SHREDDED JUSTICE: Court clerk claims Marlboro County sheriff’s warrant shredding order was political payback ...Middle East

MARLBORO COUNTY, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – If it wasn't for a domestic violence victim's persistence, there's a chance the Marlboro County clerk's office might still not know the sheriff's office's warrant clerk was shredding bench warrants.

It was already happening for around two years before the clerk found out about it in July 2023.

When we first interviewed former Clerk Joy Williams in July 2023, she estimated that around 200 failure to appear bench warrants she issued were shredded by Marlboro County Sheriff's Office's Warrant Clerk Sandy Wilkes. Meaning, people who failed to show up for court dates on charges ranging from murder to drunken driving were never arrested and forced into court.

An internal investigation by Larry Turner, the Marlboro County Sheriff's Office's chief deputy, in July 2023 uncovered the fact that Sandy Wilkes was shredding general sessions bench warrants signed by then-clerk of court, Joy Williams.

Turner said Wilkes admitted whenever she received a bench warrant signed by the clerk, she'd shred it. If the warrant was signed by a judge, she'd enter those into the sheriff's office's tracking system and have a deputy serve the warrant.

The domestic violence victim who refused to stop calling the clerk's office that July demanded to know why her abuser's bench warrant was never served on her ex-husband. The clerk's office told the victim the court had an active warrant on her abuser, but the sheriff's office hadn't served it.

When the victim contacted the sheriff's office, Chief Turner went straight to Sandy Wilkes' office to find out what happened to the bench warrant.

“I actually talked to the individual here at the sheriff's office over our warrants and she was advised under the old administration that any warrants that were issued by the clerk of court, they would not serve them and for them to shred them,” Turner told Queen City News Chief Investigative Reporter Jody Barr in July 2023.

Turned informed Williams and his own boss, Marlboro County Interim Sheriff Larry McNeil, about what he found out from Wilkes.

McNeil immediately asked SLED Chief Mark Keel to send agents to the county to investigate.

"Why would a sheriff in South Carolina give an order to shred a court document?” Barr asked Turner, "That, I could not answer," Turner replied. "I do not know."

Williams told SLED that when she sent a bench warrant over to the sheriff's office, she sent the original document, plus one copy. Turner believed Wilkes shredded the original bench warrant, along with the copy, since he couldn't find either document in Wilkes' filing cabinet when he asked her to find the domestic violence bench warrant in July 2023.

Wilkes would later admit to SLED agents that she shredded every bench warrant with Joy Williams' name on them and did so to carry out an order of then-Sheriff Charles Lemon.

By the end of the SLED investigation, the clerk's office pulled around 1,200 case files to look for a copy of a bench warrant in each file. If they found a copy of a bench warrant in a file, the deputy clerks then had to sort out whether a judge or the clerk signed it. The clerk's office believed the warrant signed by a judge was not shredded at the time.

The clerk's office believes Wilkes had shredded between 100 and 125 bench warrants issued by Clerk Williams by the time SLED finished investigating in the fall of 2023.

WILLIAMS: The sheriff said 'I would pay for it'

When Clerk Joy Williams found out about the warrant shredding, she remembered a conversation she had with a Marlboro County Deputy in 2021. That conversation, according to Williams, happened inside the main courtroom.

"I had a deputy to tell me that – I do not recall which deputy – I don’t remember. That Sheriff Lemon said, ‘I'm not serving warrants with her (Williams') name on them, with her signature on them,' even though the warrant clearly states circuit court judge or clerk of court. Which, I didn’t ever sign them until the judge said that I could,” Williams told the agents during a recorded statement to agents inside her courthouse office in July 2023.

Williams explained that when defendants failed to show up for court, the sitting judge would order that a bench warrant be issued. The order was documented by the court reporter and placed into the permanent record of the proceeding.

Since Marlboro County no longer had a resident judge, it took between four and six weeks before a judge would return, Williams told the agents. Instead of having to wait for a judge to return to sign last session's bench warrants, Williams told SLED Assistant Solicitor Elizabeth Munnerlyn to ask the court whether Clerk Williams could sign and issue a bench warrant.

Both judges told Munnerlyn that an elected clerk had the authority to sign and issue bench warrants when instructed to do so by a judge.

Williams also recalled another conversation she had with Lemon around the 2020 election, where she believed he threatened her, politically, which she believed might have been the reason Wilkes shredded her bench warrants.

Here's a partial transcript of one of the exchanges between SLED and the clerk about Williams' political payback theory:

SLED: “Did you ever talk to Sheriff Lemon about it?”

WILLIAMS: “No.”

SLED: “Did it ever come back up again?”

WILLIAMS: “Not as far as I know, not with me it didn’t.”

SLED: “Do you do any research at that time?”

