Southeast
South Carolina agency gave child to 'monster,' according to lawsuit
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
A South Carolina state agency that’s supposed to protect vulnerable children left a teenage girl “in the hands of a monster,” according to a lawsuit.
Gregg Martin, a suspected predator facing over a dozen sex crime charges since 2022, allegedly groomed his victim, pumped her full of drugs and mentally and physically abused her for six weeks, the lawsuit says.
The legal action targeted the state’s social service department and individual caseworkers for allegedly ignoring the victim’s mother’s “repeated requests” to remove her daughter from the home — even before the sexual abuse allegations came to light — and failing to ensure the Martin home was a “safe environment.”
“What that child suffered at the hands of a monster was just incredible,” the family’s lawyer, Debra Butcher, told Fox News Digital.
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A ribbon-cutting for South Carolina Department of Social Services’ new complex in Cherokee County. (South Carolina Department of Social Services/Facebook)
Fox News Digital sent South Carolina’s Department of Social Services a list of questions, but a spokesperson declined to comment.
“DSS does not comment on pending litigation or cases involved in litigation,” a spokesperson said in an email.
Martin, 56, was arrested by the Richland County Sheriff’s Office in South Carolina as recently as March on warrants for alleged sex crimes against a minor in Gwinnett County, Georgia.
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The Peach State criminal charges include use of computer services to seduce, solicit, lure or entice a child to commit illegal acts; electronically furnishing obscene material to minors and obscene internet contact with a child. That brings the total of criminal charges to 14 in South Carolina, most of which stem from the alleged abuse of the teenager in his care in 2022, plus at least three in Georgia, according to court records.
A judge revoked Martin’s bond in mid-April, and he’s being held in a Richland County jail. His lawyer couldn’t be reached for comment.
Gregg Martin, 56, allegedly sexually abused a teenager and is facing over a dozen criminal charges in South Carolina and Georgia. (Richland County Sheriff’s Office)
The teenager was initially removed from her home by the Department of Social Services as it investigated allegations of abuse and neglect against the girl’s father.
She was sent to live with Martin, who was family of the victim’s best friend, despite her mother’s objections, according to a lawsuit filed in South Carolina in February by the Foster Care Abuse Law Firm.
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But the victim’s family believed it couldn’t say no after Protective Services allegedly “threatened” to place her in foster care and essentially strong-armed them into signing a safety plan.
A safety plan, also known as an alternate living arrangement, typically places a child with another relative or close family friend during an abuse investigation, one of the family’s lawyers, Robert Butcher, explained to Fox News Digital.
Robert and Debra Butcher, lawyers of the Foster Care Abuse Law Firm, which took on South Carolina’s Department of Social Services in several lawsuits, spoke to Fox News Digital. (Zoom/Chris Eberhart)
A teenage sexual abuse victim’s mom pleaded with the South Carolina Department of Social Services to get her daughter out of an alleged predator’s home. (Foster Care Abuse Law Firm)
In this case, the state placed her in the hands of Martin for about five to six weeks.
During that time, no one from the agency checked on her, according to the lawsuit, which allowed Martin to allegedly shoot explicit photos of his victim and abuse her, Debra Butcher said.
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“DSS (Department of Social Services) not once came out to that home,” Butcher said. “All these five weeks or so, her mom kept saying, ‘My husband can move out of the house. We can put her with a relative. We put her with a neighbor. … We don’t want her to stay there [in the Martin home].’”
A teenage sexual abuse victim’s mom pleaded with the South Carolina Department of Social Services to get her daughter out of an alleged predator’s home. (Foster Care Abuse Law Firm)
This was even before the criminal allegations bubbled to the surface.
Texts between the mom and a caseworker, exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, allegedly show how hard the teen’s mom fought to get her daughter back.
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In multiple texts from late February to mid-March 2022, the victim’s mom said her daughter’s father would move out if her daughter could return home. She also left voicemails, Debra Butcher said.
“I have been trying to communicate with you since 2/23 and have not yet heard from you,” the mom texted the caseworker. “Is everything ok? I’m concerned by the lack of communication.”
