Swansea, SC (Paul Kirby) 12/13/2020 - After a yearlong attempt to gain access to and review town of Swansea financial records, Town Councilmember Doris Simmons now says agents with the SC Law Enforcement Division are in possession of enough evidence to justify officials calling for an arrest. The issues that have been uncovered so far surround what she referred to as, “embezzlement.” Simmons said she and another council member also possess recordings substantiating the financial misdealing of Swansea Mayor Jerald Sanders they were provided by their attorney. She said they could not detail what those recordings contained until they had made them available to all members of the council but expected to do that soon.
Councilmembers Doris Simmons, elected to serve in November 2019, and Michael Luongo, who was returned to office for another term at that time, had been working together on their search for the truth since Simmons was elected. Simmons is an accountant with an office in Swansea and part of her platform was uncovering why the small southern Lexington County town continuously struggles with funding. Simmons said town council was presented a budget in 2019 that had a “negative fund,” issue. That budget passed with only she and Luongo opposing. She referred to it as an “illegal” budget with a consensus of the five-member council agreeing they would “fix it” later.
Both Councilmembers Simmons and Luongo have said they could not find a plausible reason why the small Lexington County town continually had budget issues. Over the years, there have been many instances where money has been thin, nonexistent, or the municipality fell deep in debt. Past allegations into the town's operations have brought investigations, charges, convictions, and orders to pay restitution against others.
The shortage of money was evident and could be seen by looking no further than the Swansea Police Department. That department’s crucial equipment was often in disrepair or in short supply. This was the case although it provides just three full-time members and a few part timers when it’s completely staffed. In 2018, the department finally was able to obtain two new police cruisers to replace ones that had well over 150,000 miles on them. This was in spite of the sound financial leadership of now retired Police Chief Cliff Hayes. In order to see exactly why the town's finances were struggling, Simmons joined Luongo asking to see detailed records of the town’s accounting. Luongo, a businessman and farmer, had been seeking access to these for some time.
In the spring of 2020, the Lexington Ledger interviewed Simmons and later that day, Luongo. At that point, a struggle to receive these documents had already been going on for several months. During that interview Simmons said, “I began asking to see the books not long after I was elected but quickly got stonewalled by the mayor. Mike (Luongo) also had asked for the same records since he was elected. I filed a FOIA (SC Freedom of Information Act) to make it official but didn’t get what I had asked for. This began to drag on for some time. When I raised a stink, they would give me useless records you couldn't do anything with,” Simmons said in that interview. As an example, she used one of the first things the town finally provided her. “They gave me bank statements but nothing to match them to. All we had were check numbers, dates, and the amount they were written for. Because we didn’t have the corresponding checks or the register, you couldn't tell what they were written for or who they were to,” she said. Simmons maintains that at one point, she was provided with records that had absolutely nothing to do with what she had asked for.
Simmons said that what she was asking for were very basic public records that should be available to anyone who asks for a look, not just an elected official. “They are a record of where the town gets its money and where the people's money is spent,” Simmons said. “I had been duly elected and sworn to serve the people and I couldn't get basic records.” As time went by and excuses for withholding the information became repetitive, Simmons and Luongo retained legal counsel in their search for the truth.
Shortly after the first interview with Simmons, Swansea Mayor Jerald Sanders was also interviewed. He said that often, it wasn't what Simmons was asking for but the way she was asking. “As soon as she was sworn in, she began attacking,” Sanders said. “She and Alberta were in that together. She wasn't here to work with us, she was just here to attack us,” Sanders concluded. The Alberta that Sanders was referring to is Alberta Wasden, a Swansea area journalist who prides herself on her efforts to sniff out improprieties in the small towns that surround the North Edisto River. Her latest endeavor, the Facebook page Pen and Coffee, provided some of the details and comments from Simmons' for this story. That story ran on Friday , December 11th, 2020.
