Sentencing of ex-SC State official’s co-conspirators delayed
Monday’s sentencing of five men for their involvement in schemes orchestrated by former S.C. State University board chair Jonathan Pinson has been delayed, according to federal court records.
The sentencings before U.S. Judge David Norton will now be held July 21, according to court records.
No reason was given for the date change in the federal court records. All five cooperated with the government in its investigation of Pinson.
Last summer, a federal jury in Columbia found Pinson guilty of 29 of 45 felony counts and acquitted him on 16.
The sentencings of Lance Wright, Richard Zahn, Phillip Mims, Robert “Tony” Williams and Michel Bartley are expected to close a long-running state-federal investigation into public corruption and misuse of public money at S.C. State University. The investigation spilled over into a Columbia housing project called Village at River’s Edge and to a failed Marion County diaper plant.
The government spent three years investigating and bringing the case – one of its most complex in recent years – to trial in Columbia. Its investigators included a low-profile, joint FBI-SLED public corruption team task force that targets officials in South Carolina.
A major charge the jury found Pinson guilty of was racketeering, or being part of an ongoing criminal enterprise engaged in crimes like money laundering, theft of federal funds, wire fraud, bribery and extortion. Prosecutors labeled Pinson the “mastermind” racketeer of an operation that involved a half-dozen others and four separate moneymaking schemes.
Up to the time he was indicted, Pinson, regarded as a high-flying businessman, was friends with politicians such as Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin and Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. Pinson was also a Liberty Fellow, an elite group of South Carolinians selected each year by Greenville philanthropist Hayne Hipp to be groomed for leadership positions in South Carolina.
The charges against the five who will be sentenced July 21:
▪ Bartley, former S.C. State police chief, has pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge for agreeing to accept a payoff of $30,000 and an all-terrain vehicle in exchange for being part of a Pinson kickback scheme at the university.
▪ Zahn, a Florida developer, has pleaded guilty to participating in a kickback scheme in which he tried to sell S.C. State 121 acres of land he owns near the university. That land, called Sportsman’s Retreat, was pitched to the school as a possible site for a university conference center. Zahn was to give Pinson a $90,000 Porsche Cayenne SUV in return for Pinson’s help in getting the university to buy the Zahn land for $2.8 million. Federal agents stepped in before the land was sold.
▪ Wright, of Lexington, a former Pinson associate and S.C. State board member, pleaded guilty to mail fraud and bank fraud.
▪ Williams, of Florida, pleaded guilty to various conspiracy charges involving the Village at River’s Edge and other projects.
▪ Mims, of Lexington, pleaded guilty to conspiring to get sizable loans from banks for building projects in Marion County and in the Columbia area, and diverting the money to illegal uses, according to federal charges.