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Disgraced former Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison for a series of public corruption crimes committed during his tenure as one of the Palmetto State’s most beloved sheriffs.
The sentence, handed down by U.S. District Judge Timothy M. Cain at the Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Courthouse in Greenville, South Carolina on Tuesday (July 7, 2026), included an order for the 61-year-old to pay $462,866.06 in restitution, followed by three years of supervised release upon completion of his prison term. The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) recommended that Wright serve his sentence at the FCI Jesup in Georgia.
Standing by Wright’s side as he learned his long-awaited fate were Columbia, S.C. criminal defense attorney Gregory Harris and former U.S. Congressman Trey Gowdy, the same two lawyers who have walked him through every court date since last October.
As for the prison term they secured for their client, it landed at the top of the 33-to-41-month guideline range they had asked Cain to depart from in an eleventh-hour filing for leniency.
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? #LIVE: Disgraced former Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright is scheduled to appear at 10 a.m. before U.S. District Judge Timothy M. Cain in Greenville, SC, where the once-revered lawman could face anywhere from 33 to 41 months in federal prison for three public corruption… pic.twitter.com/M5Vh44yuNg
— Andrew Fancher (@RealAndyFancher) July 7, 2026
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Their memorandum, which centered on Wright’s “meaningful treatment” of an opioid addiction as federal agents descended upon his office last summer, evidently left little impact on U.S. Attorney Bryan Stirling, who fired back with a scathing rebuttal on June 23.
Stirling’s filing detailed how Wright siphoned roughly $89,000 from the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) benevolence fund, a tax-exempt account meant to help deputies through hardship, and spent it instead on personal luxuries… including pills.
Stirling acknowledged in his memo that while there is “no accounting” for much of that money, Wright personally handed over a $1,000 check from the fund to pay a local street-level pill distributor.
That distributor, referred to in federal filings as both an “unindicted co-conspirator” and “cooperator,” was just one of several dealers who supplied Wright, according to multiple sources familiar with the ex-sheriff’s tenure.
None of those distributors, whether listed or alleged, appear to have faced federal charges.
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Whatever the full scope of Wright’s conduct across 21 years as sheriff, he pleaded guilty last fall to just three public corruption charges. The first two center on obtaining 147 prescription painkillers through “misrepresentation” and abusing the aforementioned benevolence fund.
He was not alone in the latter conspiracy, as federal prosecutors also charged former sheriff’s office chaplain Amos Durham as part of that scheme.
As for Wright’s third and final charge, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, it centers on the ambiguous two-decade employment of his cousin, Lawson “LB” Watson, whom federal authorities have repeatedly described as a “no-show” deputy.
Like Durham, Watson was also dragged down in disgrace as part of Wright’s scheme and charged with a single federal crime.
Both men, formerly employed by SCSO as Wright’s subordinates, are set to appear before Cain for their individual sentences on Thursday.
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Wright, meanwhile, still faces 65 state ethics charges before the S.C. State Ethics Commission, a proceeding that was paused pending the outcome of the federal case.
But despite Tuesday’s sentencing, and whatever fine Wright could face for his ethics charges, sources say the punishment pales in comparison to the full scale of alleged corruption still unexamined from his 39 years at SCSO.
FITSNews continues pulling that thread, with sources from both sides of the badge revealing a tenure increasingly entangled with convicted fraudsters, illegal gamblers, cockfighters, drug distributors and a widening rolodex of violent criminals.
Write to Andy Fancher at andy@fitsnews.com.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Andrew Fancher is a Lone Star Emmy Award–winning journalist from Dallas, Texas. He joined FITSNews in 2023 after leaving an NBC affiliate, where he served as on-air talent. His reporting focuses on public corruption in South Carolina, with an emphasis on law enforcement misconduct and abuse of power.
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