At least nine involved in case of teenager who lied about age

The Daily Republic

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A Mitchell man was sentenced Tuesday to 15 days in jail for fourth-degree rape, making him the ninth person in the past 14 months to be sentenced for an offense involving the same victim.

Trevor Clark, 26, was granted a suspended imposition of sentence and ordered to serve 15 days in jail.

While The Daily Republic found nine criminal cases linked to the same boy through a search of Davison County court documents, Judge Chris Giles has indicated at multiple hearings that upwards of 20 people were investigated in connection with the now-17-year-old victim, identified in documents only as C.L.W.

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U.S. Appeals Court: Tribes have right to review FCC-regulated development

The Daily Republic

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The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled Friday that the Federal Communications Commission cannot make smaller 5G towers exempt from a review process on tribal land.

The decision remands the issue back to the FCC, as the court ruled that Rule 1779, which went into effect in July 2018, violated tribal rights under the National Historic Preservation Act to determine whether proposed structures such as cell towers and antennae will have an impact on historically or culturally significant land.

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Cashing in on a rainy day: Prevent plant claims flood in with record-breaking rainfall

The Daily Republic

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In the wettest year on record in the state’s history, an unprecedented number of South Dakota’s farmers have had to rely on prevented planting payments from their crop insurance.

Heather Fillaus, an insurance officer for Farm Credit Services of America, said that between 95 and 98 percent of customers at the insurer’s Mitchell office have claimed prevent plant on at least some of their acreage, although the amount of acreage varies widely from one operation to another. In past years, Fillaus said, it’s been common to see that number under 50 percent.

“We haven’t had a year like 2019 ever before,” Fillaus told The Daily Republic on Thursday. “You talk to some of these 80-year-old farmers, and they say that they’ve never seen a year like this before. … This year, we had guys that farm a vast amount of acres that didn’t get anything planted or that maybe only got a few acres planted, which is very, very outside the norm for around here.”

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The cost of care: Patients, facilities struggle to cover expenses at long-term care facilities

The Daily Republic

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Julie Yager’s 92-year-old father died in February, but her struggle with the nursing home he had lived in didn’t end until months later.

Yager, who was not legally responsible for her father, Peter Oberosler, at the time of his death, began receiving bills for his stay at the Good Samaritan Society in Corsica.

“I thought I had made myself pretty straight, that I wasn’t financially responsible for the debt and that my dad didn’t have the money, and they didn’t deserve it,” Yager said, referencing a call she made about a bill she was sent in February. “So I thought that would be the end of it, but I continued to get billings.”

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Former county VSO to appeal to Supreme Court

The Daily Republic

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After a year and a half of contesting the way she was fired, a former Davison County veterans service officer now plans to take her case to the South Dakota Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, Judge Patrick Smith issued a memorandum decision ruling that the South Dakota Department of Labor and Regulation correctly granted summary judgment to the county commission in November 2018 and that the commission’s decision to terminate Jessica Davidson in November 2017 stands.

Davidson’s attorney, R. Shawn Tornow, told The Daily Republic on Thursday that Davidson had a number of concerns with the decision.

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Up in smoke: Century-old Mount Vernon building demolished

The Daily Republic

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MOUNT VERNON — For the first time in about 100 years, there is no building standing at the corner of Main Street and First Avenue in Mount Vernon.

The adjoining buildings that previously housed the Mustang Cafe and American Legion Hall were on fire at 6:44 a.m. Sunday, and less than 30 minutes later, the walls had fallen in, Mayor Weston Frank told The Daily Republic on Monday.

Within hours, all but a few small flames were extinguished, and workers from Schoenfelder Construction cleaned up the remaining debris. But while the demolition itself went more quickly than Frank expected, getting to the point where it could be done did not.

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Dealing with attempted murder cases, charges

The Daily Republic

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Dawn Long and Mark Cook’s cases may not have had much else in common, but they did begin and end with the same charges.

Both were at one point charged with attempted murder and, like many across the state who faced similar charges, ultimately accepted plea bargains and are now in prison for aggravated assault. That outcome has been the most common among the state’s attempted murder cases in recent years.

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A fire department family: Dante Fire Department dedicates truck to firefighter’s late children

The Daily Republic

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The members of the Dante Fire Department see themselves as a family.

Earlier this year, that family decided to honor the family of one of their own by dedicating its newly-purchased brush truck to Josie and Mikey Van Duysen, who died in a car crash in October near Leola at the ages of 4 and 2, respectively.

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