222: Thad Viers

Thad Viers was a committed conservative. As a teen, he was a page for South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond. He went to The Citadel. He worked for the Heritage Foundation. He was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 2003. He was planning a run for Congress in 2012. But things began falling apart.

In 2008, he pleaded no contest to threatening to beat up and sexually assault a man who was dating his ex-wife. He paid a $500 fine. In 2012, he suspended his run for Congress and decided not to run for re-election, and then resigned after he was arrested for stalking an ex-girlfriend. She brought an entire binder of letters sent after she broke up with him in mid-2011. He even contacted her father. She went to the police reluctantly because she didn’t want to harm his career. A police officer called and told him to stop contacting her on Dec 16, 2011. He contacted her twice more, on the 22nd and the 31st using someone else’s phone to evade a block on his number. He resigned in March 2012.

He pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment in 2014 and served 60 days in jail. The other charges were dropped. Later the same year, he was charged with multiple felonies such as money laundering and making false statements to the IRS. In 2015, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison, getting out in 2017.

• Politico: GOP Hill candidate quits after bust
• The August Chronicle: South Carolina Rep. Thad Viers resigns amid harassment investigation
• The State: From lawmaker to lawbreaker to non-lawyer, Thad Vier now disbarred

Sun News
22 Mar 2012

221: Nelson Hardwick

Nelson Hardwick was a South Carolina state representative. In the middle of his sixth term he resigned for health reasons that turned out to be a pending criminal investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and assault and battery. He was accused of harassing a legislative staffer whom he lured to his office where he touched her against her will. He pleaded guilty to assault and battery in the criminal case.

• MyHorryNews: Former lawmaker Hardwick pleads guilty to assault and battery
• The Sun News: Former local state representative pleads guilty in sexual harassment case.

Myrtle Beach Sun News
03 Nov 2015

188: Bob Jones University

Bob Jones University has a long history of blaming the victims of sexual assault–even when they were assaulted elsewhere. In 2011, the role of BJU board member Chuck Phelps in covering up the rape of a 15-year-old and his demand that she apologize to the congregation for allowing herself to be raped.led to some BJU students speaking up about the University’s blaming victims of sexual assault.

In response, BJU hired an independent organization, GRACE, Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, to investigate the matter in 2012. They let people make reports online and promised to protect students from repercussions when they did interviews. As they neared completion of their report, they were fired. The backlash led to rehired GRACE whose report disclosed a pattern of covering up sexual assault and punishing victims.

They reported that BJU responded to assault allegations by blaming the women for arousing lust, for what they were wearing or doing. They told the women they were damaged goods and impure. Even when the assault did not happen at the school, when women sought counseling, they were abused again, blamed for the assault, called impure, and made to feel guilty. For example:

“I was abused from the ages of 6-14 by my grandfather. When I went for counseling, I was told ‘Did you repent for your part of the abuse? Did your body respond favorably? If it did, then you need to repent. You’re bitter and care more about your pain than the salvation of your family. You should have never gone to the police because it tore your family apart and that’s your fault,’” the respondent wrote.

Washington Post: Bob Jones University apologizes to victims of sexual assault

BJU apologized in 2014, but they obviously did not change their policies. In 2019, a BJU student was raped off-campus at Furman University, and the Furman security guard called BJU to inform them that she was drinking, so she was expelled. She is suing Furman, BJU, and the security guard, and the football player named in the suit as John Doe.

• Patheos: Bob Jones shuts down year-long investigation into sexual abuse on its campus
• Washington Post: Bob Jones University Report from GRACE
• Washington Post: Bob Jones University apologizes to victims of sexual assault
• Greenville.com: Former student sues Bob Jones, Furman universities, alleges negligence in sexual assault case

Greenwood Index Journal
14 Dec 2014

185: Will Lewis

Will Lewis was the Greenville County, SC, sheriff when he raped a subordinate. He was forced to step down a year later.after she published a now-deleted blog post accusing him of rape and stalking, forcing her to quit her job out of fear for her life.

“On April 24th, 2017, I resigned from my position as the administrative coordinator to the sheriff. I chose to get out for fear of my life. I chose to walk away from a life of sexual, emotional, and mental abuse, assault, manipulation, and stalking from my boss, the sheriff — a man that is supposed to be the epitome of safety and refuge.

WYFF Greenville

He was convicted of misconduct for using his office to force her to have sex with him. In my book, that’s rape.

• WYFF Greenville: Former employee accuses Greenville County sheriff of sex assault, stalking
• Fox News: South Carolina sheriff accused of rape, stalking faces charges of misconduct, obstruction
• Washington Post: A sheriff’s assistant accused him of sexual assault. Prosecutors say he pursued her on the taxpayer dime.
• Go Upstate: ‘Brazen, naked corruption’ gets former Greenville sheriff Will Lewis 1 year in prison

Greenville News
19 Oct 2019

174: Chris Corley

South Carolina state Rep. Chris Corley was one of the most ardent defenders of keeping the Confederate flag. After his fellow Republicans voted to remove the flag from the state capitol grounds, he sent them a Christmas card with a picture of the removed flag and the suggestion they “ask for forgiveness of all your sins such as betrayal.” It’s such a story, I included it below.

A year later, his wife confronted him about infidelity. He beat her so badly her head was bleeding. He held a gun to her head. He did this in front of their children. He took her phone so she could not call 911, though she cleverly used her Apple watch to call 911. The recording has their 2-year-old son saying “Please stop daddy.”

He plead guilty in a plea agreement that gave him five years probation, mainly thanks to his wife pleading for leniency. She claimed he had bipolar disorder. She said she wanted to keep the family together, so with the plea agreement and her request, there was no jail time. Despite the gift of five years probation, he was back in two years asking for probation to be suspended and it was.

• Greenville: Republican sends Confederate flag Christmas card to colleagues
• Post and Courier: Former South Carolina Rep. Chris Corley pleads guilty to domestic violence charges, sentenced to five years probation
• Aiken Standard: Prosecutor – Chris Corley took his wife’s phone, bit her nose
• Aiken Standard: Probation ends for former S.C. Rep. Chris Corley who plead guilty in domestic violence case

The State
05 Jan 2017

Times and Democrat
08 August 2017

23: Beverly C. Russell Jr

Beverly C. Russell Jr. was the stepfather of Susan Smith, the notorious woman who drowned her children. He was active in Republican politics and the Christian Coalition, the rightwing evangelical political association. He was also sexually abusing his stepdaughter Susan. She first tried to kill herself when she was thirteen. She told a school counselor that he was abusing her and the counselor talked to her mother and no charges were filed. She tried to kill herself again. This does not excuse her murdering her children but adds context to her life.

• Washington Post: Susan Smith’s Judgment Day
• LA Times: The River of Hypocrisy Runs Wide and Deep
• Chicago Tribune: Beyond Reason Beverly Russell’s Mixed-Up Prayers

Orlando Sentinel
01 Jan 1995

13: Strom Thurmond

Strom Thurmond was a U.S. senator representing South Carolina. He was an opponent of civil rights and gave the longest filibuster in US history in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

After he died, his daughter came forward. She was biracial, the daughter of a fifteen-year-old Black girl who worked for his family. He was twenty-two and even if she was a willing partner, she was younger than the age of consent which was sixteen then. Even if she consented, he was a rapist. Asking if she consented ignores the fact that there was no way she could refuse in 1924.

• WNYC: The racist filibuster we can’t afford to forget
• The Nation: Was Strom Thurmond a Rapist?
• Washington Post: The Still Untold Story of the Senator’s Child