WILLIAMS: “No.”

SLED: “Is there any reason you would believe, or that you know, Sheriff Lemon did this as a personal vendetta, that he did it maliciously, or why he would tell—”

WILLIAMS: “Because he knew these girls wasn’t going to vote for him.”

SLED: “What leads you to believe that?”

WILLIAMS: “Because he told me.”

SLED: “Lemon did?”

WILLIAMS: “Uh, huh.”

SLED: “When did that happen?”

WILLIAMS: “He didn’t specifically say what he was going to do, but he did tell me that I would pay for it in the next election.”

SLED: “Why is that?”

WILLIAMS: “For what my employees were doing.”

SLED: “Which is what, not voting for him?”

WILLIAMS: “Uh, huh.”

SLED: “Where were y’all when you had that conversation?”

JW: “That was in the courtroom upstairs. He came over and sat down beside me.”

SLED: “Did you ask him why he would say that to you? Like what he meant by you would pay because your clerks didn’t vote for him?”

WILLIAMS: “He told me. Oh, no…he didn’t say, he didn’t say what he was going to do. He was – matter of fact, after the first election, he confronted me, too.”

SLED: “Okay, about?”

WILLIAMS: “About politics and me not voting for him and –”

SLED: “How does he know who voted for who?”

WILLIAMS: “He’s paranoid—”

SLED: “Just assumed?”

WILLIAMS: “Paranoid.”

Williams told SLED the "grudge" she believed Lemon had against the clerk's office started under former Clerk Bill Funderburk. Williams said Funderburk also signed bench warrants, but she never heard of the sheriff's office destroying any of Funderburk's warrants.

Former Sheriff Fred Knight was leading the sheriff's office during Funderburk's tenure, and Williams worked as a deputy clerk under Funderburk. After 39 years in the clerk's office, Williams was elected clerk in 2016, and Lemon won the sheriff's election that same election.

Funderburk died in November 2023 at the age of 77. The SLED investigative file does not show that agents interviewed the former clerk of court to confirm Williams' statements about his tenure before his death.

Here's a partial transcript of SLED's interview with Clerk Williams regarding where the "grudge" between Lemon and the clerk's office began:

WILLIAMS: "Larry Turner ran at the same time against Lemon.”

SLED: “The first time Lemon was elected?”

WILLIAMS: “Yeah, and Bill Funderburk supported him.”

SLED: “Supported?”

WILLIAMS: “Larry Turner. And Turner would come up here and meet with Bill at different times, and I think Lemon just assumed – plus Bill put it out on the street that if he found out if anybody voted for Charles Lemon, any of his employees, he was going to fire them.”

SLED: “Okay.”

WILLIAMS: “That’s how bad it was. And I hate to speak ill of Bill, but that’s just the bottom line.”

SLED: “So, needless to say, from the moment that Lemon got in office, he had a grudge against the clerk’s office?”

WILLIAMS: “Yeah, see, we ran at the same time. Sheriff and clerk run at the same time…”

SLED: “So then, sometime in 2020, after he’s already been re-elected, because he was elected in 2016, probably–ish, the first time. So, he beats Larry Turner the first time, and then when he’s just won his second election, he’s in the courtroom with you upstairs, and he tells you that you're going to pay—”

WILLIAMS: “Right before the second election—”

SLED: “Right, that you were going to pay because your clerks didn’t vote for him?”

WILLIAMS: “Yeah.”

SLED: “But he never explained what he meant by that?”

WILLIAMS: “No, no…and he said it with a smile on his face, too.”

WILKES ADMITS TO DESTROYING COURT RECORDS

One of the first things Sandy Wilkes did on July 26, 2023, was get pulled into an interview room at the sheriff's office. She was face-to-face with a pair of SLED agents, explaining why she used a sheriff's office shredder to destroy more than 100 bench warrants bearing the clerk's signature.

Wilkes told agents she was following the orders of her boss, then former Sheriff Charles Lemon.

“So if it was only signed by the clerk and not by a judge, what did y’all do with the warrant?” SLED Agent Mike Gifford asked Wilkes, "Shred them," Wilkes said without hesitation.

“And, why did you shred them?” Gifford asked, "It’s what he told me to do with them," Wilkes replied. “Lemon told you to?” Gifford asked, "Yeah, because they weren’t signed by a judge," Wilkes stated.

Wilkes told SLED Lemon started to "focus" on the bench warrant issue following an annual sheriff's association conference, although she couldn't recall which year the conference happened or the details of what class Lemon attended to pique his interest in Williams' signature on the bench warrants.

Here's a partial transcript of the exchange between SLED and Wilkes:

SLED: “Did he ever say what was discussed at the Sheriff's Association?”

