceivable—that Bosworth, who was in Rapid City buying folks beer that weekend, went to the tournament, sat with a bunch of Sioux Falls fans, collected a few sheets of signatures, then went around town and collected a bunch of locals' signatures. But now, with more time to investigate than the ridiculously brief one week given for petition challenges, investigators may well find that some of those East River–West River signatures were indeed not witnessed by Bosworth, which would only add to the felony charges she already faces.

Powers also goes for another seamy underbelly of the Bosworth story. Enjoying character assassination, Powers takes up numerous online allegations that Bosworth's new BFF Lee Stranahan peddled porn with his wife. Powers finds Stranahan's behavior more scandalous than the child abuse allegations plaguing the state's foster care system. Stranahan hasn't shot any nude photos of Bosworth yet, but his naked opportunism threatens to harm real efforts to unearth corruption in South Dakota government. Stranahan brings up the Schwab-Taliaferro-Mette foster care issues in Aberdeen, not because he really cares about them, but because that story adds to the media smokescreen he is fanning for his client. IN doing so, Stranahan makes it easy for GOP apologists like Powers to portray such stories not as real issues about which South Dakotans should be concerned but as the mere ravings of untrustworthy outsiders.

We may take some small comfort in the fact that Powers is finally exposing Team Bosworth for the frauds and exploiters that they are. (Of course, he's inkled that way before, only to back off when it served his pruposes.) Alas, Powers is doing so quite late, and not for truth and justice, but merely as favors for his friends.

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...and becomes a state legislator?

Aberdeen attorney Brandon Taliaferro did a good job of keeping his compulsively vocal new client Annette Bosworth quiet at her arraignment last Monday. Now if Taliaferro could just get that memo to the spokesman to whom Bosworth has paid at least $5,000, a spokesman who spent an inordinate amount of time in the comment section here trying to get folks to talk about anything other than the fact that Bosworth is guilty of swearing a false oath on her nominating petition and committing felony perjury, a fact that no one, Bosworth herself included, has denied.

Amidst the dense smokescreen belched by the Bosworth media machine, Taliaferro may find one wisp of an argument that may have even the faintest relevance in the courtroom. Team Bosworth has asked for some legal precedent for a person being "charged for signature violations where they got legitimate signatures, i.e. real people who signed?"

Such a request is based on a false reading of what Bosworth did: she did not get legitimate signatures; someone else did, and she subsequently swore a false oath that she got those signatures. You won't find a precedent for the state charging a petition circulator who properly witnessed and verified signatures, because that's not a crime.

But even if we accept that the absence of precedent somehow calls into question the validity of the charges against Bosworth, an eager reader fills the gap with the Schlekeway precedent.

Todd Schlekeway and Tim Calhoun agree: Annette Bosworth is toast.

In 2004, Todd Schelekway was an eager young organizer working for the South Dakota Republican Party. He got a notary seal and helped process absentee voter applications on campus as part of an SDGOP push to get student votes. Unfortunately, Schlekeway notarized some absentee voter applications that he did not personally witness. That's a misdemeanor. Attorney General Larry Long and Secretary of State Chris Nelson quickly investigated and brought charges against Schlekeway and five other GOP workers. Schlekeway pled guilty, paid $245, got a 30-day suspended sentence, and gave up his notary seal.

Notice: the voters requesting the absentee ballots were real voters. Their signatures were real. Schlekeway just didn't witness those signatures. Schlekeway 2004 sounds a lot like Bosworth 2014, right?

When the charges were filed in October 2004, barely two weeks before the election, Minnehaha County state's attorney Dave Nelson offered this observation about charges that some electoral observers could have rightly called unusual:

Dave Nelson said the six are charged with improper use of a notary commission, a Class 2 misdemeanor punishable by up to a month in jail and a $200 fine. They can also lose their notary licenses.

"Notary violations are very, very common" in government and business, he said.

But unlike most cases that aren't prosecuted, the six were charged because they made it possible for someone's vote not to count, Dave Nelson said.

"The potential consequences of these acts are significant and far-reaching," he said [Carson Walker, "Six Charged in Ballot Probe,"AP via Rapid City Journal, 2004.10.24].

Yet our state officials were not trying to disenfranchise any voters. Remember: Larry Long and Chris Nelson were Republicans. The absentee ballots in the solicitation of which Schlekeway and friends were misdemeanoring were meant to boost Republicans. Screwing up the notarization opened the door for Democrats to challenge those ballots. Long and Nelson did not want the courts throw out the ballots that Schlekeway's sloppiness spoiled:

Long said he hopes that if any ballots are challenged in court, the judge sides with the voter's right to be counted and agrees that the solution was a valid way to fix problems caused by wayward notaries [Walker, 2004.10.24].

In the Schlekeway case, Long recognized that the state could simultaneously and consistently seek a liberal interpretation of the law to protect the will of innocent voters and strictly enforce notary law to punish wayward notaries who put innocent voters' will at risk. Again, Schlekeway 2004 sounds a lot like Bosworth 2014. Long's successor, AG Marty Jackley, went out of his way to protect voters' (or in this case, nominators') intent from a wayward petition circulator. But in consistency with that desire to protect those innocent citizens, he is prosecuting a petition circulator who could well have thwarted their intent with her flagrant disregard for the requirements of the circulator's oath.

