|
 Harrell, a Republican who became speaker in 2005, pleaded guilty
to six counts that included using campaign funds for personal
expenses, misconduct in office and false reporting, in a case that
has laid low a key figure in the state Republican Party.
Harrell also agreed to cooperate with investigators going forward
and to submit to polygraph tests, prosecutors said, raising the
specter of further probes into other top state officials.
"I have agreed to this today to end what has been a two-year
nightmare," Harrell said in a statement. "To continue to fight this
would have taken at least another year, possibly two."
Harrell, who was indicted last month on nine criminal counts that
included falsifying his private plane's logbook to seek payment for
non-existent travel, had previously denied any willful wrongdoing.
Under the plea agreement, Harrell will serve three years' probation
of a suspended six-year prison sentence and will pay a $30,000 fine,
prosecutor David Pascoe said at a hearing in Columbia, the state
capital.
He also agreed to surrender roughly $94,000 in campaign funds that
he stood accused of paying himself for the personal use of his
plane, Pascoe said.
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Harrell, who suspended himself from the legislature a day after his
indictment, has called the case against him a "political vendetta"
carried out by South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, a fellow
Republican, who ordered the investigation and convened a grand jury
before appointing Pascoe.
In a statement, Wilson said his office would help ensure that
Harrell upholds the terms of the agreement.
"This matter has confirmed that no one in South Carolina is above
the law," Wilson said in the statement, in which he declined to
comment further on the case.
(Editing by Jonathan Kaminsky and Eric Walsh)
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