SC Ethics Commission cancels hearing on subpoenas in LR5 case
The S.C. Ethics Commission has canceled a scheduled hearing Monday afternoon to consider quashing subpoenas in an ethics case against a Midlands school board member.
The commission has postponed a 2 p.m. hearing to block subpoenas requiring testimony from two more people being sought by Lexington-Richland 5 vice chair Ken Loveless. It’s not clear when the hearings might be rescheduled.
Former Lexington-Richland 5 school board chairman Michael Cates and constituent Kim Benson were asking the commission to drop subpoenas issued against them by school board vice chair Ken Loveless, who faces four counts of violating the S.C. Ethics Act.
Benson originally brought the ethics complaint against Loveless in February 2021, while Cates was chairman of the school board until 2020.
After an investigation by the Ethics Commission, Loveless was accused of acting in a government capacity on a school district project managed by a company with which Loveless had an outside financial relationship.
Loveless is accused of inquiring about Contract Construction’s work on Piney Woods Elementary School in a letter on March 24, 2020, even though Loveless’ company had been awarded a more than $1 million contract with the company for another job. Loveless is also accused of improperly participating in board discussions of Piney Woods on June 15 and Sept. 14 of that year. Loveless also visited Piney Woods in June 2020 to review Contract Construction’s work.
Three other men previously asked the Ethics Commission to drop subpoenas requiring them to testify. Contract Construction President Greg Hughes, former school district attorney Michael Montgomery and former board member Ed White told the commission on Thursday that they have no relevant information to share about the ethics allegations against Loveless and believe he is only seeking their testimony to harass them. One attorney called the allegation they had anything to do with Loveless’ ethics charges a “conspiracy theory.”
The Ethics Commission made no ruling on those requests Thursday. Attorney Tucker Player, representing Benson and Cates, told The State that the commission’s decision on those appeals may either eliminate the need for a hearing on their motions or set the standards for subpoenas in the case going forward. .
The latest move comes after it emerged Friday that Loveless’ attorneys had also sent a subpoena to Facebook requesting information from 38 individual and group Facebook pages as part of a defamation case Loveless has filed against a constituent who had made critical comments about Loveless and the Lexington-Richland 5 school board on Facebook.
This story was originally published September 12, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
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