Now Annette, before, you poo-poo the precedent, look at where Schlekeway's election crime got him. The George W. Bush campaign was nice enough to give Schlekeway and others involved in the voting fraud campaign jobs right away in Ohio (where Bush won! well done, Todd!). Four years later, the South Dakota GOP invited Schlekeway back to become the first and so far only Todd to serve in the South Dakota Legislature, for one term in the House and one term in the Senate.

So follow the Schlekeway precedent to its logical conclusion, and a quick, contrite guilty plea could land Annette a job campaigning for some Republican favorite in a big Senate campaign. Perhaps the party would send you to join your husband Chad in Alaska, where you could help one of the establishment Republicans beat back Joe Miller's repeat Tea Party challenge. Then, having served the party well, they'd bring you back to South Dakota in 2018, when your District 13 Senator, Phyllis Heineman, will be term-limited out. What better precedent could you ask for?

Of course, the vital difference between Schlekeway 2004 and Bosworth 2014 is that Schlekeway committed a misdemeanor in the service of the party favorite John Thune, while Bosworth committed a felony to get on the ballot and compete with party favorite Marion Michael Rounds (and you were competing with Rounds, right, Annette?).

The Schlekeway precedent sinks the only remotely legal argument Team Bosworth has offered in defense of her perjury charges. If Bosworth were smart, she'd find a way to turn that precedent to humbler success in a future election... but I think she's shot holes in the bottom of that boat as well.

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Annette Bosworth has just walked out of her second hearing at the Hughes County Courthouse. The judge has set November 13 –14 as the failed GOP Senate candidate's trial date for twelve counts of perjury and filing a false oath. The court will hold a motions hearing on September 2.

Brandon Taliaferro, Bosworth's attorney, has issued this statement on behalf of his client:

My client is fully committed to defending the charges filed against her. Dr. Bosworth is no longer associated with her former spokesman Mr. Stranahan. He does not speak for her, he does not speak for her defense and he does not speak for me. This case will be tried in a court of law, not the court of public opinion [Brandon Taliaferro, press release, 2014.07.15].

Lee Stranahan received at least $5,000 from the Bosworth for Senate campaign. The itinerant conservative Texas blogger figured prominently in extending the media circus surrounding Bosworth's arrest and initial response to the formal charges from Attorney General Marty Jackley.

Update 11:54 CDT: In related news, Bob Newland of the South Dakota Libertarian Party informs this blog that both Bosworth and her husband Chad Haber called him last night "to let me know that Chad intended to attend the SDLP convention, and to ask for our nomination of him to the ballot for AG. Chad asked me not to distribute that for general consumption until after Annette's hearing in Pierre today."

Hmm... if Haber thought that announcing his candidacy might have some negative impact on today's hearing in Pierre, maybe Haber should consider keeping his political ambitions in check until after the entire trial is done.

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Travis Betsworth, general manager of the Original Pancake House in Sioux Falls, categorically denies an accusation that it fired an employee for praying with customers.

Mr. Betsworth said this afternoon, "We would never fire anybody for praying." Quite the contrary, Betsworth says he himself has taken time to pray with customers at their tables during regular business hours. Many church groups come to his restaurant; Betsworth estimates some sort of Bible study or other church-related activity is taking place in his restaurant five days out of each week. Many religious customers leave church cards in the store tip jar.

Betsworth was responding to an accusation leveled by a paid political spokesman for failed Senate candidate Annette Bosworth. The spokesman claims that waitress Shauna Rose was fired for praying with Bosworth and her spokesman just before the primary:

The first time I met Shauna was just before the June election. She was working as a waitress at the Original Pancake House in Sioux Falls. I went in with my friend Dr. Annette Bosworth when we were on our way to a press conference. We prayed at the table before breakfast and Shauna, who knew Dr. Bosworth, bowed her head with us.

Shauna was fired by the Original Pancake House a couple of days later. She was told by a co-worker that it was for praying with us.

Guess where I’m not going to eat pancakes again? [paid spokesman for Annette Bosworth, "Update on Dakota Reporter and RIP Shauna Rose," "Dakota" Reporter, 2014.07.25]

Betsworth says he has no knowledge of the alleged interaction between Bosworth, her spokesman, and Rose. Betsworth says that if he had witnessed such a prayerful interaction on the job, he would have praised Rose for treating customers so well. He would not give further details on managerial decisions affecting Rose's employment at Original Pancake House, but Betsworth flatly denied that Rose would have been fired for praying with a customer. Betsworth says he and the restaurant's two other managers make staffing decisions cooperatively, and no such decision to fire any employee for praying has taken place on his watch.

Rose died in a motorcycle accident on July 16. Betsworth says Rose was "very loved" at the restaurant. Many employees attended Rose's funeral, says Betsworth, and he believes the owners of the restaurant sent flowers.

