Lexington sheriff won’t release report of incident involving Congressman’s wife, AG’s mom

The Lexington County Sheriff’s Department is investigating a Sept. 29 incident involving a member of one of South Carolina’s most prominent political families, the Wilsons, at a Lexington County long-term care facility for the elderly.

The Wilson family member is Roxanne Wilson, the wife of U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-Springdale, and the mother of S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson.

“We are investigating the incident,” a spokesman for the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department said in an email to The State newspaper.

The incident took place at the Columbia Presbyterian Community care facility on Davega Drive on Sept. 29, sources and emails have confirmed to The State.

Roxanne Wilson’s mother, Martha Dusenbury, 98, lives at the Columbia Presbyterian Community care facility, according to publicly-filed legal documents. She has lived there four years, the documents said.

The sheriff’s department has so far refused to release the incident report and any body camera footage requested by The State.

However, a report sent to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control by the Columbia Presbyterian Community home characterizes a Sept. 29 incident as “neglect or exploitation, suspected or confirmed abuse.” Under state law, providers are required to report such incidents to DHEC.

The heavily-redacted report says that an unidentified person “forced medication in the mouth of a resident multiple times to induce swallowing.” The resident was then observed “choking and coughing and stating that (name redacted) did not want medication. Law enforcement contacted. Resident made safe,” the report said.

The law enforcement officer called to the scene was identified as “C. Aiken,” according to the DHEC report.

Another report, sent to DHEC five days after the Sept. 29 incident, gives more details:

During the pill episode on Sept. 29, the report says, someone “put the pills in resident’s mouth with a fork and resident spit them out.” Then, someone “began yelling and threatening resident....(and) put medication in resident’s mouth and forced (name deleted) to drink water until resident started gagging and coughing,” the report says. Information about who put the pills in the resident’s mouth was redacted.

At that point, the care facility reported the incident to DHEC and the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department.

“(Name withheld) is on trespass from facility until further notice,” the report said.

“Resident is safe with no lasting adverse affects,” the report said.

Sheriff Koon withholds report

A reporter with The State newspaper visited the sheriff’s office Thursday afternoon and was told the report was not available. The reporter left a letter for Sheriff Jay Koon asking for the report, which is a public record.

Later, sheriff’s Capt. Adam Myrick emailed The State, saying, “Rest assured, we’re working on the matter and plan to have a redacted version of the report mentioned below as soon as we can.”

Myrick’s email was sent six days after the incident.

Jay Bender, one of South Carolina’s most experienced media law attorneys, said the sheriff’s office is likely breaking the state Freedom of Information Act in failing to disclose an incident report to a reporter who travels to the department and asks to see it.

“The law requires police reports — those reports which describe the nature and location of any alleged crime reported or investigated — to be made available to any citizen for the previous 14 days. The failure of the Lexington sheriff’s department to make those reports available is a clear violation of the law,” said Bender, who has represented numerous news organizations including the S.C. Press Association and The State over the years.

“I have always thought that when law enforcement withholds records, somebody is trying to protect someone or something. I don’t know who that might be in this circumstance,” Bender said.

“There’s no excuse under the law for not making that information available. If there is some information to be sheltered from public view, the obligation is for the sheriff’s department to segregate that information and make the rest available,” Bender said.

Bender said Koon might find it wastes taxpayers’ money to keep incident reports secret.

In August, a South Carolina judge ordered the Charleston County sheriff who broke the S.C. Freedom of Information Act to pay $33,175 in legal fees to the winning news organization, Live Five News.

The State newspaper on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday sent emails to Joe Wilson’s press secretaries and other staffers asking for comment from either him or Roxanne Wilson, or both.

Neither Joe Wilson nor Roxanne Wilson has responded. The Wilsons have been married 45 years, according to the S.C. Legislative Manual.

Jake Moore, an attorney who has represented Roxanne Wilson, did not respond to a query from The State newspaper.

Elder home wants investigation

“We are fully cooperating with the authorities, and we welcome a thorough investigation by law enforcement,” said Franklin Fant, CEO of Presbyterian Communities of South Carolina, in a statement answering a query from The State newspaper.

“The incidents last Friday (Sept. 29) are unfortunate,” Fant said, without elaborating on any details. “For nearly 70 years our Presbyterian Communities team has provided quality and compassionate care to residents we’ve been honored to serve.”

A spokesperson for Alan Wilson’s office confirmed he was at the care facility on Sept. 29 but said that he was not there at the time of any incident.

“The Attorney General’s office has literally nothing to do with whatever, if anything, happened,” a spokeswoman said.

A spokesperson for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, which is often requested to investigate high profile incidents or incidents where there may be a conflict of incident, said that that agency “is not involved.”

Legal Dispute

In August, Roxanne Wilson and her sister, Suzanne Carver, had a legal dispute with the care home over whether their mother should be transferred to a new home, according to a now-dismissed civil lawsuit on file at the Cayce-West Columbia Magistrate’s office in Lexington County.

According to the legal documents, Roxanne Wilson and Carver wanted their mother to stay at the facility and sought an injunction that would allow Dusenbury to stay in her room, according to a lawsuit filed by attorney Jake Moore. The lawsuit said the facility wanted to “evict” the mother, who had a contract to stay at the home.

The facility said that the mother needed a higher standard of care and needed to be transferred to a place that could better care for her, the documents said.

“Ms. Dusenbury requires a level of care that Presbyterian Communities of South Carolina cannot legally provide, ” said a motion filed by the facility’s attorney, David Summer Jr.

The case was eventually dismissed because a magistrate’s office lacks jurisdiction to handle a case involving that kind of issue at a care facility, a spokesman at the magistrate’s office told The State.

Power family

The Wilsons are one of the closest families South Carolina has to a powerful political dynasty in the mode of, say, what the Cuomos once were in New York State, or the Kennedys in Massachusetts, except that the Wilsons are Republicans known as staunch conservatives and fervent supporters of former President Donald Trump.

Joe Wilson, 77, is one of South Carolina’s seven members of the U.S. House of Representatives and has served since 2001. Previous to Congress, he served in the S.C. Senate from 1985 to 2001. In Congress, Wilson is known as a “hardworking fiscal and defense hawk,” according to the Almanac of American Politics.

A longtime member of the S.C. National Guard, Wilson is the second ranking majority member of the House Armed Services Committee, a strong supporter of aid to Ukraine and an opponent of the Russian invasion of that country.

Although low-profile over the years, Wilson in 2009 achieved national notoriety when he called out “You lie” to then-President Obama during a speech Obama made to a joint session of Congress about health care. Wilson is also the third-ranking majority member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Alan Wilson, 50, one of Joe and Roxanne’s four children, has been South Carolina Attorney General since he was elected in 2010. In that post, he supervises an office of more than 100 employees and is the state’s top prosecutor. Earlier this year, his office successfully prosecuted former lawyer Alex Murdaugh for the double murder of his wife, Maggie, and son Paul in a trial live-streamed to the nation.