WILLIAMS: “It was something about warrants – having to be signed by a judge. His whole focus was, one, protecting himself and the sheriff’s office, and things being signed by a judge. That’s what brought this whole mechanism into play. And I have no idea what the class was about or what they said because he was the only one there, so I can’t help you with that.”

SLED: “So as far as you know, it wasn't anything personal between either former sheriff—”

WILLIAMS: “No.”

SLED: “And either clerk?”

WILLIAMS: “No, I really believe whatever was said at that conference that he heard is what put that on his radar.”

Wilkes told SLED that Lemon decided to shred the clerk's bench warrants after a call with the attorney for the South Carolina Sheriff's Association, Jarrod Bruder.

WILLIAMS: “We called Jarrod Butler [sic] at the sheriffs association. He explained to us, yes, she has the authority to sign, but be careful because it's not signed by a judge. But the ultimate decision was left up to Sheriff Lemon. If to serve it, our understanding is it’s left up to the sheriff, if to serve or not serve the bench warrant.”

SLED: “Did you have any hesitation on that?”

WILLIAMS: “I did not because I heard him when he told him. I had the phone on speakerphone, and it was lying there on the desk. There was no hesitation because I heard Jarrod say it. It was not like I was hearing you say it, and I was like, well, I don't know about that, you know what I'm saying?”

SLED: “So when Jarrod Butler [sic], the attorney for the Sheriffs Association, told you that it was up to Sheriff Lemon to use his own discretion on whether he wanted to honor those bench warrants, you had no hesitation about not honoring them?”

WILLIAMS: “No.”

SLED: “If they were signed by the clerk.”

WILLIAMS: “They were signed by the clerk, I didn’t. I mean, his attorney for the sheriff’s association, you know...And that's kind of when, you know, Sheriff Lemon says well, I’m not serving those because they're not signed by a judge. He said, I'd rather err on the side of caution.”

SLED: “Did Sheriff Lemon say why he wanted you to shred them?”

WILLIAMS: “We will not serve them.”

SLED: “Did he instruct you to let general sessions know that y’all were not going to serve them?”

WILLIAMS: “No, he never instructed me to tell them anything.”

The day after Wilkes' interview, SLED Agent Mike Gifford and SLED Captain Glenn Wood called Bruder, who was the director of the S.C. Sheriff's Association at the time. Bruder told SLED he "did not recall a conversation with Sheriff Lemon and Wilkes about whether a clerk could sign a bench warrant," according to the SLED file. Bruder also told agents he never told Lemon to shred anything.

The investigation shows the bench warrant shredding might have started as far back as 2021, although neither the SLED file nor the interviews with the clerks show a definitive timeline. Lemon's order to Wilkes is as close as the investigation got to nailing down when the shredding started.

Wilkes confirmed, former Sheriff Fred Knight had no problem serving bench warrants signed by the clerk of court:

SLED: “Did Sheriff Fred Knight ever tell you to shred them?”

WILLIAMS: “No.”

SLED: “What were y’all doing with them in that same situation under Fred Knight?”

WILLIAMS: “Logging them in and putting them in the drawer.”

SLED: “And I'm assuming that you remember there would have been instances under Fred Knight where it was signed by the clerk, but not by a judge?”

WILLIAMS: “No. Back under Fred, a lot of other stuff – I'm not saying there wasn't something signed by the clerk, most of what I'd say, 99% of what I seen was signed by a judge.”

SLED: “What about the other 1%? What did y’all do with those?”

WILLIAMS: “I mean, I still put them in, but they were very cautious of serving them. They were in the drawer if something came up, I mean, you could pull that.”

SLED: “So it’s safe to say Fred Knight, when he was the sheriff, you were logging all of the bench warrants in –”

WILLIAMS: “Correct.”

SLED: “Even whether they were signed by a judge or a clerk?”

WILLIAMS: “Correct.”

SLED: “Did you ever have any anybody question y’all shredding them – for instance, I know how this kind of came up was they were looking for one, like it’s not in the system, you found out it was only signed by the clerk, so you were doing what you have been told to do. Had that ever come up before?”

WILLIAMS: “No.”

Not only did neither Wilkes nor Sheriff Lemon tell the clerk's office they were shredding the bench warrants, but Wilkes also never told McNeil about Lemon's order when he took over in December 2021.

McNeil took over as interim sheriff the day after the Marlboro County grand jury indicted Lemon and former Deputy Andrew Cook in connection with an inmate assault inside the county jail 18 months earlier.

Once the indictments were handed up, the governor suspended Lemon and appointed McNeil to lead the sheriff's office until the criminal charges against Lemon were resolved.

A federal grand jury indicted Lemon and Cook on a federal civil rights abuse charge in January 2024. Cook pleaded guilty to his charge and agreed to testify against Lemon at the suspended sheriff's trial in August 2024.