Independent candidate for lieutenant governor Lora Hubbel made a public statement online yesterday citing the Christian discrimination accusation to discourage people from eating at the Original Pancake House, whose Sioux Falls shop on West 41st is the Oregon-based company's only South Dakota franchise. Betsworth says that prior to his interview with the Madville Times, he was not aware of any calls for boycott, complaints made to the store, or the original accusation of religious discrimination. Betsworth says no other bloggers or reporters had contacted him to inquire about Rose's employment at Original Pancake House prior to this Sunday interview.

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Now that Chad Haber is finally talking to the media about his purported desire to be attorney general, he's confirming what I've known would happen: get Chad talking, and he'll sink his own life raft without any help from me.

The aspiring Libertarian nominee spoke with Rick Knobe on KSOO's Viewpoint University last week. Haber is angling for the South Dakota Libertarian Party's nod with one main promise: money. He told Knobe that his entrepreneurial skills guarantee that he can raise campaign money, and he promised that every Libertarian candidate "will be propped up" with radio and TV ads, implying that Haber plans to bankroll the entire SDLP ticket.

Knobe asked Haber to give examples of his entrepreneurial activities. Following is the lengthy transcript of that exchange:

Rick Knobe: I want to learn a bit more about you. I went back and read some of the news stories and one of the things you list is you're an entrepreneur. Tell me what you've done that qualifies you to be an entrepreneur.

Chad Haber: That's a great question. So, I have owned several companies ranging from trucking to dealerships to manufacturing, and, yeah, it's good. I like doing startups. I like taking a small team that people think you can't do that and then proving them wrong. Annette's campaign was a great example. It was fun to do that, it was basically a startup.

Knobe: So the companies that you started up, how long ago did you do that?

Haber: So, five years ago when Annette's battle with Marty started, and they started throwing around the f-word—fraud—and, you know, when the attorney general makes a claim, the first assumption is that there's something hehind it. And the good thing is, in South Dakota, we are the most corrupt state in the country according to some sites, and Marty Jackley has had a scandal-ridden career. And so in South Dakota, he doesn't need to have an excuse, sometimes he just does it. You look at Brandon Taliaferro, you know, $250,000 to defend himself against trumped-up charges in the Mette rape scandal, the child rape scandal. He was the attorney that pointed out children were being molested, and then Marty tried to prosecute him for pointing out that children were being molested. 250 grand it cost him to defend that. That's economic terrorism. I think I got out about 2013, where I could just see that they were never going to stop attacking her, and every time they would attack—

Knobe: When they say attacking her, you're talking about—

Haber: —Annette—

Knobe: —Your Annette, your wife.

Haber: —and the headlines are always horrible, right? So now she's currently facing 24 years in jail. Not why I'm running. For the record, I love my wife, o.k., but—she's facing 24 years in jail basically because she learned how to raise money. So if you'd have looked at my businesses, you know, I had a lot of people dependent on me, and you don't do things like that for the money, you don't start businesses for the money, you start them because you have a dream and a passion, and so I sold out, and most of that money has now gone into medicines for kids and it's gone into legal defenses, and, you know, yeah, it's gone.

Knobe: So, o.k.—

Haber: So I was very rich. We should have been untouchable.

Knobe: O.K., so, go back, I want to get to—o.k., I understand what you've said about you've started businesses, you've run them, and you were very successful. Give me some names, 'cuz I'm trying to, I want to be able to put some names with some companies you've started that I would say, "Oh yeah, I know that one. Oh yeah, I know that one." Help me.

Haber: So the reason I got out is to protect the companies. By naming the companies now on the air, I'm making them a target.

Knobe: Why would you make them a target? Why would that be a target?

Haber: It's just what's happened. You know, five years of living through this, it's what happens. And so you know as you get to know me, you'll start saying, "Oh, that's that." I am afraid, o.k.? I'm very afraid of Marty and his retaliation... [transcription by CAH; Rick Knobe interviewing Chad Haber, KSOO Radio, 2014.07.24].

Let's unpack.

1. The Entrepreneurship Lie

The only specific example Haber offers of his fundraising skills is the Bosworth for Senate campaign. Haber talks revenue but neglects cost. He spent (and since Haber is claiming Bosworth for Senate as one of his entrepreneurial skills, let's assign him responsibility for spending decisions) more than six times as much per vote as big-money candidate Mike Rounds yet delivered less than a tenth of Rounds's primary-winning vote total. According to the total expenditures reported by Bosworth for Senate to the Federal Election Commission as of June 30, Haber spent $440 for every primary vote his wife got.

"Entrepreneurship" isn't throwing lots of other people's money around; it's producing return on investment. If South Dakota Libertarians are nominating an attorney general candidate based on the ability to deliver return on investment of campaign funds, they should dismiss Haber and nominate Larry Rhoden, who spent $9.39 per vote in the GOP Senate primary. Or nominate Stace Nelson, who spent $10.23 per vote and would bring criminal investigative experience to the office. Or nominate Jason Ravnsborg, who spent $27.38 per primary vote and has a law degree.

(I think I spent $60 on a newspaper ad when I ran for school board in 2011. I got 448 votes.  That's a bit more than 13 cents per vote. I'm an entrepreneur! Vote for me!)

