• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- More than half of a $1 million state grant for a South Dakota beef plant was improperly diverted to a private corporation that handled foreign investment funds, state officials said Friday.
• The $550,000 was redirected in early 2011, just after Richard Benda left Pierre as the state's top economic development official to take a private sector job with SDRC Inc., the company contracted by the state to solicit foreign investors for South Dakota projects.
• The full amount was supposed to reimburse the beef plant's construction and equipment costs, not be split to prepay loan monitoring fees to SDRC, Attorney General Marty Jackley said Friday.
• "I can't disclose further where it went," Jackley said Friday.
• Jackley's report didn't name Benda in connection with the grant. But former Gov. Mike Rounds, who was interviewed by Jackley as part of the investigation, told The Associated Press that Benda demanded prepayment of fees as he delivered a state check to Northern Beef.
• The state's investigation also found that Benda, while serving as secretary of the Department of Tourism and State Development, double-billed the state for three flights, valued at about $5,500, Jackley said.
• Benda was found dead Oct. 22 with a 12-gauge shotgun wound to his abdomen, and officials on Thursday ruled his death a suicide.
• Jackley's report is the latest development in the unraveling of the failed Northern Beef Packers plant, an ambitious economic development project that was nurtured by the state. Federal investigations are underway into the complex financing of the plant, which included wooing capital from foreign investors in exchange for an easier path to citizenship.
• No state or federal charges have been filed.

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