By Dave Baumeister, County Correspondent
SIOUX FALLS – While Minnehaha County commissioners will often work with individuals to compromise a lien against them or their property, at the Tuesday, July 14 meeting they unanimously voted against one of these compromises.
The request came from Alex Lingor, age 19, who was hoping to close this month on a $264,000 home.
However, Lingor had a $79,000 lien against him for public defender costs stemming from his second degree manslaughter conviction, when Kareem Cisse, 15, of Sioux Falls was killed during a high-speed chase through the city.
From media and court reports at the time, on Feb. 22, 2017, Lingor was selling $25 of marijuana to a person in a vehicle who drove off without paying.
Lingor then chased after him in his pick-up truck, bumping the car on three different occasions in order to get him to stop.
According to records, the third time he bumped the vehicle, he forced it into a tree, and Cisse, a passenger in the car, was killed in the crash.
In 2018, Lingor was only given a 540-day sentence as a part of a plea bargain.
After receiving 475 days credit for time served in the Minnehaha County Juvenile Detention Center, Lingor was left having to serve only 65 days in the county jail.
Beyond that, though, Lingor is still under 15 years of supervised probation, during which time he is subject to a sentence of “several decades” should he commit another crime.
In 2018, Lingor’s parents were also convicted of trying to help their son cover up the fatality.
His father, Joseph Lingor was sentenced to 60-days in jail, and the mother, Vicki Lingor, received 120 hours of community service after they tried to cover up the damage to the pick-up and then lied to the police.
At the recent commission meeting, commissioners made no mention of Alex Lingor’s crime, but stuck to the facts surrounding the lien.
Commissioners Jeff Barth, Gerald Beninga and Dean Karsky all gave reasons for denying the compromise that cited being “responsible to the people of Minnehaha County.”
Barth pointed out that the $78,912 lien was just for Lingor’s legal fees, but county taxpayers also had to pay for his other court costs, as well as his incarceration, and there was no recourse for collecting any of that.
Beninga agreed and added that the cost of the public defender was already discounted from what Lingor would have paid for a private attorney.
“This is about responsibility back to the county,” Karsky said. “$1,000 (the amount Lingor was willing to pay to settle the lien) just isn’t enough to settle this.”
Beninga then moved, and Karsky seconded, the denial of the lien compromise, and the motion passed 4-0.
After the compromise was denied, Nikki Arrington, Cisse’s mother, thanked commissioners and referred to her own bills that were much higher than $79,000, and said about Lingor, “He’s got to have a little bit of responsibility for this.”
There was no other major business at the meeting.
The Minnehaha Commission has its regular meetings each Tuesday at 9 a.m. on the second floor of the county administration building at 6th and Minnesota in Sioux Falls.
These meetings are open to all, and public comment is always encouraged.