2. The Business Dodge

Haber claims to have started and successfully operated a number of business that made him "very rich." He says he sold them all and now declines to name them for fear that they will become targets.

A review of public corporation records reveals that Chad Haber has indeed incorporated a number of entities. However, not one appears to be operational or to have made any discernible contribution to the economy. I have documented several business entities that Chad Haber has incorporated in Utah and South Dakota, the most prominent of which is 100X, a Utah entity that under Haber's presidency and directorship appears to have engaged in a mortgage-flipping scheme that sent six people to federal prison. Haber's other businesses include the following:

• Prescott & Walker, Inc.
• Rancho Veredas PRWA, LLC
• Associated Strategic Capital
• Preventive Health Strategies is the non-profit that Haber and Bosworth portray and operate as an integral if not indistinguishable partner of Bosworth's for-profit clinic Independent Medicine Prof. LLC (doing business at Meaningful Medicine). Chad Haber's PHS office is in the same commercial space, at the same address, as the clinic. Given the regular difficulty that PHS and the clinic have paying staff and vendors, the financial success of either operation is dubious.
• Haber also appears to have worked for his father's company, Haber Truck and Trailer Sales, after returning from Utah. Equipment Sales and Ironworks Leasing were incorporated briefly at that same address as Haber Truck and Trailer around 2012; public documents do not make clear whether these were some of Chad Haber's startups, but the Secretary of State's website says cancellation both corporations is pending. Haber's wife Bosworth listed herself as the sole owner of Equipment Sales and Ironworks Leasing on her financial disclosure form for the Senate campaign.

I see no evidence that Chad Haber has ever run a successful startup company. I see no evidence that Chad Haber has ever sold a startup company to anyone else and that said sold company is still in operation. Haber might as well be telling Libertarians that he knocked down trees in the woods where no one could hear them.

3. The Fear Fudge

Haber claims to be acting on "twenty seconds of insane courage," a line that Haber and eHarmony borrow from We Bought a Zoo. Twenty seconds must be all the courage Haber has in him. Pressed by Knobe to name his companies, Haber says he is "very afraid" of Marty Jackley.

What's there to be afraid of? Haber tried to defraud raffle ticket buyers, and the attorney general has yet to file any charges, settling instead for squeezing some refunds out of PHS. The state says Haber's wife broke Medicaid rules, and the attorney general settled for a relatively small financial repayment. AG Jackley has let slip away opportunities to bag Haber and Bosworth on evidence of real business misconduct; his record suggests he is unlikely to aggress any harder on trumped-up charges.

What's there to be afraid of? I bust AG Jackley's chops on a regular basis on this blog. I'm not afraid of him. What's he going to do to me? He can't take away my teaching certificate, which the state just renewed for another five years—ha!

If Haber's startups still exist, and if he sold them, what harm could the attorney general do to Haber through those businesses? If Haber still owns any legitimate businesses, how does not telling the press the names of those businesses prevent a vindictive attorney general from reviewing public business records, finding the names of Haber's businesses, and ordering all manner of audits and investigations? On KSOO last week, Haber wasn't as afraid of Marty Jackley as he was of Rick Knobe and his one simple question: Give me some names. Give us evidence that what you're saying is true.

4. The Courtroom Shield

Recall Haber's odd comment about his flown wealth: "...I was very rich. We should have been untouchable."

Untouchable. When I dream of getting rich (hey, did you ring that tip jar yet? ;-) ), untouchable is not the first adjective that jumps to my mind. It suggests that Haber views wealth as a way to avoid legal prosecution.

And if wealth isn't available, candidacy for public office is:

Knobe: ...this all could be for naught if you can't get on the ballot

Haber: Absolutely, and then I will be targeted. Being on the ballot—

Knobe: Well, no, I don't know if you're going to be—

Haber: —being on the ballot gives you some protection. It does. We saw a very peaceful year when Annette was a candidate for public office. O.K., it was a very peaceful year. Nobody messed with her until April, o.k.? That was the firs peaceful moment of breahting room we've had since—for five years.

Knobe: So are you running then because you think that if you get on the ballot that'll buy you more time for whatever—

Haber: No, no, no—

Knobe: —I want to make sure I understand

Haber: No, So I'm running because South Dakota has some clear problems, some of which I've experienced personally, and this is the most effective way to cause change, to create change [Knobe–Haber interview, 2014.07.24].

Haber slips and tries to recover, but his talk of protection belies his boilerplate. Haber's slip  supports the statement I made when he announced his candidacy three weeks ago: he is running for office to buy himself a few months of immunity from criminal prosecution.

Just like his wife, Chad Haber is his own worst enemy. The more he talks, the more he'll expose his own unfitness for public trust.

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I can think like Chad and Annette. It makes me ill, but I can do it.

Annette Bosworth may have just found her next attorney. After betraying Joel Arends and monkey-wrenching Brandon Taliaferro's best efforts to defend her, the former fake Senate candidate, petition fraudster, and drama queen may be the least appealing legal client since Ted Klaudt.

