A reporter pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor on Tuesday after using South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s personal phone number to prank call a Republican official.
According to reports, Austin Goss made a pre-recorded prank call to former South Dakota Republican Party chairman Dan Lederman Jan. 22. Goss used the website PrankDial to make it seem like the call came from Noem.
In the prank call, Goss masqueraded as a mafia member and accused Lederman of swiping boxes of vaccines.
“You telling me you didn’t tell Vito that you were gonna try to move the three boxes of that AstraZeneca outside this family?” Goss is heard saying in one of the prank call’s lines. “You’ve just been pranked by PrankDial.com.”
The former GOP chairman told police that the call “caused him concern for his safety,” adding that the reporter “occasionally text him snide or rude remarks.”
Goss was immediately fired from Dakota News Now and was charged with a misdemeanor after he was arrested last Thursday. He pleaded to a disorderly conduct charge and could face up to a year in prison.
Jason Glodt, the reporter’s attorney, defended Goss and said that the prank call was just a “practical joke” between his client.
“The Court granted Mr. Goss a suspended imposition of sentence so there will be no conviction on his record,” Glodt said in a statement on Tuesday. “I believe it is unfortunate he was charged in the first place, but appreciate the willingness of the State’s Attorney to reduce the charge.”
Similarly, a prank call last August led to authorities swatting Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s home. The incident occurred when Rome police officials were dispatched to what turned out to be Greene’s home at around 1 a.m. local time after an emergency call made through a Virginia crisis line referred to a male who had been shot five times in a bathtub.
The call, which was listed in Richmond, Virginia, also mentioned that a female and children were inside the home.
Numerous officers then assembled and rang the doorbell. They were greeted “by the victim (Greene)”, who assured authorities that there was no issue and that a “keep check” would be done on the residence.
