Chuck Wright

Introduction

Charles “Chuck” Wright, the sheriff of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, was sentenced on July 7, 2026, to 41 months in federal prison for conspiracy to commit theft concerning programs receiving federal funds, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and obtaining controlled substances by misrepresentation. Per the Justice Department’s sentencing announcement, Wright, 61, of Wellford, directed his office’s chaplain to channel cash from a charity meant for deputies in crisis into his own pockets, put his cousin on a no-show county payroll for at least $200,000, charged more than $17,000 in personal expenses to a county credit card, and obtained oxycodone and hydrocodone pills through false pretenses — including, prosecutors said, buying drugs from a street-level dealer in uniform in the sheriff’s office parking lot.

Background Information

Wright led the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office as its elected sheriff, an office he used, prosecutors said, to direct the Chaplain’s Benevolence Fund — a nonprofit that provides financial assistance to deputies and their families during bereavement, financial difficulty and traumatic line-of-duty events. In his capacity as sheriff he hired Amos Durham as the fund’s director, the employee who oversaw it day to day, and later installed his own cousin, Lawson Watson, on the sheriff’s office payroll. The scheme, as prosecutors laid it out, ran for years and touched the fund, the county’s credit card and the office’s own narcotic-disposal program before the FBI’s Columbia Field Office and SLED dismantled it.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Sentenced to 41 months in federal prison. Charles “Chuck” Wright, 61, the former sheriff of Spartanburg County, was sentenced July 7, 2026, to more than three years in federal prison for conspiring to steal from federally funded programs, conspiring to commit wire fraud, and obtaining controlled substances by misrepresentation, after prosecutors said he emptied a charity meant for his own deputies and used his office for personal enrichment.

The Benevolence Fund sat at the center of the case. Wright directed Durham to withdraw cash and write checks to him, money prosecutors said Wright used for his own personal enrichment rather than for deputies and their families in need — and the shortage had human costs the sentencing announcement made explicit: when one employee’s family asked the fund for help covering hospice bills, they were turned away because the fund was empty, and when another deputy sought help with bills after a tree fell on his house, they were also turned away. Around the same period, Wright took more than $89,000 in donated cash from the fund for his private use, spending it on hotel rooms, food and travel, and charged more than $17,000 in personal expenses to the county credit card, including fitness programs, Apple products, online games and streaming subscriptions.

The no-show job and the pills formed the other two prongs. In March 2005, Wright hired his cousin Lawson Watson as an employee of the sheriff’s office; Watson received a full salary and benefits for work he did not perform from at least January 2021 through March 2025 — at least $200,000 in taxpayer funds across four years — and Wright, who knew his cousin was not working, let the paychecks continue and provided him a county vehicle and county phone to use at a private job. The drug scheme ran through the office’s own “take back” narcotic-disposal program: Wright repeatedly obtained oxycodone and hydrocodone by misleading employees and members of the public into handing over prescription pills for what he claimed was disposal, targeting people he knew would have pills — at funerals, at church, and following surgery — and, prosecutors said, he also purchased drugs from a street-level pill dealer on several occasions in the sheriff’s office parking lot while in uniform, badge on chest and service weapon on his hip, keeping the narcotics for his own use.

Public Reaction and Consequences

“Wright’s abuses represent a grave violation of public trust. He let down the people who elected him to serve,” U.S. Attorney Bryan Stirling said after the sentencing. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office, along with our law enforcement partners, will continue to investigate public corruption and hold those who abuse their positions of power accountable.” FBI Columbia Special Agent in Charge Kevin Moore framed the sentence as a message to every badge: “Today’s sentencing reaffirms that honor and integrity remain core traits of wearing a law enforcement badge. There is a real cost for tarnishing the badge and the trust it represents, and former Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright will now face that consequence.” The sentencing announcement noted that Watson and Durham — the no-show cousin and the Benevolence Fund director — were sentenced for their roles in the same scheme, closing out the network around the former sheriff.

Current Status

As of November 7, 2026, Wright has been sentenced to 41 months in federal prison, with his prosecution concluded in the U.S. District Court in Greenville; his cousin Lawson Watson and fund director Amos Durham have been sentenced for their roles in the same scheme, per the Justice Department.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Wright’s conviction closes a career that prosecutors described as a grave violation of the public trust — an elected sheriff who used a deputies’ charity as a personal till, a county credit card as a benefits program, and the office’s drug-disposal program as a pill supply. The consequences radiated through the institution he built: a chaplain’s charity that had to turn away a hospice family and a flood-damaged deputy because Wright had emptied it, a payroll line that had paid a relative $200,000 for no work, and a badge whose wearer bought pills in its own parking lot. For Spartanburg County, the case removed the county’s top law-enforcement officer to federal prison and dismantled, through prosecutions of Watson and Durham, the network of helpers around him; for South Carolina’s public-corruption docket, it stands beside the North Charleston council prosecutions as the year’s demonstration that elected office is no shield from a federal indictment.

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of South Carolina, “Former Spartanburg County Sheriff Sentenced to 41 Months in Federal Prison in Public Corruption Scheme,” July 7, 2026 — source