Kevin Marsh, the former chief executive officer of SCANA, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to fraud charges in connection to the failed VC Summer nuclear project.
MyrtleBeachSC News has documented the SCANNA – SANTEE COOPER $9 billion fleecing of S.C. residents since the news first broke several years ago.
Under his plea agreement, Marsh could be sentenced to serve 18 to 36 months in prison. Marsh also agreed to pay $5 million in restitution. In addition, Marsh agreed to waive indictment and arraignment and work with Federal authorities to provide further information on others involved in the failed project.
The U.S Attorney’s office alleges former executives Byrne and Marsh conspired with other SCANA executives to deceive state and federal government overseers, stock holders and power customers in order to keep funding coming in to build two nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station.
The expansion project cost Santee-Cooper and the defunct South Carolina Electric & Gas over $9 billion before the two entities abandoned the project in July 2017.
WAS HE DECEIVED?
OTHER SENATORS DEMAND BOARD RESIGNATIONS. Rankin remains quiet….
As refund checks from Santee Cooper went out to residents this week, in lieu of a hastily approved settlement, S.C.’s Governor and powerful State Senators have raised questions about the Santee Cooper Board.
As our news team reported, Senate Utility Oversight Chairman Luke Rankin (Horry County) and Santee Cooper Board Member (former chairman) David Singleton are business partners.
Questions remain as to how the key oversight lawmaker in the state could not have known about the fraud.
“Santee Cooper desperately needs a house cleaning. The entire board. The entire management team. All of them. Then use a MiB Neuralyzer on anyone who’s left,” Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, a Republican from Edgefield, tweeted.
Senator Hugh Leatherman, a Republican from Florence, called on Santee Cooper’s acting board chair, Dan Ray, to resign, saying that would be “the best thing that could ever happen to Santee Cooper.”
Leatherman told The State newspaper in an interview last Thursday that a specific state law enacted earlier this year “very clearly” spells out how Santee Cooper can issue new debt.
“It wasn’t what the General Assembly instructed them to do,” Leatherman said. “If that’s not malfeasance … I don’t know what is.”
HOW COULD RANKIN NOT HAVE KNOWN?
With one of his best friends and business partner on the Santee Cooper board, how could Luke Rankin not have known? We reached out to Senator Rankin yesterday asking when he found out and what did he know when? He did not respond to our request.
WILL RANKIN BE INDICTED? UNLIKELY
Rankin has been publicly silent about the $9 billion mess. However, he privately spearheaded the effort to get a lawsuit settlement quickly approved.
He has also been a strong advocate for NOT selling the troubled utility, Santee Cooper.
WOULD MARSH TURN STATE’S EVIDENCE ON RANKIN?
How does a now indicted, discredited C.E.O. turn state’s evidence on a powerful lawmaker? Such amounts to turning state’s evidence on the local police department that had you arrested.
It simply won’t happen. Even if he did, Peter McCoy, the Federal Prosecutor is a former S.C. State Representative. McCoy left the S.C. General Assembly and became the United States Attorney for the District of South Carolina on March 30, 2020.
These types rarely eat their own.
Despite being neck deep in the $9 billion debacle, Rankin’s position in S.C.’s State Legislature makes him bullet proof.
Did he know? Likely.