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Disgraced former Spartanburg County, South Carolina Sheriff Chuck Wright has reported to federal prison to begin his 41-month sentence, according to an official with the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
The same official — an Executive Assistant at FCI Jesup in Georgia— said Wright, 61, did not report to that facility despite it being the location his attorneys had requested at last month’s sentencing.
“The inmate in question has already self-surrendered, and he is NOT at FCI Jesup,” the Executive Assistant told FITSNews via email. “He went straight to his designated facility, which is not us, and is not anywhere near us.”
The Executive Assistant further noted that Wright was “never designated” to their medium-security facility, meaning the former sheriff is housed at any one of the roughly 117 other facilities within the BOP system.
“This information should be updated on the public BOP.com website soon,” the Executive Assistant noted.
Despite that, Wright does not appear in the BOP’s public inmate locator system, leaving his exact facility unconfirmed as of this publishing.
Call it déjà vu…
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RELATED | CHUCK WRIGHT MISSING AMID FEDERAL PROBE
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Roughly 16 months ago, Wright’s whereabouts similarly became a subject of speculation after he quietly checked into a Florida rehab facility while still serving as Spartanburg County’s top cop, right around the time a federal grand jury was being empaneled to hear testimony against him.
As FITSNews exclusively reported then, the five-term sheriff of one of South Carolina’s largest counties was under a joint investigation spearheaded by agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED).
While SLED’s efforts would ultimately be in vain, as S.C. 10th Circuit Solicitor Micah Black declined to prosecute state-level charges Wright despite admitting the evidence was “overwhelming,” Wright ultimately pleaded guilty to three federal public corruption charges last October.
Those crimes included stealing more than $89,000 in donated cash from the sheriff’s office’s Benevolence Fund intended to help deputies in times of hardship, obtaining 147 pills of oxycodone and hydrocodone under the guise of a pill take-back program, and employing his blood cousin to work as a so-called “ghost deputy” for roughly two decades.
Wright was furthermore ordered to pay $462,866.06 in total restitution.
“I apologize to the court, to Spartanburg County, to my law enforcement colleagues and to my family, who I let down,” Wright said during his July 7 sentencing. “I was in a position of trust and responsibility and I failed you.”
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As for the former sheriff’s codefendants, the aforementioned cousin, Lawson “LB” Watson, 74, was convicted for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from January 2021 to March 2025 for work prosecutors maintain he did not perform. For this, Watson was sentenced to 16 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $349,885.22 in restitution.
“I want to apologize to the court, my family and the people of Spartanburg County,” Watson said during his July 9 sentencing. “I’m just a regular old guy, and I apologize to everybody thats in here today.”
The third and final codefendant, former sheriff’s office chaplain Amos Durham, 62, narrowly avoided months in federal prison for a single public corruption charge stemming from not only enabling Wright’s abuse of the Benevolence Fund… but for using that same tax-exempt money to enrich himself.
Durham was ultimately handed five years of probation and ordered to pay $95,442.39 in restitution.
“I also want to take full responsibility for my role in this offense, ” Durham said during his July 9 sentencing. “What started out as one bad decision became a slippery slope… I do not blame anyone else. I accept full responsibility.”
While Wright’s self-surrender to federal prison signals the end of a saga for the mainstream media outlets that were slow to touch it from the start, his three public corruption charges appear to hardly scratch the surface of his 39 years in Palmetto State law enforcement.
As our ever-expanding rolodex of sources familiar with both sides of the badge indicate, the former lawman’s legacy is growing increasingly entangled with convicted fraudsters, illegal gamblers, underground cockfighters, drug distributors and a widening cast of violent criminals.
As for why state and federal agents looked some of these people in the face and did nothing, that remains unclear…
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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