A teenage sexual abuse victim’s mom pleaded with the South Carolina Department of Social Services to get her daughter out of an alleged predator’s home. (Foster Care Abuse Law Firm)
A teenage sexual abuse victim’s mom pleaded with the South Carolina Department of Social Services to get her daughter out of an alleged predator’s home. (Foster Care Abuse Law Firm)
A teenage sexual abuse victim’s mom pleaded with the South Carolina Department of Social Services to get her daughter out of an alleged predator’s home. (Foster Care Abuse Law Firm)
Another week passed without an answer. Again, the victim’s mom texted the caseworker and begged her to respond.
“I don’t understand the delay in this and why no one is calling us and responding to our requests,” her mom said in a text.
After about a dozen messages — most of which went unanswered — the caseworker said they couldn’t remove the victim from Martin’s home because the paperwork was already signed.
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About six weeks after protective services left the victim with Martin, a new caseworker took over and moved the child out of Martin’s house, Debra Butcher said, and the victim and her mom were finally able to talk “freely.”
That’s when “the child disclosed what happened,” Debra said, and Martin was arrested shortly thereafter.
A teenage sexual abuse victim’s mom pleaded with the South Carolina Department of Social Services to get her daughter out of an alleged predator’s home. (Foster Care Abuse Law Firm)
A teenage sexual abuse victim’s mom pleaded with the South Carolina Department of Social Services to get her daughter out of an alleged predator’s home. (Foster Care Abuse Law Firm)
The trauma still haunts the victim more than two years later.
“She spoke about this, probably two weeks ago. And when she finished, she had to get up and leave and was in tears and shaking,” Debra said. “It’s still very traumatic for her.”
Pervasive exams that ‘make children feel like they’ve been raped’
The Foster Care Abuse Law Firm has three — soon to be four — other lawsuits alleging the state agency conducted unnecessary, invasive exams on children under the guise of checking to see if children were sexually abused.
But there were no allegations of abuse, or physical symptoms to suggest sexual trauma, according to the lawsuits.
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All the legal actions against two groups and four doctors were filed in South Carolina as recently as May 15 and reviewed by Fox News Digital. Robert said a fourth lawsuit is in the works but hasn’t been filed yet.
The language and allegations are similar in each lawsuit, and the victims are young girls and boys.
The South Carolina Department of Social Services said it does not comment on pending litigation. It is facing several lawsuits filed by the Foster Care Abuse Law Firm. (South Carolina Department of Social Services)
The legal action includes serious allegations the lawyers said is “essentially rape,” and asks the courts to stop the defendants “from performing unnecessary and intrusive pediatric genitourinary exams … when there are no allegations, or even suspicions of sexual abuse. … As a direct result of longstanding, well-documented failures of defendants … children … have been and continue to be harmed physically, psychologically and emotionally and continue to be placed at ongoing risk of such harm.”
Robert Butcher said it’s concerning there are “possibly hundreds of thousands of images of children’s genitalia” in the possession of Prisma Health, which was named as one of the defendants.
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Prisma Health said it does not comment on ongoing litigation.
The alleged exams described by the Butchers are graphic and disturbing. Their bodies are exposed and physically probed, according to the lawyers.
“Sometimes, in the process of wanting to do good, some of these folks are doing harm to these kids,” Robert Butcher said.
“This is sexual abuse,” Debra Butcher said.
Each of the lawsuits implores the courts to prohibit the Department of Social Services and Prisma Health from performing these types of exams without allegations.
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Southeast
Charlotte residents say they feel less safe as city faces second transit stabbing
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Two in three Charlotte, North Carolina, residents say they feel less safe today than they did a year ago, according to a recent survey, as the city reels from two train stabbings.
More than 930 people responded to a survey that the Queen City recently completed before hiring its new police chief, Stella Patterson. Residents overwhelmingly said they want a proactive police force, not a reactive one, with 66% saying they feel less safe.
The results come as Charlotte contends with another stabbing on its light rail system, months after the stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska.
On Friday, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) officers responded to a call regarding assault with a deadly weapon. When they arrived, they found the victim, identified as Kenyon Kareem-Shemar Dobie, with a stab wound, according to warrants.
Oscar Solorzano, 33, was arrested in connection to a stabbing on a Charlotte, North Carolina light rail. (Mecklenburg County Jail)
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Oscar Gerardo Solorzano-Garcia, 33, of Honduras, was arrested after the stabbing and charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon with serious injury, breaking/entering a motor vehicle, carrying a concealed weapon and intoxicated/disruptive behavior, according to multiple Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sources and arrest warrants obtained by Fox News Digital.
