By admin 
South Carolina ex-sheriff Chuck Wright of Spartanburg County was sentenced Tuesday to the maximum recommended sentence — 41 months in prison.
Read more Downfall of an SC law officer: Ex-sheriff Wright gets the max recommended sentence
The sentence by U.S. Judge Timothy Cain put a tragic cap on Wright’s 20-year career in law enforcement, a career in which he rose from a simple road deputy to the sheriff of one of South Carolina’s largest counties, leading a department of more than 600 deputies, jail guards and civilian support staff.
But his career was undone by his uncontrollable lust for money, which led him steal from the department’s Benevolence Fund charity and charge personal things on his government credit card. Aside from money, his addiction to prescription drugs like oxycodone led him to bully his employees to give him drugs, not to mention his hiring a cousin to a $57,000-a-year job who did nothing.
Federal prosecutor Elliott Daniels had asked the judge for the maximum guidelines punishment — 41 months in prison, a fitting sentence Daniels argued in a prehearing brief because Wright had misused his power.
“The abuse of power sets this case apart from most,” Daniels wrote. “Wright broke the public’s trust.”
Officially, Wright was charged with embezzlement, giving a no-show paying job to a cousin and obtaining prescription drugs like under false pretenses.
Tuesday, Wright — wearing a dark suit and tie — arrived at the federal courthouse in Greenville accompanied by his two high-profile criminal defense attorneys: Greg Harris of Columbia and former U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy. Wright had resigned his post last year as investigations by the FBI and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division heated up.
Read more SC woman stole over $400,000 from church where she worked, cops say
In June, Harris and Gowdy had filed a memo with Judge Cain pleading for mercy, noting that Wright was conquering the drug addiction that had led him into a life of secret crime at odds with the badge he wore.
In their 12-page memo, the two lawyers spun a sad saga of how their client had fallen in disgrace from the job that meant everything to him and, by implication, should be considered to have suffered enough without going to prison.
Wright also suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, they wrote.
“Some of what befell Mr. Wright, to be sure, was an inability to outrun or navigate the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father, but 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. That unaddressed trauma manifested as post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition that went untreated until the events of this case forced him to confront it directly and seek help,” they wrote.
“Mr. Charles Wright appears before this Court having taken as much personal and professional responsibility as a person can take,” wrote Harris and Gowdy, who also writes crime novels and appears on Fox TV as a conservative commentator.
Read more SC nearly approved ivermectin to be sold over-the-counter. How it was stopped
The judge didn’t agree, giving their client the maximum recommended sentence.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.