Beaufort County stonewalls angry sheriff: ‘There’s nothing transparent about this’
The Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday demanded a copy of the full 30-plus page unabridged and unredacted report into questionable and possibly illegal spending by county employees, a report that to this point has been hidden from the public.
The request by Chief Deputy Michael Hatfield was the third made by the sheriff’s office in recent weeks and it came on the heels of Tuesday night’s release of a six-page summary that concluded “there was no evidence of criminal activity.”
Newly appointed County Administrator Michael Moore denied the sheriff’s request, telling him only the county council can release the report.
Wednesday’s developments only heighten the scrutiny on council leadership, who hoped that the release of a summary, which focused primarily on what the county could do to prevent financial abuse in the future, would placate an angry public.
Tanner: Who decides what’s criminal?
“There’s nothing transparent about this,” said Sheriff P.J. Tanner. “You get a report, an audit the county paid for and you get the results and those that paid for it don’t get to see it,” he said. “You (council) put out a summary, and we’re supposed to just take that summary, word for word, and go, ‘Okay, nothing to see here. Thank you for doing all the things you’re doing, and we’ll move forward. I’m eager to get a copy of the report.”
“It’s probably going to shock the majority of citizens in this county on how much money was squandered by those who just took advantage,” Tanner said.
Tanner also questioned the qualifications of those coming to the conclusion about criminality.
Tanner pointed to the mysterious purchase of $36,000 of weighted blankets from a company owned by the husband of a former member of the county administrative team as an known incident that should be present in the audit. “How can you suggest there’s no wrongdoing, when you know good and well there is,” he said.
“They just don’t want you (the public) to know the details, and obviously they don’t want law enforcement to have or know the details surrounding the issues of Beaufort County for the past couple of years,” Tanner said. “The county has never provided us anything. They circled the wagons early on and it’s been like that for a year.”
Language in the initial report was softened
After their months-long investigation that ended in the spring of 2024, Greenville-based law firm Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd only offered an oral report to county council.. Then, at some point before mid-June, a written report was requested by council and created and subsequently delivered to county leadership. Confirmation of its existence and details of the contents were shrouded in secrecy from the pubic, despite the filing Freedom of Information Act requests by The Island Packet.
Looking back to the oral report delivered to council at he end of March, Boyd Nicholson Jr., managing director of HSB painted a different picture of the problem. He told the public there was “laxity within Beaufort County government” that resulted in “flagrant violations” of the procurement code. “In 2023, several individuals with Beaufort County failed to properly follow, and in certain circumstances blatantly disregarded, the county’s procurement code.”
The summary report carried an adjusted tone conveying opaque language parsing the difference between “malfeasance” and “misfeasance.” as differing categories of wrongdoing.
Council Chairman Joe Passiment acknowledged after the Tuesday’s council session that the county received the full 30-plus page report in mid-June. According to multiple council members, the county took the extraordinary step of forcing members to “view” the report in a place so that it could not be copied.
In a 2020 essay to the Island Packet, newly appointed Passiment wrote, “I want to assure you that we have been intent on righting our ship and we are steering it toward greater transparency and accountability.”
This story was originally published July 26, 2024 at 8:51 AM.
