Man receives new charge in threats to kill Beaufort Co. sheriff, jail logs show

A Port Royal man has been charged with felony threatening a public official after threatening to kill Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner multiple times, according to a Sheriff’s Office report.

Kenneth Eldimor Allison, 62, of Port Royal, left more than a dozen harassing voicemails over two days to a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office captain’s direct telephone line, the report says.

He was booked into the Beaufort County Detention Center Thursday morning on three charges of unlawful communication and a contempt of circuit court charge, according to the jail log. Those charges are misdemeanors. The felony charge was added Wednesday.

There is no bond set for the threatening a public official or the contempt of court charge. Each unlawful communication charge comes with a $1,087 bond.

Allison was still detained as of Wednesday afternoon.

The captain received an initial call from the suspect early last week.

She wrote in the report that the voicemail was “non threatening” but he “made a personal reference to my family and relayed personal information about myself that is not publicly available.”

The number of calls increased and the content of the voicemails turned harassing, according to the report.

The man left 17 voicemails for the captain — ranging in length from 55 seconds to five minutes — between 11:30 a.m. Wednesday and 7:15 a.m. Thursday, the report said.

Among the things the suspect said in the voicemails, according to the police report, includes:

▪ ”Make sure P.J. Tanner understands something, he is not to mess with (me), period, you follow me?”

▪ ”Tell Tanner if he wants to get his a-- blown apart we’ll pick the pieces up there with an AK-47. We’ll have a real standoff.”

▪ ”I got a boy in here with an AK-47 ... I’ll have that boy maybe spray you with an AK-47. ... You tell them they are f------ dead, period.”

▪ References to where both the captain and Tanner live were also made.

Allison also threatened the life of a Town of Bluffton official, who the captain notified of the threats, according to the report.

In the voicemails, the suspect made references to Tiger Woods, Mike Tyson, prisons in Columbia, towing companies, pawn shops, bus stations, homeless people and crack cocaine, among others.

“It was clear during this message that he was highly intoxicated,” the captain wrote in the report.

On Thursday, the captain requested a sergeant contact the suspect at his residence. Before the sergeant arrived, the captain received three phone calls from the suspect, all of which she answered.

During the first call, she warned him he would be charged with unlawful communications if he continued to call, the report said. He called again using profanity, and she told him “that an arrest was imminent,” the report said.

Allison told the captain he’d be outside when the deputies arrived but first “he was going to go upstairs and find the guy with the AK-47 and he was going to take care of everyone,” the report said.

Deputies arrived on the scene and found the suspect was waiting outside. He was immediately taken into custody, the report said.

On the way to the jail, the suspect continued to talk about things he mentioned in the voicemails including guns, being Tased and “having Tanner cremated,” a supplemental report said.

The suspect “was highly intoxicated and according to him, he had been drinking Crown Royal,” the officer wrote in the report.

The jail personnel was advised of the suspect’s “need for a mental assessment,” the report said.

“While I am a law enforcement officer and calls for help should not be denied or considered a nuisance, (the suspect) did not convey a need for assistance, was threatening, using profane language, and the calls were unnecessary,” the captain wrote in the report.

According to the Beaufort County jail log, this was the fourth time since Aug. 14 that the suspect had been arrested.

Editor’s note: The suspect was previously not named in an earlier version of this story because the Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette do not name those charged with misdemeanor offenses unless the suspect holds a position of trust or authority in the community. The newspapers also do not typically name victims of harassment.

This story was originally published September 17, 2018 at 4:36 PM.