Ex-SCANA CEO gets jail time. Here’s who else faces charges in SC’s VC Summer scandal
Former SCANA CEO Kevin Marsh was sentenced Thursday to two years in federal prison, months after he pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy fraud charges for the cover-up of troubles linked to the $10 billion V.C. Summer nuclear project failure.
Marsh is expected to appear in a Spartanburg County court Monday to be sentenced on a charge from the state of obtaining signature or property by false pretenses in connection with the nuclear scandal.
Though Marsh is the first person to be sentenced in connection to the fiasco, others involved in the project face legal troubles.
In total, four senior executives have been charged in the four-year investigation into the 2017 abandonment of SCANA and Santee Cooper’s nuclear project at the V.C. Summer site in Fairfield County.
Here are the other three:
Stephen Byrne, ex-SCANA executive
Byrne, the second in command at SCANA, pleaded guilty in July 2020 to criminal conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud as part of the federal investigation into V.C. Summer. He was the first to plead guilty to crimes surrounding the scandal.
Federal officials said Byrne and others at the company engaged in a cover-up for years in attempts to hide the huge losses incurred from the project. Court documents said Byrne and others covered up expensive errors made at the site and “deceived regulators and customers in order to maintain financing for the project and to financially benefit SCANA.”
Byrne has yet to face sentencing.
He faces up to five years in prison, a maximum fine of $250,000 and may have to pay $1 million in fines.
Carl Churchman, ex-Westinghouse official
Churchman, who oversaw construction of the nuclear project, pleaded guilty to lying to an FBI agent about what he knew about the progress of the project while it was still ongoing.
From 2008 to 2017, Westinghouse was the lead contractor at the V.C. Summer site.
Prosecutors said Churchman lied about the project to fool people into thinking it would be a success. Churchman knew as early as 2017 that Westinghouse executives lied to SCANA officials about how the construction was going.
In June, Churchman became the third person to enter a guilty plea in connection with the V.C. Summer investigation.
He faces five years in prison.
Jeffrey Benjamin, ex-Westinghouse executive
Benjamin is the only executive charged so far in the V.C. Summer investigation to fight the charges against him.
Benjamin was the former Westinghouse senior vice president of new plants and projects. He faces 16 felony counts, including conspiracy, wire fraud, securities fraud and causing a publicly-traded company to keep a false record.
Benjmin is accused of “failing to truthfully report information regarding construction of new nuclear units at the V.C. Summer nuclear plant,” South Carolina’s acting U.S. Attorney Rhett DeHart said in mid-August.
Benjamin’s lawyer maintains Benjamin’s innocence and has announced plans to seek a trial in August.
Marsh, Churchman and Byrne have agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, meaning they could testify in any future court proceedings, including those against Benjamin.
