Magistrate Suspended for 6 Months for Improper Emails

CHESTER, S.C. (AP) — A Justice of the Peace who has been reprimanded earlier than and whose husband is a former sheriff awaiting sentencing for stealing cash from authorities applications has been suspended from the bench for six months, the South Carolina Supreme Courtroom introduced Wednesday.

Chester County Justice of the Peace Angel Underwood used her official judicial e mail account to assist her husband write a disciplinary order on a sheriff’s workplace worker and to suggest a scholar for a scholarship on behalf of deputies, the justices wrote of their order.

Underwood additionally pulled non-public crime ideas from the sheriff’s workplace Fb web page and emailed to deputies on her judicial account, in response to courtroom information.

Underwood’s actions “served to erode public confidence within the judiciary” as a result of they “blurred the boundaries between her function as an unbiased and neutral Justice of the Peace and somebody performing on behalf of the Sheriff’s Division,” the order mentioned.

The state Supreme Courtroom publicly reprimanded Underwood in 2016 for failing to level out her husband was the sheriff every time she began to listen to a case involving the Chester County Sheriff’s Workplace. Underwood pointed on the market had been no complaints on how she dealt with these circumstances.

Underwood’s husband, Alex, was convicted in April 2021 of a number of federal costs. Prosecutors mentioned he skimmed extra time meant for his deputies, used taxpayer cash to fly first-class to a Las Vegas convention together with his spouse after which tried to cowl up that she went and had on-duty deputies work to construct a celebration barn at his house, even pulling officers away from drug stakeouts.

Underwood will doubtless face round 4 years in jail when he’s sentenced on the convictions.

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