COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Long-time South Carolina Sen. John Courson was allowed to remain free on bond Wednesday as he fights charges he pocketed more than $130,000 in campaign donations, the latest development in an ongoing probe into corruption in South Carolina’s Statehouse.
The 72-year-old Columbia Republican said nothing during his brief bond hearing in Richland County, an area he has represented in the Legislature for more than 30 years. Circuit Judge Knox McMahon allowed Courson to remain free on his own recognizance, noting the long-time lawmaker and businessman has lived in Columbia for four decades and is unlikely to flee the area.
Courson’s attorney said the lawmaker would mount a vigorous defense against the charges, asking for a trial date within the next two months. Since his indictment by the state grand jury earlier this month on charges of misconduct in office and using campaign donations for personal expenses, Courson has been suspended from the seat he’s held since 1985. If convicted on all charges, he could face up to 12 years in prison and $6,000 in fines.
“They rushed to judgment,” Rose Mary Parham, Courson’s attorney, told reporters after the hearing. “Unfortunately Sen. Courson is the latest victim in partisan politics at its worst.”
All three charges are tied to Courson’s payments between 2006 and 2012 to veteran GOP strategist and powerbroker Richard Quinn, who has not been charged and has said the allegations are false.
In court Wednesday, Solicitor David Pascoe detailed the charges against Courson, saying Quinn’s firm wrote more than a dozen checks to Courson after having received funds from the lawmaker’s campaign account.
All of the checks but one were under $10,000, the limit that triggers reporting of financial transactions to the IRS. The only check that breached that limit, a November 2012 check made out to Courson for $32,000, had the words “for victory bonus” in the memo line, Pascoe said.
Parham had no explanation for the check amounts, saying repeatedly the money represented “legitimate campaign expenditures.”
The indictments represent the first time the GOP strategist has been publicly named in court documents during Pascoe’s investigation into corruption charges at the Statehouse. Quinn founded his firm in 1978, when few of South Carolina’s legislators were Republican, and helped build a GOP majority.
Courson is the second lawmaker indicted in the ongoing probe since former House Speaker Bobby Harrell of Charleston pleaded guilty to misdemeanor campaign finance charges in 2014 and was forced to resign as part of his plea deal.
Charleston Rep. Jim Merrill, a GOP consultant, was indicted in December on 30 misconduct and ethics charges. Merrill, House majority leader from 2004 to 2008, is accused of illegally profiting from his position. He too is suspended.
All three lawmakers are Republicans. Pascoe is a Democrat.
Attorney General Alan Wilson - also a Republican and a Quinn client - handed the Harrell case to Pascoe in 2014, citing a conflict, but it’s been less than a year since the state Supreme Court gave Pascoe permission to continue. Wilson tried to fire Pascoe last March, saying he lacked the authority to open a state grand jury to investigate beyond Harrell. The justices disagreed.
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Kinnard can be reached at https://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP . Read more of her work at https://bigstory.ap.org/content/meg-kinnard/
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