COLUMBIA --- South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has agreed to pay $74,000 in fines to resolve dozens of charges that he violated state ethics laws with his campaign spending and travel, including a taxpayer-funded rendezvous with his Argentine mistress, the State Ethics Commission said Thursday.
The commission brought the 37 civil charges against the Republican last year. Sanford, who will leave office in January, still could face criminal charges.
Sanford said in a statement he thinks he would have been vindicated if the commission had heard the case, but didn't want to continue what he called "an endless media circus."
Scrutiny of Sanford's travel started over the summer, when the governor vanished for five days after telling some staff he was going hiking on the Appalachian Trail. He was actually in Argentina, and he returned to tearfully confess a yearlong affair with a woman he later told The Associated Press was his soul mate.
Sanford was considered a potential 2012 presidential candidate until the bombshells about the affair. Ensuing AP investigations questioned his use of state, commercial and private airplanes and bruised his image as a penny-pinching politician who once required staff to use both sides of Post-it notes.
After those investigations, the ethics panel charged him with improperly buying first- and business-class airline tickets, violating a state law requiring lowest-cost travel; improperly using state-owned aircraft for travel to political and personal events, including a stop at a discount hair salon; and improperly reimbursing himself with campaign cash.
Under the agreement, Sanford also agrees to compensate the Ethics Commission nearly $36,498 for its investigative costs. He also agrees to pay back $18,000 to the state Departments of Commerce for first- and business-class airfare, and $7,792 to the Division of Aeronautics and $1,003 for personal use of state-owned aircraft. Sanford says he will reimburse $2,941 to his campaign account.
CHARLESTON, S.C. --- After the governor's mysterious disappearance, his tearful, public admission of an affair, and a revealing memoir by his wife, the 20-year marriage of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and his wife Jenny is over.
Charleston County Family Court Judge Jocelyn Cate issued a final order Thursday that made Sanford the first sitting South Carolina governor to get a divorce.
Jenny Sanford appeared before the judge last month, seeking an accelerated decision based on the grounds of adultery. In South Carolina, couples have to be separated for a year to be granted a no-fault divorce.
Yea and when he's out of office in January, he will be married again right away to his Soulmate, it's destiny.
Yep, he and Bill Clinton have a lot in common, don't they?
Justus4, perhaps I need to "upgrade" my BS degree to a GED. Explain to me again which law(s) make lying about taxpayer dollars a criminal offense. If this were actually the case, most politicians and many government bureaucrats would be imprisoned.
Statements like this, lead me to believe you're a recent product of our fine government school system.
Oh, and by the way, I spent 11 years as a teacher in that same system.
The $74000.00 mistress. I hope it was worth it.
I wonder if he is paying his fine with his wife's money? The Luv-Guv is a real class act!
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