An SC ex-sheriff’s tale of greed, theft and betrayal — will he get prison?

On the surface, Chuck Wright was the squeaky-clean sheriff of Spartanburg County, one of South Carolina’s largest and most prosperous areas. He had risen from deputy to the county’s most popular elected official, and he oversaw a department of 600-plus deputies, detention officers and civilian staff.

But beneath the above-reproach image and below the radar of public oversight, Wright was crooked — stealing from a charity fund, giving his cousin a no-work job and bullying employees to turn over to him painkilling drugs they got for legitimate medical purposes.

On Tuesday, Wright — who pleaded guilty earlier this year — will learn his fate: prison or probation?

He will stand before U.S. Judge Timothy Cain in the Spartanburg federal courthouse for sentencing.

Before Cain pronounces sentence, assistant U.S. Attorney Elliott Daniels will catalog Wright’s offenses, noting that the ex-law officer, who was sheriff for 20 years and won election five times, has pleaded guilty to three felonies: embezzlement, giving a no-show paying job for a cousin and obtaining prescription drugs like oxycodone and hydrocodone under false pretenses.

“Wright’s schemes represent a grave breach of the public’s trust,” Daniels wrote in a sentencing memo to the court.

“He took a law enforcement office entrusted to him for over 20 years and used it to perpetuate schemes involving theft, deception, and controlled substances,” Daniels wrote.

Wright’s defense lawyers — Greg Harris of Columbia and former U.S. Rep. Harold “Trey” Gowdy III — will plead for mercy.

“Charles Wright appears before this Court having taken as much personal and professional responsibility as a person can take,” Harris and Gowdy write in a defense memo.

The thefts

Wright’s thefts began in 2017, according to the prosecution report. One of the main subjects of Wright’s thefts was the department Benevolence Fund, a supposedly secure pot of money meant to provide for officers in need.

“Donations to the Benevolence Fund were meant to be available to Spartanburg County deputies and their families when they suffered bereavement, financial difficulty, or line-of-duty trauma,” the prosecution’s report said.

“From 2018 until his resignation, Wright took more than $89,000 in cash from the fund, despite a policy prohibiting cash withdrawals. There is no accounting for how Wright spent that money, and the withdrawals frequently put the account in a deficit,” the report said.

Travel, food and hotels for Wright were charged to the Benevolence Fund. “On one occasion, Wright travelled to Washington, D.C. to honor a fallen deputy. During that week, he spent more than $4,000 from the Benevolence Fund on his own travel,” the report said.

Wright, who was addicted to painkilling prescription drugs, also took $1,000 out of the Benevolence Fund to pay a pusher for the drugs, the report said.

Wright also misused his department credit card, putting more than $17,000 in personal expenses on the card, the report said.

The personal expenses included paying for Amazon Prime, the Apple iTunes store (he liked the Castle Crush game), Sirius XM and various online video games, fitness and health programs and a Christian streaming entertainment platform, the report said.

Wright’s thefts from the Benevolence Fund caused problems for his staff.

“The fund’s money was spent faster than the donations came in. And when the wife of one deputy was in hospice with stage 4 cancer, the deputy’s family approached the Benevolence Fund for financial assistance. They were turned away because there were no funds available,” the report said.

“Taken together, Wright stole more than $112,000 from the county through the Benevolence Fund scheme and through misuses of his county credit card,” the report said.

Wright’s no show job scheme

In 2021 Wright arranged for a cousin, Lawson Watson, to be employed in the civil division of the sheriff’s department. Under the arrangement, Wright would not have to do any work for or even show up.

The scheme — in which Watson made $57,000 a year for no work — went on for years until an anonymous caller phoned in a tip to the county tip line.

The tipster reported that Watson was Wright’s cousin, and that on paper he was a code enforcement officer, but in truth he had not worked in years. At most, Watson worked three times a year, the report said, quoting the tipster.

After receiving the tip, the county conducted an audit. An investigation began. The State Law Enforcement Division and the FBI interviewed more than 20 witnesses.

They found that Watson did not check his e-mail, did not know how to submit a time card “and his computer was usually inaccessible because of an expired password,” the report said.

“But Watson did use his county phone and county vehicle — for a different job, a paving and grading business that he owned and operated during business hours. At times, he would have a county employee help him prepare paving quotes. His county-issued vehicle was filled with dirt, consistent with it being used for his grading business,” the report said.

During the years Watson was an employee with the county, he collected $349,885 “in stolen wages,” the report said.

That $349.885 figure not only includes pay, but also wages, vehicle mileage, FICA, Medicare, contributions toward his health insurance and retiree payments, a victim impact statement from Spartanburg County said.

