South Carolina sixteenth circuit solicitor Kevin Brackett paid a personal visit to the Greenville County, S.C. law enforcement center this week, multiple sources familiar with the situation told this news site.
Brackett – who is based in York, S.C. – was reportedly in Greenville to conduct in-person, follow-up interviews related to the ongoing S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) investigation into suspended Greenville County sheriff Will Lewis.
Obviously Lewis was not present at the law enforcement center. He was suspended last month after being indicted on misconduct in office and obstruction of justice charges in connection with the ongoing SLED probe. Governor Henry McMaster appointed former sheriff Johnny Mack Brown to fill the office on an interim basis.
Additional charges are likely forthcoming against Lewis (and multiple other individuals associated with this scandal), however as we exclusively reported earlier this week the scandal-scarred sheriff is apparently looking to cut a deal.
What kind of deal?
According to our sources, Lewis is looking to negotiate a guilty plea (along with his resignation from office) in the hopes of avoiding time behind bars. We’re also told he is cooperating with investigators as they pursue possible indictments against other members of his command staff.
The misconduct and obstruction charges against Lewis were filed in connection with SLED’s probe of sexual assault allegations against the 43-year-old sheriff. Both of those stories broke exclusively on this news site (here and here), incidentally. We were also the first media outlet to report on the details of Lewis’ alleged obstruction in response to SLED’s investigation of the unresolved sexual assault allegations.
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[/timed-content-server]Last month, we exclusively reported that Lewis’ office – and several other offices at the county law enforcement center in downtown Greenville – were bugged. These reports have since been confirmed by multiple other media outlets in the South Carolina Upstate.
Several weeks after our original report, Brianna Smith of WSPA TV 7 (CBS – Spartanburg) uncovered new information in the case. According to Smith, SLED agents served a warrant on Lewis’ home in addition to their raid of the sheriff’s office last month. During this search of the sheriff’s home, they obtained “more than 40 items – including 8 laptops, 2 iPads, 3 phones, 12 jump drives, 10 VHS tapes, 2 CD discs, and a GPS.”
According to Smith, one of the laptops sought by agents reportedly played a key role in the administration of the alleged bugging system – which appears to be in violation of federal wiretapping statutes.
Lewis has previously been accused of snooping on 24-year-old Savannah Nabors, a former sheriff’s office employee whom he allegedly stalked and harassed during her brief tenure with the department. In fact, sources close to the investigation told us that Lewis tried repeatedly to gain access to Nabors’ cell phone – at one point telling her “I will find a way to do it.”
More ominously, Nabors has accused Lewis of drugging and raping her during a March 2017 business trip to Charlotte, North Carolina. Those allegations are currently the subject of a parallel inquiry being conducted by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police department.
Details of that alleged assault first surfaced in a seismic lawsuit filed against Lewis last fall (another story that broke exclusively on this site). In one of these recordings, the suspended sheriff discussed his plans to further an affair with Nabors (below) on the taxpayer dime – and cover it up. That’s ultimately what prompted us to call for his resignation last October.
Brackett inherited the case in early April as a result of the scandal currently enveloping S.C. fifth circuit solicitor Dan Johnson. He was not immediately able to comment on the current status of the investigation or his visit to Greenville this week.
Developing …
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