SC House Speaker pleads to 6 charges; no jail time

Harrell’s plea deal dropped misconduct in office charge. The Republican agreed to a six-year prison sentence that will be suspended as long as he completes three years of probation. He was also ordered to turn over about $10,000 from his campaign account to the state and will pay $93,000 to South Carolina’s general fund.

Harrell also agreed to help prosecutors and investigators in any other investigations into wrongdoing involving the Legislature or other matters. Prosecutor David Pascoe didn’t specify what those investigations involve.

Circuit Judge Casey Manning agreed to the deal.

Harrell, 58, has been in the House since 1993 and speaker since 2005.

Prosecutors said Harrell improperly used campaign money to pay for flights on his private plane. He didn’t talk to reporters after his sentencing, but released a statement saying he disagrees with prosecutors that his flights were not state or campaign business.

Harrell said he pleaded guilty because he and his family couldn’t handle fighting the charges for up to two more years.

“I have agreed to this today to end what has been a two year nightmare. This has been incredibly hard on my family and me, and it is time for it to end,” Harrell said, concluding his statement by saying he and his wife will continue to look for ways to help South Carolina.

Harrell had suspended himself from the speaker’s office last month, a day after a Richland County grand jury indicted him on nine counts.

As part of his plea deal, Harrell agreed to not seek office for at least three years. He was running for re-election against a Democrat and a third-party candidate, and it wasn’t immediately clear what will happen in that race since absentee voting has begun.

One count alleges Harrell reimbursed himself $3,875 for flying his family and friends to Florida in March 2009 in his private plane for a high school baseball tournament. His campaign disclosures labeled that trip “legislative travel,” according to court documents.

Prosecutors also said in the indictment that Harrell paid himself $294,335 from his campaign account between Jan. 1, 2009 and Jan. 10, 2013. About a third of that, or $93,958, went toward his privately owned airplane. Roughly another third, or $96,381, was reported as reimbursements for legislative travel, though some of the expenses were personal and other sources paid for some of the travel.

Defense attorney Bart Daniel said an audit paid for by Harrell did agree with some of the prosecutor’s findings. But it also determined Harrell personally paid for thousands of dollars in expenses he could have claimed as campaign-related, but did not reimburse himself.

The case has been ongoing since early 2013, when Attorney General Alan Wilson accepted an ethics complaint against Harrell from Ashley Landess of the South Carolina Policy Council — a libertarian-leaning, pro-limited-government think tank — and sent it to the State Law Enforcement Division for investigation. Wilson sent the case to the state grand jury, and Harrell asked the court to remove Wilson, saying the prosecutor tried to intimidate him during the investigation.

A lower court halted the investigation, saying the House Ethics Committee first needed to review an ethics complaint before forwarding the case to Wilson. The state Supreme Court disagreed, ruling July 9 that Wilson’s probe was proper and could continue. Wilson stepped aside and transferred the case to Pascoe, the Democratic chief prosecutor for Calhoun, Dorchester and Orangeburg counties.