The man who ran Spartanburg County, South Carolina, for fourteen years walked into a federal prison in Pennsylvania this month carrying a number instead of a badge — 19780-512. Charles “Chuck” Wright, elected sheriff six times, reported to FCI Lewisburg on August 11 to begin serving 41 months. The sentence only sounds light until you read what he spent the money on.
Wright’s crimes weren’t budget-line padding or an expense-account fudge. He admitted to draining roughly $80,000 from the Chaplain’s Benevolence Fund — a pool of money meant to help his own deputies cover funerals, recover from line-of-duty trauma, and survive a financial crisis — and steering it to a drug dealer in $600 weekly payments that financed his opioid habit.
A fund for funerals, spent on a dealer
The benevolence fund existed for the worst days of a deputy’s life. Federal prosecutors say Wright turned it into his pharmacy budget — week after week, month after month, for years.
The dealer, Michael Thornton, testified about how ordinary the arrangement had become: Wright’s pills arrived wrapped in a white envelope, and the pickups happened at the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office itself — hand to hand, inside the building where victims came seeking justice and deputies reported for duty.
147 pills and a take-back cover story
The envelope pills were only part of it. Investigators say Wright also obtained 147 oxycodone and hydrocodone tablets under false pretenses, claiming they were destined for a narcotic take-back program — the kind designed to get leftover drugs off the street. He kept every one of them.
The employee who never worked
The scheme didn’t stop at pills. Lawson Watson collected a full-time salary and benefits for more than four years — January 2021 through March 2025 — while doing little or no actual work for the county. Roughly $200,000 in paychecks flowed to a man who wasn’t really on the job, and Wright signed off on the fraudulent timesheets himself.
The plea, the co-conspirators, the maximum
Wright pleaded guilty in October 2025 to three federal counts: conspiracy to steal federal funds, wire fraud, and obtaining controlled substances by misrepresentation. He didn’t fall alone. Chaplain Amos Durham, accused of helping drain the benevolence fund, and Watson both pleaded guilty and were convicted. South Carolina’s Ethics Commission piled on 65 separate charges — 63 of them tying Wright to the embezzlement.
At sentencing, Wright asked the judge for mercy — specifically, no prison time at all. Judge Timothy Cain wasn’t having it. He gave Wright the maximum the federal guidelines allowed: 41 months, plus restitution, citing the abuse of public trust by a man whose office existed to protect the community.
What happens next
Wright, 61, is serving his sentence at FCI Lewisburg, a medium-security federal prison in Pennsylvania — a long way from Spartanburg County — and is eligible for release in 2029. This post will be updated if his release date shifts, restitution details surface, or civil fallout lands back home.
He funded his habit out of his deputies’ grief fund. How many of their worst days went uncovered while the white envelope showed up every week?
Sources
Fox Carolina · WYFF4 · WSPA · U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of South Carolina · FitsNews
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