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Nearly seven months after pleading guilty to a litany of federal public corruption charges, a sentencing date has finally been set in federal case against former Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright.
According to a notice filed on Wednesday (May 6, 2026), the disgraced former law enforcement leader will appear for sentencing at 10:00 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, July 7, 2026, before U.S. District Judge Timothy M. Cain at the Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Courthouse in Greenville.
The docket lists Wright’s attorneys as former U.S. Congressman (and former Upstate solicitor) Trey Gowdy, and veteran criminal defense attorney Greg Harris.
In a separate notice filed Wednesday, Cain set the sentencing date for Wright’s co-defendants, former sheriff’s office chaplain Amos Durham and former code enforcement officer Lawson “LB” Watson, Wright’s cousin, for July 9, 2026, in the same courtroom.
Per that filing, Watson — who is represented by Beattie Ashmore — is scheduled to appear at 10:00 a.m. EST, while Durham, represented by Frank Eppes, is set to appear at 2:00 p.m. EST
As for how we got here…
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RELATED | CHUCK WRIGHT PLEADS GUILTY
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In October 2025, Wright pleaded guilty to three public corruption charges: conspiracy to commit wire fraud, obtaining controlled substances by misrepresentation and conspiracy to commit theft from programs receiving federal funds.
More specifically, prosecutors said Wright stole 147 prescription painkillers, diverted some $89,000 in cash from the sheriff’s office benevolence fund and employed Watson, a “no-show deputy,” for roughly two decades.
Together, the former lawman’s charges carry a combined statutory maximum of nearly 30 years in prison and up to nine years of supervised release. But as a first-time white collar federal offender… Wright is unlikely to face anything close to that.
As for Durham, who still serves as a Baptist preacher in Inman, S.C., he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit theft concerning programs receiving federal funds for his role in enabling Wright’s abuse of the benevolence fund, as well as using it to enrich himself.
His single federal charge carries a statutory maximum of five years in prison.
As FITSNews exclusively reported last Tuesday, Durham’s attorney filed a motion requesting two additional weeks to submit objections to what he referred to as an “unresolved” restitution issue.
As for Watson, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud for fraudulently receiving more than $200,000 in salary and benefits despite little to no documented work during his two decades of employment at the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office.
He faces a statutory maximum of 20 years in federal prison.
That brings us to Wednesday….
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This week’s orders mark the most significant development in the federal case since Cain accepted all three guilty pleas last October. Since then, the path to sentencing has… required patience.
In February, FITSNews obtained a letter from Steve Denton, a criminal defense attorney who previously served as a captain under Wright’s command, requesting a continuance before the S.C. Ethics Commission on 65 separate state-level ethics charges that remain pending against Wright.
Denton told the commission he believed “the federal sentencing matter” would be concluded by April. The commission granted the motion and rescheduled Wright’s ethics hearing for June 18, 2026.
Later that February, Wright and his co-defendants appeared before Cain for a status conference in which the judge pressed federal prosecutors on whether all materials required by the U.S. Probation office to complete a pre-sentence report had been submitted.
Such a report is a required step in any federal case before sentencing can proceed.
“I’m concerned about the delay in these developments,” Cain said at the time.
Write to Andrew 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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