Pressuring employees for drugs

In his final years as sheriff, Wright became addicted to prescription drugs, the report said.

“During that time, Wright bought pills from a street-level pill dealer, including in the sheriff’s department parking lot. He requested pills from subordinate employees, and he took pills under false pretenses from families experiencing medical hardship,” the report said.

“After the partner of one employee died of a drug overdose in 2024, Wright asked that employee for prescription pain medicine that the employee could access. The request upset the employee, who knew that others at the department were being asked the same by Wright. And when that same employee went for a dental procedure, the sheriff approached again, asking for pills a total of three times.

“One employee believed if they failed to provide drugs to Wright, there would be consequences because Wright had ‘complete control’ over their job,” the report said.

What punishment will Wright get?

Under government sentencing guidelines Wright should get from 33 to 41 months in jail.

That’s a normal range for a first offender with a non-violent crime who has also stolen from a charitable organization and betrayed the public trust, prosecutors argued in the sentencing memorandum, prosecutors argued.

In their sentencing memorandum, Wright’s lawyers depicted him as a thoroughly disgraced man who is remorseful and accepts responsibility. Traumatic incidents in his childhood led to him becoming a criminal, they argued.

Any sentence Wright gets should emphasize “treatment, supervision, and accountability — rather than a lengthy period of custodial incarceration,” his lawyers wrote.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Judge Cain will hear from Dr. Donna Maddox, a forensic psychiatrist, who will testify that Wright suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Law enforcement is a profession that routinely exposes its officers to violence, human suffering, and tragedy, often without meaningful opportunity for emotional processing. Mr. Wright internalized those experiences for years, believing — as many officers are conditioned to believe — that endurance and silence were part of the job,” his lawyers wrote.

“Mr. Wright has never privately or publicly made any effort to excuse his conduct. To the contrary, he accepted responsibility the minute he was confronted by friends and former law enforcement colleagues, which was well before any formal charges were filed.

“It is important for the Court to know that these crimes are the natural and direct consequence of a hidden addiction, an effort to keep that addiction hidden, and a reluctance to address both the physical and psychological pain he has experienced from childhood until the day he cleaned his office out,” his lawyers wrote.

Wright has already completed an inpatient treatment program for his drug addiction, they wrote, treatment that led to his voluntarily resigning his sheriff’s position and accepting responsibility. And he pleaded guilty to the crimes, which “made him a convicted felon for the remainder of his life.”

Wright’s story is one of resilience, his lawyers wrote. "He left an abusive home at age sixteen. He had grown tired of the physical abuse and being asked about the marks and bruises on his body left by an abusive parent. Having nowhere else to turn, Mr. Wright lived in a fire department, never finished high school, and yet somehow later earned the trust of a county to serve as its chief law-enforcement officer.”

“He has a supportive wife and family who have helped him navigate the difficult path to acceptance and recovery,” his lawyers wrote.

Defense lawyers also named seven other former S.C. sheriffs who committed criminal acts similar to those committed by Wright.

Of those seven, four who pleaded guilty got probation or light sentences, defense lawyers argued. Of the other three, all of whom chose a jury trial, only one got more than two years — Chester County Sheriff Alex Underwood, who received 46 months in prison after being convicted for conspiracy, wire fraud, deprivation of rights and federal program theft.

Moreover, other South Carolina criminals who committed serious crimes have gotten off easily, defense lawyers argued.

Without mentioning former Colleton County clerk of court Becky Hill, whose jury tampering actions led to the overturning of Alex Murdaugh’s double-murder conviction, defense lawyers pointed out that Hill only received probation.

“This Court is not being asked to excuse any of the misconduct of Mr. Wright. To the contrary, he offers nothing but remorse and contrition coupled with embarrassment for what he has done and for placing himself before this Court,” defense lawyers wrote.

“Rather, this Court is asked to sentence a person who fell into the throes of addiction after a lifetime of service and who has taken every possible step to confront that illness with honesty, responsibility, and humility. Mr. Wright has already lost his career, his reputation, and the trust he valued most.”

Watson, who has pleaded guilty to wire fraud in connection with his no-show job at the sheriff’s department, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday, July 9, along with another department ex-employee involved in the sheriff’s illegal schemes.

John Crangle, a Columbia lawyer who has written on public officials’ ethics and has a book coming out in the fall about 47 South Carolina sheriffs dating back to 1964 who have broken the law, said Wright should go to prison.

“He deserves a very severe sentence,” said Crangle, both to send a message to the public and because Wright’s transgressions were serious.

This story was originally published July 6, 2026 at 5:30 AM with the headline "An SC ex-sheriff’s tale of greed, theft and betrayal — will he get prison?."