SC jury said ex-cop guilty of York County child sex crimes. Appeals court agrees.
A South Carolina appeals court has unanimously upheld the convictions of a former York County police officer serving 30 years in prison for sexual assaults on a child.
Charles Eugene “Chuck” Price was an officer at police departments in Fort Mill, Clover and at Winthrop University before his 2020 arrest on child sex crimes. Visiting Judge Craig Brown gave Price the 30-year maximum when a jury convicted him of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor and another sex crime at a 2023 trial in York County criminal court.
Price, 53, claimed after the trial the judge should not have allowed a prosecution expert to improperly bolster the victim’s credibility, as well as allowing his alleged prior bad acts of sexual and physical abuse into evidence.
But in an opinion released publicly Wednesday, the S.C. Court of Appeals unanimously said Price’s alleged previous grooming of the child and the expert testimony were properly allowed, according to the opinion posted on the S.C. Courts website.
“The trial court allowed the victim to provide a broad chronological history of Price’s escalating acts of grooming behavior and describe his general course of conduct during daily instances of sexual abuse, which were ongoing at the time of the charged offenses,” the appeals court wrote. “We hold this evidence was admissible to show Price’s motive and intent to commit the charged offenses, and a common plan or scheme.”
The Herald does not identify victims of sex crimes.
Price remains in prison: What happens now?
Price denied the allegations during the 2023 trial when he was represented by lawyer Ben Hasty. He was represented on appeal by Sarah Elizabeth Shipe of the S.C. Department of Indigent Defense. Efforts to reach Shipe were unsuccessful.
York County prosecutor Chris Epting, who convicted Price, declined to comment.
Price has the right to ask the S.C. Supreme Court to review the case after the appeals court shot his appeal down. But it is unclear if he will.
Price remains in an S.C. Department of Corrections prison. He still faces pending York County sex assault against a minor charges.
This story was originally published November 26, 2025 at 1:48 PM.
