Federal grand jury indicts former Marlboro County Sheriff, deputy in 2020 jailhouse assault
MARLBORO COUNTY, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – It was three years and nine months ago that a Marlboro County Sheriff’s deputy’s body camera captured Sheriff Charles Lemon yelling, “Pop it to him, pop it to him,” ordering Deputy Andrew Cook to shock an inmate multiple times.
A federal grand jury seated in Florence, S.C., returned an indictment against the suspended sheriff and Cook on Wednesday. The indictment was published Thursday.
Both men are charged with one count of Deprivation of Rights Under Color or Law stemming from the May 2020 tasing of Jarrel Johnson.
The indictment alleges both Lemon and Cook, “…while aiding and abetting each other, willfully deprived J.J., a pretrial detainee, of a right secured and protected by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, namely, the right not to be deprived of due process of law, which includes the right to be free from the use of unreasonable force by law enforcement officers,” the indictment states.
01252024-LEMON-COOK-FEDERAL-INDICTMENTDownload
“Specifically, defendants Lemon and Cook directed the deployment and deployed a Taser device on J.J., a person known to the grand jury, without legal justification. The offense involved the use of a dangerous weapon and resulted in bodily injury to J.J.,” the grand jurors found.
The offense is a violation of the Civil Rights Act.
Lemon and Cook are set for an initial appearance at the federal courthouse in Florence sometime next month, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
FINAL DISRESPECTS: See all of Queen City News’ ‘Final Disrespects’ investigations here
The video provided to Queen City News Chief Investigative Reporter Jody Barr in the fall of 2021 showed inmate Jarrel Lee Johnson lunge toward Lemon after the sheriff appeared to berate the handcuffed man outside a holding cell.
Lemon ordered a jailer to “Take the cuffs off of him,” and asked Cook, “You got your Taser? Is it hot,” to which Cook answered, “Yes sir.”
WATCH: MAY 2020 MARLBORO COUNTY JAIL BODY CAMERA RECORDING:
Lemon then orders the jailer to remove Johnson’s handcuffs.
“When he turns around, stick that Taser to his head,” Lemon ordered Cook. Lemon continued to berate Johnson before the man turned toward and lunged at the sheriff. The recording shows the man briefly contacted Lemon and fell to the ground when Cook activated his Taser.
The sheriff is listed as a victim in the assault on a police officer charge the sheriff’s office filed against Johnson for the contact he made with Lemon. But the Tasing did not stop there. The body camera recording shows Lemon ordered Cook to “Pop it to him again,” and the audio of the Taser’s activation pops in the audio of the recording.
The video’s existence was documented in the May 4, 2020, arrest warrant investigators served on Johnson. That warrant was later transmitted to the Fourth Circuit Solicitor’s Office, but Lt. Trevor Murphy, who was the sheriff’s lead investigator at the time, told Barr that the solicitor’s office never asked for the recording.
Sometime over the next several months, the original recording was deleted from the sheriff’s office’s video recordings database.
A copy of the recording resurfaced in the fall of 2021 during our ‘Final Disrespects’ investigation into Sheriff Lemon’s handling of an estate theft investigation involving Marlboro County Deputy Probate Judge Tammy Bullock and others.
PREVIOUS: SC Attorney General’s Office delays ‘Final Disrespects’ sheriff’s trial, reason secret
The group was accused of stealing money, cash, and other property from Hollis Slade within hours of Slade’s death in January 2021. The group went to Slade’s home the day of his death and the following day when Slade’s surveillance cameras captured members of the group removing property from his home, discussing the search for his will, and in one call trying to get the Marlboro County coroner to release Slade’s body to the group.
Our investigation into Sheriff Lemon’s handling of the Slade estate theft complaint uncovered Lemon did nothing to investigate the Slade family’s complaints before sending the case to the S.C. Law Enforcement Division in July 2021.
SLED, without having watched a single video contained in the sheriff’s case file, determined the Slade family’s complaint was a “civil matter,” and refused to open a criminal investigation. It would take SLED agents several weeks to decide to open a criminal investigation after Barr filed an S.C. Freedom of Information Act request with SLED seeking the documents the Slade family provided investigators.
Murphy provided a copy of the 2020 jailhouse assault video to SLED agents in October – November of 2021. He also provided a copy to Barr. The S.C. Attorney General’s Office presented the video to the Marlboro County grand jury in December 2021.
The grand jury voted to indict Lemon and Cook. On Dec. 14, 2021, Governor Henry McMaster suspended Lemon from office while the state case against him was pending. Lemon pleaded not guilty to the state charges of misconduct in office and assault.
The S.C. Attorney General announced it planned to bring the state case to trial in March 2024. Queen City News does not yet know if Thursday’s federal indictments will change the state’s decision to prosecute the state charges against Lemon and Cook.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News.
