Mistrial In Kris Crawford Case

A Florence County (S.C.) judge has declared a mistrial in the court case of State. Rep. Kris Crawford – the Republican lawmaker accused of failing to pay his taxes in a timely manner.

Jurors deliberated for four hours before sending Circuit Judge Thomas Cooper Jr. a note saying they were deadlocked.

“We haven’t reached a unanimous decision. What do we do?” the note read.

Cooper asked them to try again, but an hour and a half later they came back saying they had made no progress.

It is unknown whether S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson will seek to re-prosecute the case, which has resulted in lingering publicity regarding the tax problems of S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley.

Crawford is being prosecuted under a “catch-all” section of the S.C. revenue code, which grants wide latitude to those enforcing state tax law. In fact, here’s the specific wording of the statute:

A person required under any provision of law administered by the department and who wilfully fails to pay any estimated tax or tax, or who is required by any provision of law or by any regulation and who wilfully fails to make a return, keep records, or supply information, at the time or times required by law or regulation, in addition to other penalties provided by law, is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, must be fined not more than ten thousand dollars, or imprisoned not more than one year, or both, together with the cost of prosecution.

Pretty broad, isn’t it?

Yet while Crawford (who hired an accountant to do his taxes) is facing jail time, Haley (who did her own taxes) has been given a pass on her multiple tax problems.

FITS broke the story of Crawford’s tax troubles a year ago – although we (correctly) framed the story within the context of selective enforcement of this statute.

As we said at the time, we believe that Crawford was targeted for arrest, indictment and prosecution for one simple reason – the fact that he has been rumored as a possible primary challenger to S.C. Senator Hugh Leatherman in 2012.  The state’s “Godfather of Pork,” Leatherman is one of the most corrupt public officials to ever hold office in South Carolina (which is saying something, believe us), and based on everything we’ve seen he’s trying to use his considerable influence to take Crawford out.

Thus far, he hasn’t succeeded …

Prior to the trial, Judge Cooper refused to toss the charges against Crawford after his attorneys argued Haley had contaminated the jury pool by making inappropriate comments about Crawford’s case. Haley appeared at a press conference with former S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster last October. At that event, she sought to contrast Crawford’s tax issues with her own history of failing to pay her taxes in a timely manner.

During the 2010 campaign, Haley repeatedly said that she was “the right person” to become governor because she was “an accountant who knows what it means to stretch a dollar.” Her personal accounting history told a different story, however.

Over the last six years, Haley’s family business was penalized three times for failing to pay its corporate income taxes on time (and failing to turn over taxes withheld from employees’ paychecks). The business – which has since closed its doors – was also fined for late payment of property taxes. On top of that, Haley and her husband have also repeatedly failed to pay their income taxes on time – and were late paying their property taxes on more than one occasion.

Earlier this year, Haley and her husband paid their property taxes shortly after a FITS article revealed that they had once again missed a deadline.

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