But Attorney General Marty Jackley, U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson, and Hughes County States Attorney Wendy Kloeppner may have just delivered the indefensible doctor a defense attorney: Christopher Robert Jansen. The Selby attorney served a term as Walworth County states attorney from 2009 to 2012, then resigned a few weeks early to enter private practice after voters turned him out in favor of James Hare. And Tuesday, Jackley, Johnson, and Kloeppner had him arrested for three counts of first-degree rape. The three alleged victims are under the age of 13.

One would think that no reasonable client would want to pick Jansen for counsel right now. "Innocent until proven guilty" doesn't stop defendants from minimizing their exposure to possible bad press. But in the "writhing snakepit of treachery and mind games" of Team Bosworth, no press is bad press. In Bosworth and husband Chad Haber's reading of Chad's bible, The 48 Laws of Power, the client no attorney wants and the attorney no client wants are the perfect unpredictable, attention-getting, water-stirring, misdirecting match.

Jansen would also be the next poster boy for Chad Haber's hashtag exploitation of child rape victims. As the centerpiece of his quixotic but devious bid for the Libertarian nomination for attorney general, Haber is charging that Attorney General Jackley has a "big pedophilia problem" in his failure to prosecute child rapist Richard Mette as vigorously as he should have. Haber needs to stop the Attorney General's new prosecution of child rape from puncturing Haber's political narrative. Haber thus needs to bring Jansen into his wife's camp and pump him for information with which Haber could spin Jansen's prosecution into persecution. He needs to make Jansen's story just another aspect of corruption in South Dakota, just like Jackley's prosecution of Haber's wife.

Expect Bosworth to announce Jansen as her attorney, and expect Haber to launch a new hashtag any day.

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Even if The 48 Laws of Power can be read as a bastard's handbook, he wrote it to demystify the dirty tricks of the executives he encountered during a dispiriting period as a Hollywood screenwriter. "I felt like a child exposing what the parents are up to and laughing at it," he says. "Opening the curtain and letting people see the Wizard of Oz."

....Greene claims that most of the emails he receives are from readers who used his first book to understand and outwit manipulative people, but surely he has inadvertently created a few scoundrels himself? "There are people on the borderline and maybe the book helps them to move into that sociopathic realm so then I feel bad," he concedes, "but mainly it's positive" [Dorian Lynskey, "Robert Greene on His 48 Laws of Power: 'I'm Not Evil – I'm a Realist'," The Guardian, 2012.12.93].

*   *   *

Update 15:17 CDT: Oops—Jansen might have trouble representing Bosworth from the Hughes County Jail. At Jansen's first hearing in Pierre this afternoon, Jansen did not seek and the judge did not set bail. State's attorney Kloeppner says the state believes Jansen is a danger to the community and to himself.

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Leo Kallis helps us understand why Circuit Court Judge John L. Brown approved attorney Brandon Taliaferro's request to withdraw from Annette Bosworth's defense. The reason is simple and unsurprising: Bosworth failed to pay him.

In court yesterday, the failed Senate candidate complained that Taliaferro's motion to withdraw was too vague. Taliaferro responded that he had avoided mentioning specific reasons to protect Bosworth from undesirable media scrutiny:

My motion to withdraw was intentionally vague. I did that as a benefit to you so as to limit the amount of information in the record that the press or public could get ahold of. If you consent to my withdrawal, the court likely won't require any additional information on this issue. I believe that to be a benefit to you. However, if you oppose the motion, the court will likely require additional information from me, which will then be in the record. The same goes for the motion you are considering filing. Once you file something with the clerk of courts, it's in the record and available to the press and/or public. I don't see that as benefiting you, but it is your decision to make [Brandon Taliaferro, letter to Annette Bosworth, electronically transmitted 2014.08.03; quoted in Leo Kallis, "Apparently Chad Haber Doesn't Read The Paper Or Think About The Implications Of His Words," The Displaced Plainsman, 2014.08.04].

This August 3 letter shows that even as he is trying to leave the Bosworth circus, he is still trying to serve his client's best interest. The bottom of his letter suggests Taliaferro is even trying to help her line up a new attorney (Taliaferro mentions "trying to secure Mr. Schreiber," perhaps Pierre attorney Brad Schreiber).

But again, in Bosworth's narcissistic world, no press is bad press. She throws another tantrum, and Taliaferro's reasons for withdrawing become public:

As for the obligations you failed to fulfill, they are set forth in various emails and letters I sent to you. Essentially, the obligations were:

1. Chad [Haber, Bosworth's husband] withdraws from the AG race before our last hearing which did not occur;
2. Lee [Stranahan, Bosworth's paid spokesman] stops mentioning me, you or Mette which did not occur;
3. We issue a press release distancing you and your defense from Lee. That occurred, but was completely undermined by the video you and Lee put out hours after the press release; and
4. 25,000 retainer by July 25 which did not occur [emphasis mine; Taliaferro, 2014.08.03].

Bosworth promised Taliaferro $25,000. Bosworth did not pay Taliaferro that $25,000. She continues not to pay her debts to those who have worked for her.

Bosworth doesn't pay: the story is almost so predictable as to no longer be news.

