Two weeks ago, this news site reported exclusively on an internal investigation being conducted by the office of interim Greenville County, South Carolina sheriff Johnny Mack Brown.
Brown’s office has yet to provide the public much in the way of detail regarding this matter, but our news site gave readers plenty of information related to the case two weeks ago.
Basically, the investigation stems from the ongoing S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) probe into suspended Greenville sheriff Will Lewis. As a part of SLED’s investigation – which led to Lewis’ indictment back in April on misconduct in office and obstruction of justice charges – it was revealed that the suspended sheriff had pulled the plug on an internal investigation into former sheriff’s office dispatcher Marci Shetler.
While not central to the criminal charges Lewis is facing, the Shetler investigation did produce some embarrassing revelations.
What happened?
“The wife of a deputy alleged that Shetler was having an affair with her husband,” a source familiar with the situation told us. “That particular allegation turned out to be false, but the ensuing investigation revealed Shetler was having sexual contact with a total of sixteen sheriff’s office employees.”
Wait … sixteen?
That’s right …
Also, as we reported two weeks ago, Shetler’s husband Josh Shetler reportedly provided additional information to internal investigators about his wife’s alleged proclivities during the original investigation.
At that point, Lewis and former Greenville County sheriff’s office attorney Lance Sheek reportedly called each of these deputies in – one at a time – and informed them that they were not going to be fired but that they should schedule an appointment with the doctor to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases.
Yeah …
Upon being appointed interim sheriff by governor Henry McMaster back in April, Brown reopened the internal investigation into the Shetler case. And this week, according to WYFF TV 4 (NBC – Greenville/ Spartanburg, S.C.), he has handed down disciplinary action.
One deputy was fired in connection with the case while five others were “reprimanded for conduct unbecoming,” WYFF reported, citing the sheriff office’s public information officer Ryan Flood.
In a statement provided to the station, Flood said the officer who was terminated – Jared Stroud – lied to investigators.
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“In an effort to protect the integrity of that investigation, the GCSO will not elaborate on the specific allegation against that former deputy and will defer all further details to SLED and the thirteenth circuit solicitor’s office,” Flood said in a statement.
The thirteenth circuit would be the office of Walt Wilkins, who has previously faced criticism for his questionable “cooperative investigations” with GCSO “God Cops.”
Wilkins is not handling the investigation into Lewis, though. That file was referred instead to the office of S.C. sixteenth circuit solicitor Kevin Brackett.
Last we heard, Lewis was in the process of negotiating (or attempting to negotiate) some sort of plea agreement to resign his post.
The misconduct and obstruction charges against Lewis were filed in connection with SLED’s probe of sexual assault allegations against the 43-year-old sheriff. Both of those stories broke exclusively on this news site (here and here), incidentally. We were also the first media outlet to report on the details of Lewis’ alleged obstruction in response to SLED’s investigation of the unresolved sexual assault allegations leveled against him by 24-year-old Savannah Nabors.
Nabors publicly accused Lewis of drugging and raping her during a March 2017 business trip to Charlotte, North Carolina. Those allegations are currently the subject of a parallel inquiry being conducted by the Charlotte-Mecklenberg police department.
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