SC AG Alan Wilson’s office gives public corruption cases to Upstate prosecutor

State Attorney General Alan Wilson’s office will give four high-profile cases involving alleged public corruption by three former state lawmakers and a political consultant to an Upstate elected prosecutor based in Spartanburg.

A letter sent Wednesday by one of Wilson’s top deputies to Seventh Circuit Solicitor Barry Barnette says that Wilson has “removed himself personally from all involvement with these four defendants” and is giving them to Barnette.

“The Attorney General has delegated this office’s responsibility in these cases to me,” says the two-page letter, written by W. Jeffrey Young, chief deputy attorney general.

One case involves a man who was once one of Wilson’s closest associates, Richard Quinn Sr.

Quinn, who in 2019 was indicted by a state grand jury on 11 counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice, is a legendary South Carolina political consultant who once worked closely with Wilson. For years, Quinn was at the center of a web of influence peddling and behind-the-scene payments to lawmakers in the S.C. General Assembly, according to a 2018 state grand jury report and court records.

A Wilson spokesman said Thursday that the attorney general and Quinn, who is in his mid-70s, have not spoken for several years.

The charges against Quinn and three former lawmakers that will now be handled by Barnette stem from special prosecutor David Pascoe’s investigation, of more than five years, into State House corruption.

Pascoe’s investigation, helped by the state grand jury and the State Law Enforcement Division, have over the years led to the convictions of five powerful GOP state lawmakers, including Quinn Sr.’s son, former Rep. Rick Quinn Jr., R-Lexington.

In January, after a State Supreme Court decision in one of Pascoe’s corruption cases placed limits on Pascoe’s authority, Pascoe turned over his three remaining pending cases in his investigation to Wilson for disposal.

In its January decision, the Supreme Court also turned over a fourth Pascoe case to Wilson. That fourth case involved the high court’s upholding of an 18-month prison sentence for perjury against former State Rep. Jim Harrison, R-Richland, a former chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee who was convicted of lying under oath as part of the broader public corruption investigation.

At the same time the Supreme Court upheld Harrison’s perjury sentence, the high court overturned Harrison’s conviction at the same trial on misconduct charges and gave that misconduct case to Wilson. Pascoe had exceeded his authority as special prosecutor for putting Harrison on trial for misconduct, the high court ruled.

Wilson should decide what to do with the overturned Harrison misconduct conviction and make that decision public, the high court said in January.

Pascoe then turned over his three remaining cases to Wilson, saying that way he would eliminate all possible confusion in the future.

The four cases that Barnette will now handle are:

▪ The perjury and obstruction of justice charges against Quinn Sr. The perjury charges allege Quinn repeatedly lied to the state grand jury in a confidential session about his involvement with various politicians including Wilson.

▪ A sentencing proceeding against former State Sen. John Courson, R-Richland, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to misconduct in connection with taking some $159,000 in payments from Quinn.

▪ Perjury and misconduct charges against former State Rep. Tracy Edge, R-Horry, indicted in 2017 by Pascoe’s state grand jury.

▪ The misconduct charge against former State Rep. Harrison.

Over the years, Pascoe, State Law Enforcement Division investigators and the state grand jury rolled up a string of convictions, guilty pleas, resignations from public office and corporate integrity agreements and financial settlements with corporations who did business with Quinn’s political consulting firm.

For years, Wilson had a special business and relationship with Quinn, likening him to “a second father,” according to the 2018 state grand jury report delving into Quinn’s dealings with members of the S.C. General Assembly and corporate and institutional organizations with business in the Legislature. Quinn was a top political consultant for numerous Republican S.C. politicians, including U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, of Seneca, and Gov. Henry McMaster.

In 2014, Wilson originally designated Pascoe as a special prosecutor to investigate former House Speaker Bobby Harrell, whose dealings were questioned in a 2013 SLED report. Harrell pleaded guilty to misconduct and resigned office in October 2014.

In 2015, Wilson’s office said Pascoe could continue investigating two other lawmakers mentioned in that SLED report — Rep. Quinn Jr. and Rep. Jim Merrill, R-Berkeley. Both eventually pleaded guilty to misconduct and resigned from the General Assembly.

During the investigations into Quinn Jr. and Merrill, Pascoe and SLED uncovered evidence linking Courson and Harrison to non-public payments from Quinn Sr.’s firm.

Quinn Sr.’s alleged acts of perjury came when he testified before Pascoe’s state grand jury about his dealings in the Legislature, according to records in the case.

The 2018 state grand jury that issued a report examining how Quinn Sr. did business in the General Assembly said that Wilson and Quinn were so close they “spoke nearly every day.”

Wilson was more loyal to Quinn and his family than to “the citizens of South Carolina, who he represents,” the grand jurors said in their report, adding Wilson’s “actions impeded this investigation.”

In recent years, the report said, Wilson had “reassured Mr. Quinn that everything would be fine and that he didn’t believe the Quinns had done anything wrong.”

When the state grand jury report was released, Wilson criticized it, saying “the Pascoe report is riddled with already-disproven political innuendo and baseless conjecture. ... This is an entirely political smear less than a month from an election and it should be dismissed as just that.”

John Crangle, a lawyer who studies ethical issues in the General Assembly, said Thursday he had hoped the cases would be given to 5th Circuit Solicitor Byron Gibson, who is based in Columbia. Lawyers and defendants from three of the cases are in central South Carolina.

“They couldn’t have moved these cases further from Columbia,” Crangle said. “Spartanburg could not be more inconvenient.”

But Crangle said it was a positive sign that Wilson gave up the cases because the attorney general had conflicts of interest in the four cases. “There was no other option.”

Pascoe told The State on Thursday that he spoke with Barnette on Monday.

“I am confident that he will do an exceptional job in the prosecution of these cases and the investigation. He is a career prosecutor and he has a top-notch staff,” Pascoe said.

The letter from the Attorney General’s Office to Barnette pledges cooperation by Wilson’s office in coordinating with the state grand jury and help with any travel and lodging costs.

The letter gives Barnette wide discretion in investigating and prosecuting with the Quinn Sr., Courson, Harrison and Edge cases.

But the letter from Wilson’s office also said that if Barnette and his team turn up information that leads to new investigations concerning new defendants, “please advise this office on the matter so that we may decide how to proceed.”

This story was originally published March 18, 2021 at 4:08 PM.