Updated: Irmo town councilman cleared after election season investigation
UPDATE: A state investigation into Irmo Town Councilman Gabriel Penfield has been closed with a determination that no action needs to be taken, according to a notification from the S.C. Attorney General’s Office sent to the town.
Penfield told The State he felt vindicated by the decision on the case, which he believes was tied to his 2025 re-election campaign for the town council weeks after the five-year-old complaint was revived in local media reports.
“It was resolved as expected,” Penfield said of the state review to The State. “How can we expect good people to run for office if they’re going to receive friendly fire for doing a good job?”
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A member of Irmo Town Council is under investigation after being named in a criminal sexual conduct complaint.
A report was made to Irmo police about Councilman Gabriel Penfield, a wealth manager who is running this November for his first full term on town council after winning a special election last year.
The police report was first reported by the New Irmo News, which posted it to their website.
Penfield is named as the suspect in a report that was filed with the Irmo Police Department in December 2020. The incident report says a person came to the police department to report she believed another person, whose name and relationship to the person filing the report was redacted, had been “sexually abused.”
The complainant provided the officer with a “time line of events,” the report said, and the report lists the incident date as beginning in June of 2016. The report was forwarded to the town’s criminal investigation unit at the time.
Penfield could not immediately be reached for comment by The State on Wednesday, but told the New Irmo News that the Department of Social Services “has already passed on this file” and that he has been told SLED would soon close its investigation.
“The Town confirms that they have formally requested that the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) conduct an independent investigation into this matter as it relates to an elected official,” the town said in a statement sent to The State.
But a town spokesperson declined to provide a copy of the incident report to The State, citing the SLED investigation. She said that the report was previously released by the department before it turned the case over to state investigators in February 2024, when Penfield was first elected to town council. He was not a town official at the time the complaint was first made to local police.
“The Town of Irmo remains fully committed to transparency, accountability, and maintaining the trust of our residents as this process moves forward,” the town’s statement said. ”As this is an active investigation, the Town will not be providing further comment at this time.”
A SLED spokesperson told The State that “SLED is assisting the Irmo Police Department regarding that investigation.” By late Wednesday, state investigators had been requested by the town to become the lead investigators on the case, the spokesman later said.
Earlier this year, Irmo’s former mayor pro tem, Erik Sickinger, resigned after he was arrested and charged with criminal sexual conduct with a minor. His vacant seat was won in a special election by Mike Ward in June.
Penfield is one of six candidates vying for two at-large council seats in the Nov. 4 election.
This story was originally published October 15, 2025 at 6:12 PM.
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