On Monday morning, Solorzano appeared in court, where he was denied bond. The 33-year-old appeared via Zoom in an orange jumpsuit where he was charged. Authorities revealed that Solorzano, prior to the Dec. 5 attack, was banned by Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS).
CMPD noted Dobie was in critical but stable condition when he was taken to a hospital.
The victim told WRAL News that he saw Solorzano yelling at an older woman before Solorzano handed his bike to another passenger and said: “I’m about to show you who I really am.”
“I wasn’t trying to be a macho man,” Dobie said in a TikTok post from his hospital room. “But what I won’t allow is you to attack random people for no reason, especially the elderly.”
Dobie said he jumped up and told Solorzano to leave everyone alone. He said Solarzano then grabbed his hands and stabbed him as he tried to grab him back.
Police in North Carolina have charged a 33-year-old man from Honduras with critically injuring another person in a stabbing on a Charlotte commuter train, just a few months after a Ukrainian refugee was murdered. (WJZY)
According to court documents, reviewed by Fox News Digital, Solorzano broke into a railroad car “with the intent to commit a felony,” while carrying a large fixed-blade knife.
While intoxicated, he challenged Dobie to a fight, cursing and shouting at others using “unintelligible and slurred words,” according to court documents.
He was booted from the country by the Trump administration in March 2018 on a deportation order and reentered illegally during the Biden administration at the Texas border in March 2021, DHS sources said.
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Solorzano was deported a second time by the Biden administration and reentered illegally as a got-away at an unknown time and location.
Solorzano has a prior conviction for robbery in the U.S. and prior arrests for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest and false ID, DHS sources said.
Court records indicate he had known aliases, including Solorzano-Garcia, Oscar Herardo and Kevin Garcia.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks alongside a photo of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, who was allegedly killed by Decarlos Brown Jr., on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina, at the White House, Sept. 9, 2025. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
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The stabbing attack comes months after Zarutska, 23, was fatally stabbed on a LYNX Blue Line light rail while on her way home from work from a local pizzeria shop.
Decarlos Brown Jr., 34, who is accused of killing Zarutska, was charged with violence against a railroad carrier and mass transportation system resulting in death, a capital offense under federal law.
Brown had a history of violent crime, including assaults and robberies, and had also been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Yet he was still free and walking the streets.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the city of Charlotte and the CMPD for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Alexander Koch and Fox News’ Bill Melugin and Chelsea Torres contributed to this report.
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Southeast
Murdaugh trial court clerk pleads guilty to showing sealed crime scene photos to photographer
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A former South Carolina court clerk pleaded guilty Monday in connection with showing sealed court exhibits related to the murder trial of disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh to a photographer and lying about it in court.
Mary Rebecca “Becky” Hill, who served as the court clerk in Colleton County, pleaded guilty to four charges — obstruction of justice and perjury for showing a reporter photographs that were sealed court exhibits and then lying about it, plus two counts of misconduct in office for taking bonuses and promoting a book she wrote on the trial through her public office.
“There is no excuse for the mistakes I made. I’m ashamed of them and will carry that shame the rest of my life,” Hill said in a statement read to the court.
She was sentenced to three years of probation.
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Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill is sworn in before taking the stand to testify during the Alex Murdaugh jury-tampering hearing at the Richland County Judicial Center, Monday, Jan. 29, 2024, in Columbia, S.C. (AP)
Her sentence would have been much harsher had evidence surfaced that she tampered with the murder trial, Judge Heath Taylor told Hill.
During Murdaugjh’s murder trial, Hill was responsible for taking care of the jury, overseeing exhibits and assisting the judge. Murdaugh was eventually convicted of murdering his wife and son after a six-week trial, which drew nationwide attention.
Murdaugh’s lawyers said Hill tried to influence jurors to vote guilty and that she was biased against Murdaugh because of her book.
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Former Colleton County Clerk of Court Mary Rebecca “Becky” Hill smiles after pleading guilty on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025, in St. Matthews, S.C. Hill pleaded guilty Monday to showing sealed exhibits from Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial and other charges. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)
Solicitor Rick Hubbard told the judge that a journalist informed investigators that Hill showed graphic crime scene photos to several media members.
