Thread by @JodyBarr

ICYMI: While the world was focused on #AlexMurdaghtrial last week, we broke a major development in a hemp farmer's civil suit against SLED Chief Mark Keel.

A judge hit the state's top law enforcer with an $11,307.26 fine for discovery abuses.

Original report:

In 2019, SLED raided Trent Pendarvis' Dorchester County farm and destroyed his hemp crop. SLED claimed Pendarvis willfully violated the new hemp farming act by planting his hemp allotment in a different field than he listed on his license application.

Pendarvis said because of a severe drought at planting time he planted in a diff field on his family farm. He didn't plant more hemp than allowed, he planted on diff coordinates.

This field, located on Maple Hill Road near Harleyville was the site of the Sept. 2019 SLED raid.

Following a final Ag Dept inspection, Pendarvis said he told the inspector he needed to update his coordinates b/c of the field change. Says the inspector told him to submit this form & sent to Columbia for ok.

Ag, instead, asked for a criminal investigation into Pendarvis.

Pendarvis' legal team obtained emails showing days later SLED Major Frank O'Neal emailed @HughWeathers, & SCDA atty indicating "gray areas" in enforcing violations of the SC Hemp Farming Act.

SLED was also worried about a PR crisis stemming from what they were about to do...

These 3 emails show SLED's attempt to get SC Circuit Court Judge Diane Goodstein to sign an order allowing them to destroy the farmer's crop.

The judge denied SLED, but offered them to bring the farmer in for a hearing. SLED, as you see, declined the offer...

Judge Goodstein declined the ex parte meeting request from SLED's lead atty, General Counsel Adam Whitsett. Email records b/t SLED & the judge's law clerk @GilGatch show Goodstein never denied SLED outright, but offered the agents & Pendarvis a chance to both be heard in court.

The following week, SLED went to a lower court judge for an arrest warrant for Trent Pendarvis. That judge signed the warrant, but the court records we obtained from the magistrate's office don't show SLED agents told that judge of their plan to seize & destroy the crop.

When SLED agents left the magistrate's office, they raided Trent Pendarvis' Dorchester County hemp field. Agents arrested him, then as he sat in the back of a patrol car in cuffs, they mowed down his crop.

Pendarvis spent the next year with an unlawful hemp cultivation charge hanging over him. On July 25, 2022 the prosecutor dismissed the charge, opening the door for the farmer to pursue a civil rights claim against every government agent involved in the raid, destruction & arrest

The farmer hired Patrick McLaughlin (@Pluvlaw), a Florence attorney, to find out what led to his arrest and SLED's destruction of potentially millions of dollars in his hemp crop. To do that, McLaughlin would rely upon the court system and discovery to find those answers.

McLaughlin's (far left) discovery battle with SLED Chief Mark Keel (far right) has now stretched into 3.5 years. McLaughlin said Keel's purposely hid records and evidence from the farmer's legal team along the way and delayed the case by more than a year now because of it.

McLaughlin accused Keel of multiple discovery abuses & finally got before a judge to lay those allegations out on Oct. 31, 2022. Keel, who is a licensed attorney, did not appear at the hearing.

Columbia attorney Andrew Lindemann, the man the state hired to rep SLED/Keel, did.

It took Judge Maite Murphy four months to finalize her order following the Oct. 21, 2022 hearing. The judge issued a 30-page order on Feb. 28, 2023, loaded with findings against SLED Chief Mark Keel - including an $11,300 fine:

"I find that Keel’s conduct regarding discovery in this case has been dilatory, prejudicial, willful, intentional and in bad faith and that his responses have been false, misleading, and incomplete," Judge Maite Murphy wrote in her Feb. 28, 2023 order:

The judge pointed out that SLED Chief Mark Keel refused to truthfully answer the first two questions McLaughlin asked him following the filing of the farmer's lawsuit. Those questions were:

Because of SLED Chief Mark Keel's failure to comply with SC Rules of Civil Procedure in fully answering those questions, the judge deemed Keel to have admitted the two questions:

The judge also found Keel refused - even after multiple notices - to file oath verifications for his answers to interrogatories in the farmer's suit.

Keel, notified again in the Oct. 31, 2022 hearing, has still "failed to produce the outstanding executed verifications."

Despite the discovery of the emails between SLED and Judge Diane Goodstein, Chief Mark Keel denied seeking judicial authorization to destroy the hemp crop.

Something else the judge called the state's top law enforcer on in her Feb. 20, 2023 order:

The judge found SLED Chief Mark Keel - on multiple occasions - waited until the "last minute" before court hearings to attempt to fully answer the farmer's interrogatories. The judge called Keel's conduct, "willful, intentional, and in bad faith."

The judge further described Chief Mark Keel's discovery conduct, "dilatory, prejudicial, willful, intentional and in bad faith and that his responses have been false, misleading, and incomplete."

Judge Murphy wrote Keel's name in the order 175 different times across 30 pages

This email is another example Pendarvis' counsel points to as proof SLED attempted to hide discovery evidence from them. An email between SLED's top brass containing a game plan to raid Pendarvis' farm the following day. An email never disclosed to Pendarvis by SLED.

Judge Murphy sanctioned SLED Chief Mark Keel and ordered him to pay @Pluvlaw $11,307.36 for his attorney's fees within 30 days.

I asked Keel about the fine. Keel did not respond, but his handler, Ryan Alphin/Keel's Executive Affairs Dir (standing next to Keel), sent this:

"Thanks for reaching out. As we have said previously, SLED and Chief Keel will not be commenting while litigation is pending.

However, SLED and Keel have discussed pending litigation in this case before. Something I asked Keel about when in our initial 'Seize and Destroy' investigation from November 2022: