Greenville County, South Carolina sheriff’s office attorney Lance Sheek has resigned his post with the agency, multiple sources familiar with the situation have confirmed to this news site.
Sheek’s resignation – submitted on Monday to interim sheriff Johnny Mack Brown – comes less than a week after he was placed on administrative leave following the indictment of Greenville sheriff Will Lewis. His resignation is effective immediately.
Like his suspended boss, Sheek has been accused of obstructing justice in connection with an ongoing S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) investigation into this embattled office. Unlike Lewis, though, Sheek has yet to be charged in connection with the case.
As we exclusively reported prior to Lewis’ indictment last week, he and Sheek both allegedly engaged in a “pattern of obstruction and intimidation” in the aftermath of SLED launching a formal investigation into Lewis last September.
That’s according to multiple sheriff’s office personnel who reportedly spoke with SLED investigators.
News of the SLED probe – like most of the big developments in the Lewis case – broke exclusively on this site.
How did all of this begin?
On August 31, 2017 this news site published an exclusive report detailing sexual assault allegations against Lewis made by then-23-year-old Savannah Nabors. These allegations were originally made on a blog post she entitled “A Letter to the Sheriff’s Next Sexual Assault Victim.”
“He’s a church-going man, strong in his faith,” Nabors wrote in the since-deleted blog post. “You think he could never be capable of something so manipulative, so hypocritical. The man that you think is legal, ethical, and moral is anything but those things.”
According to Nabors, Lewis drugged and raped her during a taxpayer-funded trip to Charlotte, North Carolina last March. She also claimed he repeatedly harassed and threatened her during her tenure as his personal assistant from December 2016 through her resignation last spring.
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Nabors detailed these allegations further in a bombshell civil suit filed last fall – news of which was also exclusively reported by our site. That lawsuit contained numerous audio recordings of her and Lewis discussing a wide range of issues. In one of these recordings, Lewis discussed his plans to further an affair with her on the taxpayer dime – and cover it up.
That’s ultimately what prompted us to call for his resignation last October.
SLED isn’t probing the sexual assault allegations against Lewis. That’s the job of the Charlotte-Mecklenberg police department.
Instead, the agency is probing a wide range of allegations that surfaced in the aftermath of Nabors’ sexual assault claims – including possible obstruction of justice charges against Nabors herself.
According to our sources, obstruction of justice isn’t the only charge Sheek could be facing. We’re told he wore a badge and gun for several months in his role as the sheriff’s attorney, even though the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy (SCCJA) has confirmed he never received the training necessary to become a certified law enforcement officer.
Attempts were reportedly made on multiple occasions to schedule Sheek for the various tests that would enable him to carry a badge and gun, but he put them off – allegedly telling staffers he was “too busy.”
Sheek was one of many employees who was hired by Lewis outside of established protocol. One sheriff’s office captain reportedly told investigators that Sheek had “no background investigation done on him at all” when he was hired last February.
Stay tuned … obviously the drama surrounding this investigation is just beginning.
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