Ousted Tri-County Electric chairman appears in court for first time since indictment
The ex-chairman of Tri-County Electric Cooperative appeared in court Monday afternoon for the first time since he was indicted last month on charges of official misconduct and using his former office for personal profit.
Judge Roger Young set bond at $25,000 for Heath Hill, 69, who sat on the Midlands utility’s board for more than two decades until he was fired by its customers last summer.
Young cited Hill’s longstanding ties to the Lower Richland community in ruling the 69-year-old farmer isn’t a flight risk and can remain out of jail while he awaits trial.
Hill, dressed in a tan suit and light blue tie, did not speak at the four-minute hearing.
However, Hill’s attorney, Columbia lawyer Joe McCulloch, told The State his client looks forward to addressing the charges.
“He does not believe in his years of service at Tri-County that he did anything that could be misconstrued as misconduct,” McCulloch said after the hearing.
Monday’s bond hearing is the latest development in the fallout from a scandal that erupted at Tri-County last year, after The State newspaper published an exclusive investigation into the electric cooperative’s board.
The State reported in May 2018 that Hill and his fellow part-time board members were paying themselves exorbitantly, granting themselves expensive benefits and ordering employees to provide them inappropriate perks.
Three months later, Hill and the rest of Tri-County’s board were tossed out of office in a historic and unprecedented meeting called by Tri-County’s customers, who jointly own the co-op that provides electricity to customers in Richland, Lexington, Calhoun, Orangeburg, Kershaw and Sumter counties.
The State’s reporting also led the First Circuit Solicitor’s Office and State Law Enforcement Division to launch the investigation that resulted in Hill’s indictment last month.
Echoing stories that The State published in 2018, a grand jury last month charged Hill with using his longtime office to obtain hundreds of thousands of dollars in free or discounted power lines and electric service for himself and his family and to improperly secure an $80,000 cash payout from the co-op.
That probe remains ongoing.
After the indictment, McCulloch said Hill was looking forward to the chance to tell his side of the story. Hill has declined to comment in The State’s previous stories.
Hill comes from a well-connected, landowning family in southeastern Richland County. His father, Harold Hill, was a magistrate in Eastover for 25 years before retiring in 1992 while under investigation for allegedly pressuring state troopers to drop speeding tickets against him and family members.
Heath Hill ran for the S.C. House of Representatives in 2017, falling to now-state Rep. Wendy Brawley, D-Richland, in the Democratic primary.