Lemon was acquitted and returned to the sheriff's office days later, but lost in a landslide to McNeil in the November 2024 election. Clerk Williams also lost her re-election bid in the 2024 general election.

It took six months after McNeil took office for his chief deputy to uncover the warrant shredding that Wilkes told SLED she carried out under Lemon. Wilkes still works for the sheriff's office.

SLED: “So don't read too much into this question because it sounds accusatory, it’s not. It’s just factual finding. So when Sheriff McNeil, Interim Sheriff McNeil, took over, did you ask him what you should do with the bench warrants that were only signed by the clerk?”

WILLIAMS: “No.”

SLED: “Why is that?”

WILLIAMS: “Because he told us to proceed as we had been and if he wanted to change anything, he would come to us."

Wilkes spent 45 minutes with the SLED agents in a closed-door interview in July 2023. She disputed the assertion that Lemon was driven by a political vendetta when he ordered Wilkes to shred Joy Williams' bench warrants.

"I'll be honest with you, I don't think anything was toward anybody with any hard feelings or malice, or anything. I don't think that was the intention," Wilkes told the agents, stating again that she believes whatever Lemon heard at the sheriff's conference was the motivation for him to order her to destroy the court records.

Wilkes did have one favor to ask of SLED at the end of her interview: "You have any questions for us?" Agent Gifford asked, "No," Wilkes responded.

"Really? People always have at least one question,” the agent joked, "No, other than the fact that can y’all just tell Jody Barr not to bother me?" Wilkes responded. Wilkes didn't appear to laugh in the video, but the SLED agents laughed in the recording.

Stopping someone from asking questions certainly isn't something SLED has the power to do. Hours after Wilkes finished her interview, Barr met her outside the sheriff's office to question her about the warrant shredding. Wilkes remained silent, got into her patrol SUV, and drove away.

CASE CLOSED: 'Insufficient Evidence'

SLED agents spent 90 days working on the investigation into the warrant shredding. In October 2023, SLED submitted its case file to S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson's office for a prosecutor to review the investigation and decide whether to file charges.

It took the AG's office 14 months to finish its review. In December 2024, just four months after federal prosecutors lost the Lemon civil rights prosecution and Wilson's office gave up pursuing the state felony charges it filed against Lemon and Cook.

"After careful review of your investigation regarding the above-referenced matter, we have concluded that there is insufficient evidence to merit criminal prosecution," Senior Assistant Deputy Attorney General Heather Weiss wrote to SLED Special Agent Michael Gifford.

Weiss was also the lead prosecutor on the state-level case the AG's office dropped against Lemon and Cook over the jailhouse assault of the inmate.

Despite Wilkes' admission that she intentionally shredded the court documents - including the original record transmitted from the clerk's office - and her statements that Lemon ordered her to do so, the state still has not held anyone accountable for destroying the court records.

Barr asked Weiss to schedule an interview to explain to the public the insufficency of the evidence contained in SLED's case file, but Attorney General Alan Wilson's press secretary, Robert Kittle, told Barr Weiss was "tied up" and she "stays extremely busy," and could not meet with Queen City News for an interview before our deadline.

Kittle offered to provide a written statement, but has not produced a statement in the 48 hours since our last contact with the AG's office about this.

Clerk Williams told SLED agents during her interview that Wilkes and Lemon's destruction of the bench warrants could have gotten someone hurt.

WILLIAMS: “But you talking about bench warrants for people on murder charges, all that stuff. Domestic violence, that guy could have been put in jail last October, and something done with the case, and here that girl was scared to death of him, he violated the protection order…stuff like that’s dangerous.”

Wilkes was referring to the domestic violence case where the victim came forward and revealed the shredding.

SLED: “What would happen if a law enforcement officer went out there and shredded an official bench warrant like that?”

WILLIAMS: “You mean, like a deputy or something? I assume that’s against the law.”

SLED: “Yeah, I would assume so, too.”

WILLIAMS: “And original, like a warrant or an original bench warrant, or—”

SLED: “I didn’t know if you had any case law or anything like that –”

WILLIAMS: “No, but I know that shredding an actual, or an official court document with an original signature—”

SLED: “Which is what these would have been.”

WILLIAMS: “Yeah. I questioned Judge Burch on Monday, just to make sure. And he said that’s against the law. And I said, well, we were told Friday that SLED’s been called, and he said, well, that’s good.”

Lemon would not agree to be interviewed in our July 2023 'Shredded Justice' report. Lemon also refused to interview with SLED for the criminal investigation, according to the SLED investigative report.

Still today, nearly two years after the Marlboro County warrant shredding was uncovered, the case is closed, and no one has been held accountable for destroying those court records.

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