SC fiscal authority approves $6 million settlement offer for prison riot victims
The South Carolina Department of Corrections has received approval to offer a $6 million settlement to the victims of a deadly 2018 riot at Lee Correctional Institution.
The State Fiscal Accountability Authority — a five member board consisting of the governor, House and Senate budget chairmen, the comptroller general and the state treasurer — voted 4-0 to approve the settlement offer. House Ways and Means Chairman Murrell Smith recused himself from voting because his law firm is involved in the litigation over the riot.
The Department of Corrections was seeking money for the settlement after facing more than 80 lawsuits following a deadly 2018 prison riot at the Lee Correctional Institution, which was named the deadliest in the United States in the last 25 years.
Though the board approved a $6 million settlement option, that settlement is not yet finalized. Plaintiffs in the lawsuits could reject the offer.
There was no public discussion on the settlement. Board members reviewed terms of the offer in executive session, which is not open to the public.
The lawsuits painted grisly scenes of what happened during the eight hours of rioting at Lee Correctional. Inmates reported laying helpless for hours, calling for help after being stabbed. They described attempting to barricade themselves inside of prison cells whose doors did not lock. Some inmates climbed over a razor wire fence to escape attackers, they said.
Lawsuit after lawsuit painted a picture of a dangerously understaffed facility with fatal infrastructure problems that led to the prisoners’ deaths.
After the riot, Corrections leaders were quick to blame the event on cell phones.
“These folks are fighting over real money and real territory while they’re incarcerated,” prisons Director Bryan Stirling said the day after the riot, adding officials suspect cellphones were used to inform inmates in the second and third dorms that a fight had broken out in the first.
But months later the former deputy director of the prison system said there were warning signs ahead of the riot, and staff members who warned the higher-ups were ignored. The prison’s former warden pointed to chronic understaffing and overcrowding inside the prison caused by a massive transfer of inmates shortly before the riot.
Later, prosecutors said the riot was gang-inspired and started over stolen contraband.
In December 2020, 29 inmates were charged for their involvement in the riot, including three who were charged with murder. The more than 70 charges against the inmates also included 21 charges of conspiracy, 19 charges of assault and battery by mob first-degree where death results, four charges of assault and battery resulting in bodily injury, and 24 charges of prisoners carrying a weapon.