Bosworth's exploitation and abuse of her former attorneys proves her toxicity. It's almost as if she's trying to make herself unrepresentable, to drive off every respectable attorney in the state, to force us to pay for a public defender. I could tolerate footing the bill for Bosworth's constitutionally guaranteed defense if she were really destitute and lacked the means to raise money. But her mistreatment of Taliaferro, like her parasitic relations with past employees, indicate Bosworth is just looking for another freebie.

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Hey, everybody, guess what? Brandon Taliaferro and us bloggers are all lying about Annette Bosworth. So says the perjurious political poseur's paid press, which asserts that Bosworth brought a check to court Monday to pay attorney Taliaferro the $25,000 retainer he said he never received:

By the way, Bosworth is and was ready, willing and able to pay the retainer. She brought a check to the hearing yesterday [Annette Bosworth's paid spokesperson, "Lawyer Did NOT Drop Bosworth For Non-Payment: South Dakota Blogs Lie About It," that fake Bosworth-Haber blog, 2014.08.05].

So let's see: the retainer was supposed to be paid by July 25. Bosworth offered to pay it on August 4. O.K., fine.

The one thing we do learn from this claim is that now Judge John L. Brown can comfortably reject any attempt Bosworth may make to obtain a public defender, since her own press team says she can afford to pay for her own lawyer. Thank you, Annette, for letting us taxpayers off the hook.

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Even if Annette Bosworth can't stick us with the bill for her lawyer, holding the doctor accountable for her crimes and lies is costing the state of South Dakota thousands of dollars. For some reason, Attorney General Marty Jackley is trying to shift some of that cost to Hughes County:

Hughes County Commissioners want an explanation from the Attorney General’s Office before paying an expert witness bill in a case being prosecuted by the AG’s office.

The commission Monday night decided to delay paying a $4,440 bill submitted by a handwriting expert who is being used in the Annette Bosworth election fraud case ["Commission Wants Explanation Before Paying Bill," KCCR Radio, 2014.08.05].

According to paragraph 14 of the affidavit filed by Division of Criminal Investigation agent Bryan Gortmaker to inform the Bosworth arrest warrant, forensic document examiner Janis Tweedy analyzed Bosworth's signature on the petition sheets on which Bosworth appears to have sworn a false circulator's oath:

14. Your affiant states that these six (6) nominating petitions have been examined by a forensic document examiner, Janis Tweedy, to determine the authenticity of the circulator's signature. Two (2) petitions are identified as having been produced by the person said to be Annette Bosworth when compared against known Dr. Annette Bosworth signatures that various State entities had on file. Four (4) of the petitions are found to be highly probably as having been produced by the person said to be Annette Bosworth when compared against known Dr. Annette Bosworth signatures [Bryan Gortmaker, affidavit, State of South Dakota v. Annette Bosworth, Civ. No. 14-305, paragraph 14].

Tweedy looked at six Bosworth signatures and compared them with other exemplars. I believe Tweedy was present for the June 17 grand jury hearing. I don't know what other services she has rendered for the state, but at $4,400 so far, analyzing signatures sounds like a really good job.

Whatever the services, the key phrase is rendered for the state. Hughes County isn't investigating or prosecuting Bosworth; the state is. I can think of no good reason for the state to try passing costs of the Bosworth investigation onto any county. Neither can Hughes County commissioners, who are asking the Attorney General to send someone to a future commission meeting to explain why the county should pay that bill.

Marty Jackley appears to be a lot like Annette Bosworth and her husband Chad Haber: they all want someone else to foot their bills.

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Failed U.S. Senate candidate Annette Bosworth has hired her fourth attorney in three months. Christopher Robert Jansen wasn't available, so Robert Van Norman will take over Bosworth's defense against twelve felony charges of false filing and perjury.

Predictably, Van Norman tells the press that Bosworth's case is "very complex from a defense standpoint" (no, it's not: she lied under a sworn oath), meaning he needs "additional time to review records, locate various witnesses, and investigate the charges and legal issues in order to properly represent her" (no, you don't: just read this blog, and you'll understand the perils of representing this incorrigible con artist and that your client's only hope is to plead guilty and beg for mercy).

Van Norman also has a daughter getting married and guests from Europe staying over this month, so the Hughes County court has delayed Bosworth's motions hearings to November and December and her trial to February 4–6. That delay has thus doubled the chance that Bosworth's husband Chad Haber could save her from a felony conviction from one over infinity to two over infinity. Haber is a fake candidate for attorney general. If he (chuckle) beats Marty Jackley (snort!) in November, Haber would take office (ha ha ha!) in January and could tell his lawyers to ignore the law and drop the case.

O.K., back to reality. If she and Chad don't finally close the clinic and flee the country with their leftover campaign cash, Bosworth goes to trial February 4, and a jury will convict on February 6.

Related Reading: While awaiting conviction, Chad and Annette are pulling more scams. A Brookings correspondent tells me that Chad and Annette placed an ad in the SDSU Collegian a couple weeks ago inviting students to a picnic (food for votes again?) to discuss legalizing marijuana. According to my correspondent, four students showed up. They heard nothing about legalizing marijuana; instead, they got a sales pitch for Chad's fake candidacy and the now fake Libertarian Party.

