Richard Quinn, legendary SC GOP consultant, pleads guilty to perjury and obstruction

Richard Quinn Sr., a legendary Republican consultant who for years was the mastermind behind a far-reaching web of influence in the S.C. State House, pleaded guilty Wednesday to four counts of perjury and two counts of obstruction of justice.

The plea, accepted by state Judge Carmen Mullen, is what’s known as an Alford plea, where a defendant asserts their innocence but acknowledges that the government had enough evidence to likely win a guilty verdict if the case was brought to trial.

Under the plea deal, Quinn, 78, will serve concurrent sentences on all charges that will keep him under home detention for 18 months. The conditions allow Quinn to go to his office, church and see his doctors and lawyers, Mullen said. He also will be able to attend special events of his young grandchildren, she said.

After those 18 months, he will be on probation for two years.

An Alford plea “goes down exactly like a guilty plea,” Mullen told Quinn Wednesday. “It will be convictions on your record. I want to make sure you appreciate that. Is that correct, sir?”

Quinn replied, “Yes, ma’am.”

Quinn is a longtime political consultant whose empire of influence, dubbed “the Quinndom,” extended across South Carolina’s business and political worlds.

His conviction Wednesday capped an eight-year legal odyssey, first by special prosecutor David Pascoe, and now his successor Barrry Barnette, to bring to light long-hidden corruption in the General Assembly. From 2015 to 2021, Pascoe faced down and won numerous legal and political challenges by the lawmakers he was targeting. In several instances, the challenges went all the way to the S.C. Supreme Court.

At one point, Attorney General Alan Wilson tried to remove Pascoe from the case but failed when the high court ruled against him.

A special state grand jury report in 2018 said the Legislature was awash in rivers of “dark money” and numerous financial and political crimes likely had centered around Quinn’s consulting firm for years. At his height, Quinn was earning $6,000 to $20,000 a month in retainer fees from individual corporate and political clients, the state grand jury report said.

Quinn was indicted by a state grand jury in May 2021 under Barnette’s supervision on 12 counts of perjury and two counts of obstruction of justice. Wilson’s office assigned the case to Barnette to avoid any conflict of interest because Wilson had a long political relationship with Quinn.

Quinn is now “semi-retired,” Quinn told the judge Wednesday.

The charges against Quinn included making false statements before a grand jury about his relations with former lawmakers, some of whom he made secret or undisclosed payments to, and Wilson, whom Quinn served as a politician consultant.

The plea was the result of negotiations between Barnette and his assistant solicitor, Jennifer Jordan, and Quinn’s team of lawyers, which included Shaun Kent, Cindy Crick, Rauch Wise and Josh Kendrick. Barnette, the 7th Judicial Circuit solicitor, is based in Spartanburg.

“If we had gone to trial, we would have proved the allegations in this case,” Barnette told Mullen. “I think this is a just decision in this case.”

Since 2017, Quinn has been a target in a wide-ranging state grand jury corruption investigations that have resulted in convictions of several major now-former Republican state lawmakers who received secret or undisclosed payments from Quinn’s firm.

One of them, former House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Harrison, R-Richland, was convicted after a 2018 jury trial and sent to prison. Evidence showed Harrison for years had taken about $85,000 a year from Quinn’s firm, Richard Quinn & Associates, without disclosing the payments.

Quinn’s declining health — which includes emphysema, high blood pressure and macular degeneration — and wanting to spend more time with his grandchildren were major reasons for his plea, Crick told Mullen Wednesday.

Another reason was to “achieve finality,” she said.

“He’s lost his business. He’s lost friends,” Crick said. “He’s almost 80. He just wants to be done with this.”

In a statement, Quinn’s attorney Kent said, “Today Richard Quinn Sr. agreed to a plea to finally bring an end what has been an extremely painful eight-year ordeal for him and his family. He strongly maintains his innocence and simply wants to put this chapter of life behind him so he can enjoy time with his grandchildren.”

Only months ago, in December 2022, Mullen presided over a two-hour hearing at the Richland County courthouse, where Quinn’s lawyer clashed with Barnette over whether to keep alive or dismiss the charges.

Mullen, at the end, said she would weigh the issues and make a ruling “sooner than later.”

Quinn was once a major political consultant for numerous high-profile Republican officeholders, including Gov. Henry McMaster, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, Wilson and Wilson’s father, U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson. Quinn also represented the interests of major institutions, such as the University of South Carolina and the former SCANA electric utility.

Barnette inherited the Quinn case from Pascoe, who stepped down in 2021 after years leading one of the most successful state investigations into General Assembly corruption.

As part of Pascoe’s investigation, he brought Quinn before a state grand jury in 2018, after having said publicly that if Quinn lied to grand jurors he would be prosecuted for perjury. When Quinn testified, he lied, according to Pascoe, who subsequently indicted Quinn for perjury.

When Barnette took over the case in 2021, he presented evidence about Quinn to a new state grand jury, which indicted Quinn on the new perjury charges. Those new charges were part of Wednesday’s negotiated plea agreement.

Although Pascoe’s authority to prosecute Quinn was repeatedly challenged in court, Mullen said it was clear that Barnette had “full authority” to bring charges against Quinn.

“I just want to put that on the record,” Mullen said.

Barnette told the judge the charges Quinn was pleading guilty to included:

▪ A false statement Quinn made to the state grand jury in April 2018 concerning writing work he did for Wilson. Quinn told the state grand jury that Wilson didn’t have a press officer when in fact Wilson did.

▪ Making false statements to the state grand jury in April 2018 concerning his relationship to former state Sen. John Courson, R-Richland. While a state senator, Courson received secret and undisclosed payments from Quinn’s firm totaling $159,000. He resigned his in 2018.

▪ Making false statements about his financial relationship to Harrison to the state grand jury. Quinn told jurors that Harrison was doing presidential campaign work for the late-former U.S. Sen. John McCain when in fact he did not. Over the years, Harrison accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed payments from Quinn.

▪ Falsely denying to the state grand jury that he wasn’t paid for drafting statements for Wilson when Wilson’s campaign was paying Quinn’s firm for the work.

▪ By Quinn’s “evasive testimony” to the state grand jury on various crucial matters, he was obstructing justice in the case.

Quinn’s lawyers had argued that by prosecuting Quinn for perjury and obstruction, Barnette was violating a 2017 agreement Pascoe reached with Quinn in which Pascoe promised not to prosecute Quinn if one of his firms pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to register as a lobbyist and paid a fine.

Barnette still has to bring to a conclusion state grand jury charges against former Rep. Tracy Edge, R-Myrtle Beach, and have a sentence rendered to Courson.

Courson resigned from office and pleaded guilty in 2018 to one count of willful misconduct in office related to accepting some $159,000 of Quinn’s firm’s money over a six-year period. He has not yet been sentenced.

The money Courson accepted came from Courson’s campaign account and was laundered through Quinn’s firm, according to case evidence. Had Quinn gone to trial, Courson would have testified against him, according to the plea deal he made with Pascoe.

Also in the courtroom Wednesday included S.C. Law Enforcement Division agents Lt. Jeremy Smith and Bobby Bancroft, the lead agents on the General Assembly corruption case.

John Crangle, a Columbia lawyer who has written books on corruption in public officials in South Carolina, said Quinn’s guilty plea was “long overdue.”

“The evidence was very strong to support all the evidence against him. He had to do it,” he said.