No criminal prosecution | News

An investigation into the results of a forensic study highlighting methods by the Williamsburg County Transit Authority will not result in felony prosecution — in accordance to the Third Circuit Solicitor’s Office environment.

On March 3, 2020, the Williamsburg County Sheriff’s Business was contacted by County Supervisor Tiffany Wright to critique a examine that was carried out by the Hicks Guerry Group, an outdoors accounting business.

The 45-site doc covering a 12-month period from June 30, 2018 via June 30, 2019 offered facts and conclusions by the team in parts these types of as lender accounts, sale of and good custody of assets and inside controls.

On March 6, 2020, the sheriff’s place of work sent a duplicate of the examine to the solicitor’s business as well as the South Carolina Legislation Enforcement Division.

The solicitor educated a SLED agent in charge that there was a “lack of substantial proof to prosecute any individual for a violation of the prison legal guidelines of this point out.”

“Based on the evidence submitted and reviewed by our business office, officials at the WTA conducted enterprise in an informal and capricious vogue,” the solicitor’s workplace mentioned. “The audit of records at WTA confirmed a absence of oversight in excess of inventory and personnel.

“There have been severe violations of methods to keep stock, accounts and data suitable.”

Preceding reporting by the Occasions observed that the correct custody of property was not properly handled.

For instance, 109 license plates were lying around, 58 of those people even now listed as active with the S.C. Freeway Division. There were only 39 autos with energetic plates, the report said.

A sample of one particular transit driver’s route manifest report verses payroll records for a 14-week interval from June 30, 2019, via Oct 6, 2019, show the driver had true operate situations of 391 hrs, downtime of 459 several hours (periods where by his/her route had a longer than 1.5 hour crack) and the employee was compensated for 657 hrs.

“This introduced me to an comprehension that we just have to be aware of how we all do enterprise and making guaranteed we all do it in right order,” Wright previously reported about the conclusions of the analyze. “The stuff that you do can be interpreted as currently being not done accurately if we really don’t abide by good procedures and strategies that have been put in location.”

The sheriff’s workplace reported that they “reached out to unbiased investigators and authorities who could be dependable to convey to us the truth with no any bias or political agenda.

“Based on the evaluate and recommendation of SLED and the statement of the solicitor, we now contemplate our investigation concluded except supplemental proof is forthcoming.”