The city of Georgetown brought Mikayla Moskov onto its payroll this month. One day earlier, Moskov had walked into court and filed a lawsuit against Horry County. Georgetown’s press release, issued the next morning, praised her “integrity.” This event, titled “Georgetown Hires Former Horry County Spokeswoman,” has garnered attention due to its implications.
The mayor of Georgetown says he did not know why she left Horry County.
That is the whole story in three sentences, and it should bother anyone on either side of the Waccamaw River who believes local government ought to know who it is writing checks to. Horry County residents have a particular stake in this one, because the mess Moskov is emerging from is our mess — a five-employee resignation wave, a deputy administrator’s abrupt retirement, an internal affairs report that leaked with names attached, and litigation that is still very much alive. Georgetown just imported the communications half of that story to run its social media pages.
Here is what the record actually shows, what remains contested, and why the vetting question is bigger than any one hire.
Georgetown Hires Former Horry County Spokeswoman: A Controversial Decision
First, a correction the headlines are getting wrong
Georgetown did not hire Moskov as its Public Information Officer. That distinction matters, and it is being blurred in a lot of the chatter.
According to WMBF News, Moskov came aboard as a part-time public relations contractor, not a full-time city employee, and Georgetown Mayor Jay Doyle described her role as advising city leadership on broadening public outreach and engagement [WMBF News, 2026]. WBTW reported the city’s own announcement framed the work as part-time contracting focused on social media content development [WBTW, 2026]. The city has said other traditional public information duties will be spread among existing staff until a full-time PIO is actually hired [WMBF News, 2026].
So the accurate framing is this: Georgetown has no PIO right now. It has a contractor from out of county running communications work while the permanent job sits vacant.
That structure is worth pausing on, because contracting is exactly how governments in this state routinely sidestep the scrutiny that comes with a posted position. A full-time hire generally means a job posting, an applicant pool, an interview process, and a personnel file subject to the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act. A part-time contract can be arranged considerably faster and with considerably fewer eyes on it. Whether Georgetown chose that path deliberately or incidentally, the effect is the same — less friction, less paperwork, less opportunity for anyone to ask the obvious question.
Which brings us to the question nobody at Georgetown City Hall appears to have asked.
What actually happened in Horry County
Moskov served as spokeswoman for both Horry County government and the Horry County Police Department until November 2025 [WMBF News, 2026].
She was one of five county employees who resigned that month following an internal investigation into what the county characterized as inappropriate sexual relationships [WMBF News, 2026]. The Horry County Police Department’s Office of Professional Standards had opened an inquiry in late October 2025 after a SWAT team member raised concerns about a workplace relationship, and additional relationships surfaced as investigators worked [WPDE, 2025]. The resignations landed on Nov. 6, 2025 [WMBF News, 2026].
Those departures came days after the retirement of Randy Webster, the county’s longtime deputy administrator over public safety [Yahoo News/The Sun News, 2025]. Webster announced he was retiring on Oct. 17, 2025, the same day he was interviewed by county human resources about a sexual harassment complaint filed by police investigator Kelsey Manemeit, and his last day was Nov. 3 [WBTW, 2026]. Webster cited health reasons [Yahoo News, 2025].
Horry County has been firm on the record that the two things are unconnected. In a statement released alongside a document production responding to media FOIA requests, the county stated flatly that Webster’s retirement and the five resignations are not connected, and laid out a day-by-day timeline of the HR complaint and Webster’s decision to retire, which the county says ended its investigation into him [ABC News 4, 2025].
Moskov and Manemeit tell a different story, and they are telling it in court.
The lawsuits are the reason this is news, not gossip
Moskov and Manemeit sued Horry County, HCPD, Webster and Police Chief Kris Leonhardt in November 2025, alleging unlawful retaliation, forced resignations, sexual harassment, assault, defamation, invasion of privacy and gross negligence [WPDE, 2025]. Their attorney, Jonny McCoy of Axelrod & Associates, argued at a press conference that the internal affairs investigation was used to discredit Manemeit’s harassment complaint and that both women were told to resign or be fired [WMBF News, 2025].
That joint suit was dismissed July 7, 2026, so the two could refile separately [WMBF News, 2026]. Manemeit refiled July 14. Moskov refiled the following Tuesday [WMBF News, 2026].
Moskov’s refiled complaint names Horry County, Leonhardt and County Administrator Barry Spivey [WBTW, 2026]. It alleges she repeatedly warned county officials about Webster’s conduct toward Manemeit before any formal complaint existed, that Spivey knew of her concerns, and that after Webster’s abrupt retirement generated press inquiries, county leadership concluded she was not the right person to field them precisely because she had criticized him [WMBF News, 2026]. Her claims include First Amendment retaliation, Title VII sexual harassment, retaliation, invasion of privacy and gross negligence [WMBF News, 2026].
She also alleges the internal affairs report was released to the media without her name redacted, and that the report mischaracterized a single encounter as a sexual relationship [WMBF News, 2026; WBTW, 2026].