Correction... for the rest of the press: Reports on Bosworth's arrest and pending trial have perpetuated the misleading labeling her jaunt to the Philippines as a "Christian mission trip." That is technically true, but it was not the original intent of the trip. Bosworth and Haber originally organized the trip as a stunt to promote her fake Senate candidacy and their attorney Joel Arends's veterans organization. In a November planning discussion with Arends, Haber laid out a cynical strategy to exploit Christian guilt to raise money for the trip. The trip only became a Christian mission trip when Haber and Bosworth's hasty organization and fundraising fell predictably short and they had to glom onto an independently organized Wesleyan church mission trip.

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned a Brookings correspondent's report that Chad Haber and Annette Bosworth had lured students to a campaign event with an ad in the SDSU Collegian promoting marijuana legalization. The comment section lit up with a discussion of who actually placed the ad.

Let's look at the ad in question first:

Cannabis legalization event ad placed in SDSU Collegian, first edition of 2014–2015 school year, August 2014

The ad states that it was "Paid for by the libertarian Party." The ad refers to the Facebook page for the marijuana legalization organization South Dakotans Against Prohibition. It identifies no individual organizers or speakers. Staff at the SDSU Collegian did not identify the the representative of the Libertarian Party who submitted and paid for the ad. We can only hope the advertiser's check did not bounce the way the SDLP's check for SDAP organizer Ryan Gaddy's lawsuit did.

So we don't know who actually signed the check for this ad. But we do know what the ad says. It promotes the September 3 event as a chance to...

1. get free food,
2. "meet the libertarian party," and, most prominently,
3. join a "grassroots digital media movement" to end cannabis prohibition.

I spoke with Nate Cacy, an SDSU student who attended the event at Hillcrest Park. Cacy says the first promise was absolutely true: free food was present.

The second promise is arguably true, if the Libertarian Party now consists of Chad Haber and Annette Bosworth. Haber and Bosworth were the only two organizers who identified themselves at the event.

The third promise, however, the thrust of the ad, proved entirely false. Cacy says that in the half hour that he attended the event, he heard not one word about legalizing marijuana. Haber dominated the event, talking nearly the entire time about his own candidacy for attorney general and, in Cacy's view, coming across as somewhat rude.

Haber exposed that rudeness most clearly when he took a moment to interact with his audience of four (Cacy reports seeing three other spectators, as well as a young unnamed companion helping Haber and Bosworth). Haber asked what issues the youth consider important. Cacy mentioned discrimination and cited LGBT equality issues as an example. Haber said to Cacy, "Oh, so you're coming out to everyone?"

Cacy is still wondering just what Haber's intent was with that comment. I'm trying to figure out how Haber's comment is any way an appropriate response to a voter who raises an important electoral issue.

I'm also trying to figure out the logic that gets a party to advertise an event around Issue X and then play a switcheroo in which one of its candidates shows up unannounced at the event and talks all about himself and not at all about the issue that drew people to the event.

Ah, but it's been a while. I almost forgot: if we're talking about Chad Haber, we're not talking about appropriateness, logic, or truth. We're talking about false advertising and self-obsession, the cement blocks to which the South Dakota Libertarian Party has chained itself.

Blog compatriot Ken Santema is running for State Treasurer as a Libertarian. I could in good conscience vote for Santema. He knows his numbers, and his current effort to produce the most reasonable and original conservative reporting in the state indicates he would approach government with honesty and openness.

Alas, his candidacy may be as illegitimate as ballot-ousted Ryan Gaddy. My friend Elisa Sand points out the surprising origin of Santema's Libertarian nomination:

His nomination as a statewide candidate at the Aug. 9 Libertarian Convention came as a surprise — especially given that he was nominated by newly registered Libertarian Annette Bosworth. He was one of two Libertarians nominated. Santema said, when he accepted the nomination, the other nominee stepped down [Elisa Sand, "Political Blogger Runs for State Office," Aberdeen American News, 2014.09.05].

I'll get you, Ken! That Democratic shotgun won't do you any good!

A former Republican candidate for U.S. Senate nominated Libertarian Santema. I won't declare him guilty by association. But I will declare his nomination a violation of SDLP by-laws. Article 2, Section 1 declares that voting members must have paid their dues and be registered Libertarians. As far as I know, Annette Bosworth-Haber was a registered Republican up to the time of the Libertarian convention. (Her name doesn't even appear in the current voter registration database.) If she, like Ryan Gaddy, changed her registration the day of the convention, she was not legally a Libertarian when she nominated Santema, Santema's nomination is illegitimate, and Santema's name should be stricken from the ballot.

However, Secretary of State Jason Gant has likely already printed the ballots and called UPS to haul those ballots to 64 courthouses in time for early voting to start on Friday.

I wish Santema no ill will. Part of me wishes he could replace Republican State Treasurer Richard Sattgast. But if Santema's nomination was illegitimate, can we responsibly mark his name on our ballots?

