Not only was Rudy Giuliani’s South Carolina campaign chair Thomas Ravenel allegedly distributing cocaine, it appears he was also violating state law by campaigning for Rudy on the taxpayers’ dime. Besides his campaign role, Ravenel was South Carolina’s state Treasurer. And according to the AP’s Meg Kinnard (h/t David Weigel, whose post has the splendid title “Requiem for a Jerk”), Ravenel’s email records reveal that he was improperly working for Giuliani out of his state office:
The e-mails indicate that Ravenel used public time and his state e-mail account as part of his work as Giuliani’s presidential campaign chairman in South Carolina, which ethics experts say is apparently barred under state regulations….
Ravenel and his spokesman also bantered via computer during work hours about an op-ed by Ravenel encouraging South Carolinians to support Giuliani, the former New York mayor.
“The two most central issues the next President will face will be how to protect us against terror and how to keep our economy growing,” wrote Ravenel, who has stepped down as Giuliani’s state chairman. “It will be a daunting task, but there is no question in my mind that Rudy Giuliani is the right man for the job.”
South Carolina government ethics rules prohibit any state worker from using time on the job, or state equipment, to work on political campaigns….
Ravenel was also being urged to challenge Sen. Lindsey Graham, whom conservatives have deemed insufficiently orthodox, in next year’s Republican primary. He’s now facing up to 20 years in prison on the cocaine charge.
3 Responses to “Ethics Violations by Indicted Rudy SC Chair?”
..but you can’t hide.
If Ravenel is convicted of distribution of cocaine, he can serve as much as 20 years in prison. I would say that it is more likely that he will cut a “plea deal” to serve a short amount of time behind bars along with probation.
If Ravenel cuts a “plea deal”, in other words, “pleads guilty” then the Feds should insist that he roll over on a “Bigger Fish” If he does not roll over, then he should do some serious jail time with the rest of the “Cocaine Distributors”.
…”Sarah,” a former white-collar worker at a major Peninsula employer, recalls stopping by an after-hours party not long ago to sober up. Collapsing on a large coach with some friends and acquaintances, she looked around and saw just how prevalent cocaine was in the Charleston party scene.
“Each person on the sofa had their own bag of coke,” she says.
In June, local millionaire developer and recently-elected State Treasurer Thomas Ravenel was indicted on charges that he distributed cocaine to his friends. It would be tragic if it wasn’t so darn familiar. Ravenel’s story mirrors a cocaine bust involving three Charleston attorneys in 2004 that was bizarrely linked to accusations of cocaine use by Charleston professionals more than 15 years earlier.
Coke in Charleston isn’t exclusively a white-collar problem, but they’re the more elusive users, says Charleston Police spokesman Charles Francis.
“It’s hard to find who they are,” he says. “They aren’t going to go on the street corner to buy it. They have a friend of a friend with a connection.”
Federal prosecutors have kept the details of Ravenel’s bust under wraps, citing an ongoing investigation, leaving many a socialite to speculate who among Charleston’s elite will be the next guest at a resort/rehab clinic.
Three years ago, Assistant Solicitor Damon Cook and defense lawyers Tara Anderson Thompson and Todd Anthony Strich pleaded guilty to cocaine distribution. Like Ravenel, the three lawyers were not accused of selling the drug, just passing it around, putting them somewhere between dealers and philanthropists. They each received probation for the offense, but Thompson is serving five years in prison for her role in an unrelated drug trafficking case.
This wasn’t Thompson’s first time in the news regarding the local drug scene. In 1988, she accused Circuit Judge Larry Richter of offering her cocaine at a party. Richter has denied the allegations and was never charged with a crime.
In 2005, Thompson told the Post and Courier that, “after practicing law for 17 years, what I’ve seen and the criminals I’ve represented … I realized it was commonplace, and it was commonplace in Charleston.”
Something to say?
Everything is FINE! It’s fine, really, it’s fine. I’m not kidding…it’s fine. No, I’m not joking… everthing is fine. really….
Don’t pay attention to the campaign finance violations, or the suspended treasurer indicted for cocaine distribution or emails indicating ethics violations, or the State Budget and Control Board in disarray, or employee’s bolting out of the Treasury Agency, or The DOT, or The SBCB. Don’t pay attention to the suspended Treasurer that is in Rehab, everything is fine at the Treasury Dept. LISTEN TO ME! LISTEN! EVERYTHING IS FINE!
Left by Everything is fine
July 11, 2007 at 7:37pm