William Timmons Scandal: Lawsuit Coming Against His Mistress?

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The mistress of United States congressman William Timmons is reportedly the focus of a looming lawsuit involving a former employee, sources familiar with the situation have confirmed to this news outlet.

No action has been filed as of this writing, but Timmons’ mistress – South Carolina socialite Paula Dhier – is said to be bracing for a pleading that could cause “significant public humiliation,” according to our sources.

As if being in a relationship with Timmons wasn’t sufficiently humiliating …

Dhier is under fire for allegedly using the name and email address of a former employee to send “salacious” messages to various recipients – messages which purportedly included “nude photos of herself,” according to our sources.

This news outlet can confirm one of the emails containing the racy content bore the name and address of a former employee of Dhier, however it was not immediately verifiable whether Dhier sent the message – or whether the nude photograph attached to the message was of Dhier or someone else.

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(Via: Instagram)

The latest drama in this ongoing South Carolina soap opera comes two-and-a-half weeks after Dhier’s estranged husband, Upstate real estate developer Ron Rallis, was released from a Greenville jail. Rallis served three months on a criminal contempt charge in connection with his ongoing family court case with Dhier.

Wait … three months?

That’s right … as I noted in covering Rallis’ plight, judges in South Carolina routinely set accused and convicted killers free. Yet Rallis – a definitional posh boy – was locked up for three months because he apparently said something a judge didn’t like.

Rallis has previously accused Timmons of leveraging his influence as a congressman (and former state senator and Upstate prosecutor) against him in the family court case. Meanwhile, Dhier’s attorney – Bruce Bannister – is a political ally of Timmons. Bannister has served in the S.C. General Assembly since 2005 – including a stint as majority leader. He is currently chairman of the powerful S.C. ways and means committee.

While incarcerated in Greenville, Rallis purchased a home on Folly Beach, S.C. – where he is reportedly plotting his next moves with lawyer/ lover Erika Baldwin. This news outlet has requested an interview with the eclectic millionaire, whose public bravado and performance art in response to this scandal set tongues-a-wagging in Greenville for months on end last year.

We will let our readers know if that request is granted …

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Rallis has been so good at ginning up drama in connection with this case that producers of the Bravo TV reality television show Southern Charm recently offered him a spot on their program. In late July 2022, he walked into a West End Greenville church he previously purchased – and painted pink – and gave this news outlet an exclusive interview regarding his starring role in the Timmons’ sex scandal.

When the interview was over, Rallis boarded his private jet and headed to the Hamptons … but not before doing a few television interviews calling out the congressman for his infidelity.

To recap: Timmons, 39, initiated his own sex scandal last spring via an unsolicited “prayers and privacy” statement issued to this news outlet in response to rumors of an extramarital affair with Dhier. As I have often reminded readers, this news outlet never asked Timmons for a statement – nor did we indicate we had any plans to publish a story on the allegations against him.

“I would have never covered this story had Timmons’ team not decided to plant a preemptive public statement about it with my news outlet,” I noted last August.

Once the story was out, though … it took on a life of its own.

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Timmons’ indignant response to the affair allegations fueled a combustible conflagration as this saga gripped audiences in the socially conservative Upstate for weeks. The congressman also invited scrutiny when he gave his estranged wife, Sarah Timmons, a valuable piece of property – apparently in exchange for her silence as it related to his dalliance(s).

Timmons and his wife formally separated in November 2022. His relationship with Dhier has been described by sources close to the couple as “off and on” since his separation was announced.

Other consequences ensued as the bombshells dropped last summer and fall. First, members of the venerable Timmons family threatened to cut him off from his share of the family fortune. Also, is not immediately clear whether Timmons is out of the woods with the U.S. House ethics committee – which reportedly received a referral related to his conduct last fall and was preparing a formal investigation.

“Not sure whether the changeover put the kibosh on that,” one Washington, D.C. source told me earlier this year, referring to the “Republican” takeover of the U.S. Congress four months ago.

Timmons’ family is an institution in the Greenville area. His great-grandfather – William R. Timmons Sr. – built an empire in the Upstate beginning in the mid-1920s, focusing on the real estate, trucking, and insurance industries. The family – which helped establish and maintain Greenville’s civic and philanthropic communities – is reportedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

As for political consequences, Timmons ran unopposed for a third term in congress last fall. However, a write-in candidate scored a surprisingly high 9.19 percent of the vote against him. Several credible GOP challengers are said to be eyeing primary bids against Timmons next spring. Even before his scandal, Timmons narrowly avoided a runoff in his previous primary race against a field of uninspiring challengers – drawing an unimpressive 52.69 percent of the vote.

Count on this news outlet to keep our readers up to speed on any developments related to this rumored legal action. Obviously, any court case involving Dhier presents challenges for the incumbent congressman as he seeks to put this scandal into his rearview mirror.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR ...

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven children.

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