None of that has been tested in court. It is a complaint, not a finding. Horry County does not comment on pending litigation and has maintained its position [ABC News 4, 2025]. But that is exactly the point: an active, unresolved lawsuit against a neighboring county is not a private matter. It is a public record with a case number, and it is the single most searchable fact about the person Georgetown just hired to manage its public image.
“I didn’t know” is not a defense. It’s the confession.
Mayor Doyle confirmed in writing to WMBF News that he did not know the circumstances of Moskov’s departure from Horry County before she was brought on [WMBF News, 2026]. He defended the hire anyway, calling her an expert in communications and public information with roughly a decade in local government [WMBF News, 2026]. His statement did not address the Horry County exit at all [WMBF News, 2026].
Moskov’s own professional biography, posted by a firm she has worked with, describes more than a decade in communications, a broadcast journalism background, a master’s in communications and criminal justice, and a bachelor’s in English from Texas A&M–Central Texas [Long Capture, undated]. Her credentials are real. That was never the question.
The question is whether the mayor of a South Carolina city can approve a communications hire without anyone performing a search that any resident could run from a phone in about eleven seconds. Because the credential defense and the ignorance admission cannot both stand. If Doyle knew enough about her career to praise a decade of local government work, somebody at City Hall reviewed her background. If nobody reviewed her background, the praise was borrowed from a résumé nobody verified.
And then there is the timing. Moskov refiled her lawsuit on a Tuesday. Georgetown issued the release praising her integrity on Wednesday [WMBF News, 2026].
Who actually made this happen — and the pattern underneath it
The most consequential allegation in this story did not come from a court filing. It came from the woman who used to hold the job.
Cindy Thompson resigned as Georgetown’s PIO after 14 years [Live 5 News, 2026]. She told WMBF News she felt pushed out by the decision to bring Moskov on, that she was uncomfortable with someone from out of town running the city’s social media, and that she did not want residents confusing Moskov’s work for hers [WMBF News, 2026]. She told GAB News she had heard people were being told she retired, and stated plainly that she resigned of her own free will [GAB News, 2026].
Thompson also identified who recruited Moskov: city Human Resources Director Katie Badgett, whom Thompson described as a friend of Moskov’s from their time working together at Horry County [WMBF News, 2026].
Badgett is herself a defendant in a federal lawsuit filed in March 2025 by a former Horry County procurement specialist, which alleges Badgett forced that employee to resign after she uncovered suspected procurement fraud [WMBF News, 2026]. Those allegations are unproven.
Thompson is not the only departure. Since Doyle took office Jan. 1, Georgetown has lost Police Chief William Pierce and Zoning Administrator Clarissa Tindall as well [WMBF News, 2026]. Thompson said she does not know why the others left but called it a pattern [WMBF News, 2026].
Why Horry County residents should care about a Georgetown hire
Because the pipeline runs both directions, and because the standard being set here is portable.
Two Horry County alumni — an HR director facing her own federal complaint and a communications director in active litigation against her former employer — now occupy the seats that control who gets hired in Georgetown and what Georgetown residents get told. Neither of those facts is disqualifying on its own. Every allegation described above is an allegation. Moskov may well win her case and be vindicated entirely. Badgett may be cleared. People deserve second acts, and a person who blows the whistle on a supervisor’s conduct should not be permanently unemployable for having done it.
But “we didn’t know” is not a second chance. It is an absence of process. A city that cannot demonstrate it reviewed a candidate’s public litigation history cannot claim it made an informed decision to look past it — and there is a world of difference between a government that weighs the record and hires anyway, and one that never looked.
Georgetown still has an open PIO position. Horry County still has an unresolved lawsuit and a police department under a state grand jury’s eye on a separate matter. Both counties are running on the same fuel: leaders who would rather manage a story than answer a question.
The hire is not the scandal. The shrug is.
Did Georgetown do its homework, or does “I didn’t know” count as due diligence now? Tell us in the comments.
Further Reading
Georgetown Hires Former Horry County Spokeswoman – WMBF News — Georgetown’s former spokesperson says controversial Horry County PIO hire made her feel pushed out
Georgetown Hires Former Horry County Spokeswoman – WMBF News — Former Horry County officer, spokesperson refile separate lawsuits against county, police chief
Georgetown Hires Former Horry County Spokeswoman – Live 5 News — Georgetown mayor didn’t know new PR hire was forced out of Horry County amid sex scandal
Georgetown Hires Former Horry County Spokeswoman – WBTW News13 — Ex-Horry County police officer, communications director re-file lawsuits against chief, other county leaders
Georgetown Hires Former Horry County Spokeswoman – WPDE ABC15 — Ex-Horry Co. employees file lawsuit claiming sexual harassment, retaliation
Georgetown Hires Former Horry County Spokeswoman – WPDE ABC15 — County releases HR documents in Webster, HCPD internal investigations
Georgetown Hires Former Horry County Spokeswoman – Georgetown Hires Former Horry County Spokeswoman – ABC News 4 — County denies Webster retirement, HCPD resignations are connected
GAB News — City of Georgetown PIO Cindy Thompson Resigned, Says She Felt Pushed Out
Post and Courier Myrtle Beach — Former Horry County employees sue over forced exit
