A man running for office in South Dakota has been charged with child abuse, according to court documents.
Joel Matthew Koskan, 44, faces a felony child abuse charge for acts that were alleged to have happened between Oct. 5, 2014 and Oct. 5, 2020, according to a complaint filed in the sixth judicial circuit out of Mellette County. Koskan exposed the now 20-year-old victim to “sexual grooming behaviors,” according to court documents.
Koskan, a Republican, is running against Rep. Shawn Bordeaux, a Mission Democrat, for the senate seat in District 26. The seat is held by Sen. Troy Heinert, a Mission Democrat who is term-limited.
The probable cause statement for Koskan has been sealed by order of the South Dakota Office of the Attorney General, according to an email sent to Mellette County court clerks by Mandy Miller, the assistant attorney general.
According to reporting by the Mitchell Daily Republic, which obtained the document, the five-page probable cause statement filed against Koskan was done so by a female family member who realized the way Koskan interacted and touched her since she was a child was inappropriate. Koskan allegedly had sexual intercourse with the victim multiple times throughout different residences across the state. He also tracked the victim’s location via GPS tracking through her phone and vehicle, according to the Mitchell Daily Republic reporting.
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