When he wasn't getting everything else wrong, Pat Powers managed to add three useful observations to our favorite political undercard, the fading Chad Haber-Annette Bosworth medicine show:

1. Powers finds that Haber, in his fake and mostly silent candidacy for attorney general, has rewritten a key part of his family's story. Where his wife found it useful during her fake Senate candidacy to claim that she had to live with her children in an RV in the middle of winter because because the government attacked her, Haber now claims that they sold their two houses to buy medicine for Native American kids.
2. Powers checks Haber's financial disclosure form and finds that Haber continues to earn no income for his family (which is a more logical explanation for losing houses and living in an RV... but doesn't explain who paid for his three-month sojourn to warm and sunny Haiti with a young female college student while his wife and kids froze in the RV).
3. Powers also catches Haber providing evidence that his wife should be prosecuted for medical malpractice. Haber says that he paid for his wife to inject 94 Native American children with Vivitrol, an drug that helps drug users fight addiction. No one has studied Vivitrol in children, and the FDA has not approved prescribing Vivitrol to patients under 18.

Wow: so in an alternate universe where Haber is able to keep his story straight and run an honest campaign, it's anyone's guess whom he would arrest first: me, Joop Bollen, or his own wife.

Well done, Pat. It's nice to see you can occasionally uncover some actual news.

Related Viewing: Haber's YouTube channel includes this video of him in Haiti whining about getting lost after failing to find a translator. "A little frustrating, what do you do?" he asks.

Gee, Chad, I don't know, maybe quit being a thick-headed cultural imperialist who thinks everyone should learn English and study the local language before you go?

In political trivia, Democrat Corinna Robinson netted a meager $3,765 in the final two weeks of her Congressional campaign.

Robinson received 6.6% of that couch-cushion change from her Rapid City neighbor Robert Van Norman, who donated $250 on October 17.

That amount really is couch-cushion change for Van Norman. On August 21 and September 11, Van Norman's law firm received $50,000 from the Senate campaign fund of Annette Bosworth to represent the fake and failed GOP primary candidate in her February perjury trial.

We may conclude that Van Norman is a chivalrous gentleman, willing to help damsels in the greatest distress.

While Bosworth was pretending to witness signatures from Hutterites, Van Norman was supporting Rick Weiland for Senate. On March 14, Van Norman sent the Weiland campaign $1,000.

Annette Bosworth may be making a New Year's resolution to get out from under her various debts. Patrick Davis, former manager of Bosworth's Senate campaign (a sham aimed at financial reward, not electoral success), reports that Bosworth agreed to pay him $17,500 to settle her debt to him.

According to one website, Davis's firm, Patrick Davis Consulting, filed suit against Bosworth in El Paso County (Colorado) court in September. Bosworth's third-quarter Federal Election Commission report showed disputing an outstanding balance to Davis' firm of $25,433. The December 11 settlement leaves $7,933 in Bosworth's pocket that could (should?) have been Davis's.

Bosworth 2014 Q3 FEC report, p. 400

SHe may need that nearly $8K to pay off her other debts. The other debt shown on p. 400 of Bosworth's Q3 report, $20,750 to ad maker SSC Strategies, remains unpaid, to the best of my knowledge, and over a year past due. Page 401 of the filing shows Bosworth disputing $2,000 owed to campaign staffer Ethan Crisp. The Q3 report indicated the defeated but still fundraising Bosworth campaign had $53,332.60 cash on hand as of September 30, 2014.

Still pending are court efforts by two former employees to recoup unpaid wages from Bosworth's non-profit Preventive Health Strategies.

Gordon Howie wakes this morning to draft a pardon letter for Annette Bosworth. To excuse the fake Senate candidate and multi-million-dollar fundraiser of 24 counts of felony perjury, Howie does not offer Bosworth any alibi. Instead, he accuses "many"—excuse me, "MANY"—South Dakota politicians of committing the same felony:

Let me tell you that these “serious and deliberate” ”crimes” are COMMONPLACE in South Dakota politics.  During the frenzy of political seasons, MANY (and I do mean MANY) South Dakota politicians circulate petitions and sign as circulators when they are not “in the room”.  At Lincoln Day dinners across the state, Republicans routinely send their petitions around the room.  They do not personally witness each signature, but sign the “oath” that they did.  I would venture to say that even our Attorney General may be guilty of this practice.  PLEASE, Marty, say it isn’t so… not even ONE? [Gordon Howie, "That Evil Annette Bosworth," The Right Side, 2015.01.05]

Well, at least Gordon got the headline right.

Annette Bosworth broke South Dakota law in order to access the ballot and support her lucrative and exploitative fundraising scheme. The evidence is plain, undisputed, and in fact confirmed by Bosworth herself. Gordon Howie is making a claim without naming names or providing evidence. If Howie wants to expose perjury committed by other candidates, I invite him to do so. And if he can produce evidence of other violations of petition law, I will happily join him in calling for the arrest and prosecution of every one of those felonious candidates.

But not one word he says this morning changes the facts and justification for convicting and punishing Annette Bosworth for her cynical, narcissistic, and, most importantly, documented disregard for the law.

Laxity and corruption in the enforcement of election law does not excuse ongoing laxity and corruption.