In case you haven’t been following it, the biggest political soap opera in South Carolina (at the moment) involves two of the Palmetto State’s most successful young strategists … a husband-and-wife duo that, by all appearances, had the world on a string headed into the new year.
The pair enjoyed a happy marriage. They were raising three gorgeous children. They resided in a lovely home in an upscale gated community. They were building a wildly successful business together.
They were living the dream … in every way imaginable.
In a matter of moments, though … that dream shattered.
John McGill and his wife Jenny McGill now find themselves at the center of a bruising corporate and custody battle – one being fought via vitriolic legal motions filed under a judge’s seal.
You’ve heard the expression “it’s going to get ugly?”
That rubicon has been crossed already … this battle is set for thermonuclear.
At stake for the erstwhile couple? The life they built together … the custody of their children … and of course ownership of their lucrative consulting practice (and the various corporate and governmental clients it serves).
Everything imploded a little over two months ago … on January 27.
That’s when a pair of bizarre incidents went down inside their home in the Kings Grant community near downtown Columbia, S.C..
There, John McGill – the 38-year-old son of former S.C. lieutenant governor (and 2018 gubernatorial candidate) Yancey McGill – had a pair of run-ins with imaginary attackers. During the second incident involving these figments, he unloaded his gun inside the home.
Take a look …
(Click to view)
(Pic: Provided)
Hold up … imaginary attackers? Figments?
That’s right …
McGill was high as a kite during both incidents … reportedly having taken cocaine that was laced with something (just what, we’re not exactly sure).
Accordingly, police units responding to his address (two times within sixteen hours) discovered no evidence of the home invasion he referenced on panicked 911 calls (copies of which this news site is in the process of obtaining).
Crazy, huh?
Where did McGill get the drugs he took? That’s a good question.
According to our sources, contained within the sealed court files is a document that references the cocaine he took as having been a “gift” to McGill from Alexia Cortez, a Columbia, S.C.-based political operative who has been employed for the past two years on Yancey McGill’s gubernatorial campaign.
Needless to say, this could have opened up a potentially significant new angle to our reporting on this saga … if it were true.
Cortez, 24, was not immediately available to respond to the allegation – but we’re told from several sources close to the case that the document’s assertion is inaccurate.
“I know the document you are referring to – and in no way, shape or form does it provide a faithful representation of how John McGill came to possess these narcotics,” a lawyer familiar with the sealed files told us. “It’s an erroneous assertion, and any suggestion (Cortez) gifted these drugs to John McGill is demonstrably false and libelous per se.”
Yeah … them’s fightin’ words …
Another source familiar with the case files told us there was “some connection” between Cortez and the drugs McGill ingested, but acknowledged the court document “got the story wrong.”
Honestly, we don’t care where the drugs came from …
We’ve spoken to narcotics officers at the local, state and federal level and each law enforcement official, and to a person they told us it’s next to impossible to bring charges in a case like this – unless of course everyone involved were to decide to voluntarily incriminate themselves.
That’ll never happen … so that road is a dead end.
We’ll know much more about this situation (we think) when the McGills appear before a family court judge in Columbia, S.C. on May 3. Of course it’s possible this hearing – like the pleadings related to this case – will be kept out of the public view.
So maybe we won’t find out more … who knows.
Either way, stay tuned. As noted at the outset, this drama is only beginning to heat up …
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