Greenville County, South Carolina Sheriff Hobart Lewis is facing criticism within its agency after allegedly tampering with a traffic stop last week.
Last Saturday – August 22, 2020 – Wayne Edward Dunlap Greer, SC was stopped by the Greenville sheriff deputy Colin Price. The details of the stop have not yet been released, but the policeman reportedly arrested Dunlap when he found out he was driving with a suspended license.
According to the public index of the 13th judicial circuit of SC, Dunlap was accused of “habitual traffic offender” – a crime that carries a possible prison sentence of up to five years (according to the SC Law Code § 56 -1 -1020).
It was launched in a $ 5,000 bond of personal recognition related to this charge – a controversial decision, in fact, due to his troubled past.
Dunlap, in fact, faced this same charge of “habitual traffic offender” on SC’s seventh judicial circuit last year, according to public records. An arrest warrant was issued for his arrest in that case, after he failed to appear in court over the charge – which was finally settled last January.
Dunlap has a long criminal record. In the past five years, he has been arrested and charged with major theft, receiving stolen goods, breaking into a motor vehicle, driving under the influence, driving with an open container and meth possession.
Some of the charges were dismissed, others were dropped in exchange for guilty pleas on other charges … and obviously the most recent charge is pending.
Why do we care about Dunlap? We don’t really …
The bail he received is certainly suspicious due to his background, but this judicial leniency has unfortunately become normal in the state of Palmetto.
We do care, however, that when Mr Price called the sticker on the vehicle Dunlap was driving – the record supposedly went back to Sheriff Lewis.
Wait … what?
That’s right …
Why was Dunlap driving a vehicle supposedly registered to Lewis? That is a very good question … but we will not find many answers because, according to our sources, the sheriff personally called the police officer who arrested him during the traffic stop and told him no to seize the vehicle.
“(Lewis) told him not to tow the truck (that) he would take care of that”, said a deputy who heard the call.
Several sources familiar with the call confirmed the deputy’s description of the radio call.
If these reports are accurate, Lewis would be guilty of violating all types of established protocols – potentially exposing himself to a formal (and perhaps worse) reprimand. To begin with, in cases involving charging a habitual offender, the vehicle in question is lost under the law if it is determined that the owner has permitted the behavior.
In that case, the vehicle in question was not even seized to allow investigators to make such an investigation.
At the very least, the vehicle Dunlap was driving should have been seized immediately pending a formal inquiry into the matter.
Once again, this media detests abuse of the confiscation of civilian assets – and for years we have been at the forefront of reporting it in the state of Palmetto. So, we would probably be defending for Lewis in that regard.
But whatever your opinion on that subject, the process should have been followed … and the fact that it wasn’t raises all kinds of red flags.
“If he is allowing (Dunlap) to operate vehicles in the knowledge that he is a regular criminal and then insert himself into the parade – it makes things worse,” said a law source. “He knows that the truck is confiscated by law.”
In fact …
Although this news medium was obviously not a fan of Lewis during his campaign for sheriff earlier this year, we did our best to give him the benefit of the doubt since he took office in March. In fact, our recent report on several scandals in his office has done its best to avoid contaminating him unfairly with the conduct attributed to his subordinates.
We also refuse to go after him in a recent story that details some questionable campaign financing activities by his main political benefactor, the country businessman Bob Castellani.
We will continue to extend the benefit of the doubt to Lewis regarding our investigations into this matter. After all, there may well be a perfectly innocent explanation for the curious circumstances that our sources have described … although, again, our immediate issue is Lewis’s alleged failure to follow the protocol regarding the confiscation of the vehicle from this transit stop.
Stay tuned … we look forward to updating our readers with additional information on this developing story.
-FITSNews
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