During the spring of 2020 interview Mayor Sanders continued, "Doris didn't want the facts. We had paid a professional firm, people with good educations to audit the books but she didn't believe the auditor's findings. It was clear she wanted to find something wrong even if she had to make it up. These are professional people doing this," Sanders continued. "She wouldn't take the word of anyone and was convinced she was going to find something even when she was told by all these people there was nothing going on!"
In that same conversation with Sanders, the mayor confirmed the town had made access to the requested records available by making an appointment with Simmons and her team to have them come to the town hall and look at the books. He said they showed up late. “Employees of the town hall can't just stop what they're doing to cater to one or two council members. The people's business is what's important,” he continued. “We made an appointment for her to come down with her group to show them what they were asking for but then they showed up late,” Sanders said. “That's just rude and we can't have our employees sitting around waiting on them. We told them they’d have to reschedule.” Simmons says Sanders’ claims are ridiculous. “He was the one always making the excuses, not us!”
The two council members say that Sanders had help covering up whatever they were trying to hide. Simmons said that the town's clerk, Margaret Harvey, was working under Sanders’ direction and has been complicit the entire time. Luongo said recently that he tried to do things the right way by working with the town's attorney Ms. Sidney Evering of the firm Parker Poe. He hoped she could appeal to act as the law prescribes and comply with state FOIA laws. According to Luongo, Evering was also unable to convince the mayor to allow free access to the town's records also.
Eventually, bigger questions arose about some of the records. “Occasionally, they would ley us see some bits and pieces but never enough to get the full picture. I asked about a check in records we were finally provided. It was written for about $4,000 that was made to a foundation none of us had ever heard of. I was told it was the mayor's own nonprofit organization.” Sanders is an ordained minister. “I knew I had never heard of or had voted for that to be approved,” Simmons said. When asked about that particular expenditure by the Lexington Ledger, mayor Sanders confirmed the funds were the town's and had been set aside for community events that were later cancelled because of the COVID pandemic, “The people of the community intended for that money to do good and that's why it was given to my foundation, to do good for the community.”
This back and forth between the mayor, the town hall, and the councilmembers continued. In fact, any detailed, contiguous financial records were withheld from the two council members through the summer of 2020. “He (the, mayor) tried everything in the book. He even tried to divert attention away from himself to Chief Hayes” Simmons said. In this, she was referring to an alleged investigation into then Police Chief Cliff Hayes and police funds requested by Mayor Sanders. Simmons said that after a thorough investigation of former Chief Hayes and his records, he was cleared of any wrongdoing by SLED. We have asked for confirmation of that investigation and its outcome from a spokesperson from SLED and are waiting on that.
Things finally came to a head in early October according to both Simmons and Luongo. They said they scheduled an appointment through their attorney Jake Moore with representatives of the mayor and the town for October the 12th, 2020 to finally have full access to the records they wanted to see. Just prior to that meeting, representatives of the town called and said they realized town representatives had inadvertently scheduled the meeting for Columbus Day, a government holiday. The meeting was rescheduled again. By this time, someone with the town had retained another outside attorney out of the West Columbia area to handle this matter on their behalf.
Eventually the appointed day finally arrived, and the council members and their attorney met at the town hall to begin going over financial records. “It didn't take Jake Moore but about 20 minutes of looking at the books to say he had seen all he needed to see,” Simmons said. “He told us he was going back to his office to start sending letters out to state officials and left. Not long after that, things really started to happen.”
At this point, according to Simmons, agents with SLED who are dealing with the investigation say any charges forthcoming could be embezzlement based on their preliminary findings. “It's pretty clear that this has been going on for some time. The mayor couldn't bob and weave so long but he's finally going to have to face the facts. This monkey business happened. It's hurt the town and the services it provides to the people.”
In her story, Alberta Wasden of the Pen and Coffee wrote she had asked if either Simmons or Luongo would be asking for the mayor’s resignation or the dismissal of Ms. Harvey. Both answered there were several things that needed to be addressed with the entire council and the town's attorney before making any decisions at this time. A special called meeting of the town council is expected to be scheduled soon.
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