FBI probe of SC Irish Travelers changing community for better, lawyer, defendant say

The FBI’s long-running investigation into widespread fraud by dozens of South Carolina’s Irish Travelers is changing the culture of that secretive community — for the better, a defense attorney said Tuesday.

But a federal judge still sentenced Mary Gorman Carroll — a Traveler grandmother and convicted white-collar criminal — to prison.

“Now, her (Carroll’s) granddaughters will have educational opportunities that she did not have when she was taken out of school in the seventh grade,” defense attorney Mark Moore told U.S. District Court Judge Michelle Childs in federal court in Columbia.

The prison terms handed out to Travelers have shocked the community, Moore told Childs.

Carroll, 65, blinked back tears and echoed Moore’s statements, as she admitted that she had carried out tax, food stamp and insurance frauds for years.

“I know that a lot of good has come from this investigation ... and very positive changes,” Carroll told Childs.

The FBI investigation, which began five years ago, has resulted in the arrest of 50 Irish Travelers and, thus far, the conviction of more than 25. Most Travelers live in Murphy Village, a community in Aiken County near the Georgia line.

The investigation also has offered insights into the Travelers’ culture.

Most Traveler boys and girls are removed from school at an early age. Many of young Irish Traveler women marry by 16, having been taught by their parents how to commit food stamp, insurance and other frauds. The young men take to the road and earn a living as itinerant workers, often fleecing people who hire them to work, according to evidence in the case.

Defense attorney Moore told the judge the experience of being indicted on federal charges two years ago has changed Carroll from being a bad example for her children and grandchildren to a person who can show them another way.

“She wants to let the children know that they can go outside Murphy Village and make choices about their future,” Moore told the judge. “This is one lady who has learned her lesson and is trying to show her family they mean to change the way they operate.”

Moore asked the judge to give Carroll probation and home confinement — not prison.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim May, who has worked with the FBI on the Travelers investigation, told Childs that allowing Carroll to escape prison — after frauds that brought her hundreds of thousands of dollars — would send a terrible message to the children of Murphy Village.

“There has to be a way of showing to the people who look up to her that choices have consequences,” May said.

Childs sentenced Carroll to six months in federal prison, to be followed by six months of home confinement.

This story was originally published December 18, 2018 at 5:59 PM.