He did not name the journalist.
The photos were posted online, and the metadata from the images matched a time when Hill’s courthouse key card indicated she was inside the locked room where the photos were kept, Hubbard said.
Former Colleton County Clerk of Court Mary Rebecca “Becky” Hill is sworn in during a court hearing on Monday in St. Matthews, S.C. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)
Hill resigned in March 2024. One of the charges against her stemmed from money prosecutors said she took for herself. She brought a check to court on Monday to repay nearly $10,000.
Journalist Neil Gordon who worked with Hill on “Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders” and previously accused her of plagiarism, commented on Hill’s plea to Fox News Digital.
Former Colleton County Clerk of Court Mary Rebecca “Becky” Hill pleaded guilty Monday to showing sealed exhibits from disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial and other charges. (Fox Nation/ Tracy Glantz/The State via AP, Pool)
“I appreciate seeing Becky step up and take responsibility for her actions, including the charge of misconduct in office, as it was directly related to the book I co-authored with her,” he said in a statement. “The specific instance was her decision to arrange a “Facebook Live” from her clerk’s office with the Colleton County Chamber of Commerce solely to promote our book.”
“The fact that it occurred during the workday showed boldness, poor judgement, and frankly ignorance of the oath she took as an elected official.,” he added. “Sadly, poor judgement around our book had been a pattern for Becky, as we later learned she plagiarized its preface.”
Meanwhile, Murdaugh is also serving a prison sentence for stealing money from his family’s law firm and client settlements.
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Fox News Digital has reached out to Murdaugh’s attorney.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Southeast
Florida designates Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as foreign terrorist organizations, DeSantis says
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Florida is designating the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as foreign terrorist organizations, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday.
The move mirrors a similar action taken by Texas in which Gov. Greg Abbott designated the CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations.
“Florida agencies are hereby directed to undertake all lawful measures to prevent unlawful activities by these organizations, including denying privileges or resources to anyone providing material support,” DeSantis wrote on X.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantissaid CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood will be designated as foreign terrorist organizations. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)
The governor’s order said the Muslim Brotherhood has long engaged in and supported violence, political assassinations and terror attacks on civilians with the intent of establishing a worldwide Islamic caliphate.
It also said the group, as well as Hamas have active fundraising arms in the United States.
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The order said CAIR, which was created to challenge stereotypes against Islam and Muslims, has had individuals associated with it that have been convicted of providing and aspiring to provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations.
In a post on X, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said: “Great news! Thanks for this important Executive Order, Governor. We are ready to support!”
A joint statement by CAIR and its Florida chapter said the DeSantis administration has prioritized serving their interest of the Israeli government over the people of the state.
“He diverted millions in Florida taxpayer dollars to the Israeli government’s bonds. He threatened to shut down every Florida college’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, only to back off when CAIR sued him in federal court,” the statement said. “Like Greg Abbott in Texas, Ron DeSantis is an Israel First politician who wants to smear and silence Americans, especially American Muslims, critical of U.S. support for Israel’s war crimes. Governor DeSantis knows full well that CAIR-Florida is an American civil rights organization that has spent decades advancing free speech, religious freedom, and justice for all, including for the Palestinian people. That’s precisely why Governor DeSantis is targeting our civil rights group with this unconstitutional and defamatory proclamation.
“We look forward to defeating Governor DeSantis’ latest Israel First stunt in a court of law, where facts matter and conspiracy theories have no weight,” the groups added. “In the meantime, we encourage all Floridians and all Americans to speak up against this latest attempt to shred the Constitution for the benefit of a foreign government.”
Florida’s designation is at the state level. It doesn’t carry the legal force of a federal Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) listing, which only the U.S. State Department can issue.
In Texas, Muslim and interfaith leaders have demanded that Abott reverse his proclamation regarding CAIR. In a lawsuit against Texas over the governor’s declaration, CAIR argued that it violates both the U.S. Constitution and state law.
Texas Gov. Greg Abott designated CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, as a foreign terrorist organization. (Getty Images)
The order violates its First Amendment rights and due-process protections, CAIR said, arguing that the state overstepped its authority because terrorism designations fall under federal, not state, jurisdiction.
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