COLUMBIA — Police arrested South Carolina’s recently fired elections director, Howard Knapp, on embezzlement and misconduct-in-office charges related to his use of state-provided vehicles over eight months starting in 2023.
Knapp, 40, was booked into the Richland County jail in the early morning hours Friday, according to jail records. Police also arrested Knapp’s former deputy, Paige Salonich.
Knapp faces 11 charges total. They include eight counts of using his official position or office for financial gain — one for each month he’s accused of using state vehicles for personal travel and a public credit card to fuel up. He’s also charged with embezzlement of public funds valued at less than $10,000 (for the fuel), misconduct in office, and accessory to a felony after the fact, according to Richland County court records.
Salonich, 41, faces a single wiretapping charge.
The accessory and wiretapping charges involve a recording device left in a closed-door meeting of the election agency’s governing board.
“This is all about politics,” Knapp’s lawyer, Joe McCulloch, told reporters. “We look forward to a very public trial.”
Catherine Hunter, a lawyer for Salonich, declined to comment.
According to arrest warrants provided by State Law Enforcement Division, Knapp is accused of driving — or letting his wife drive — a pair of state-owned vehicles for personal use between June 2023 and January 2024 and using a state credit card to purchase fuel for those off-duty trips to the tune of about $5,480.
The accusations start just three months after the state Senate confirmed Knapp as the agency’s director.
The State Election Commission fired Knapp on Sept. 17 in a 3-2 vote. At the time, Chairman Dennis Shedd said the commission fired Knapp out of a desire for new leadership.
Salonich’s charges are related to allegations that she placed a recording device in the room where the state Election Commission’s governing board met.
The commission put Salonich on unpaid leave Sept. 18, then fired her days later, after she was allegedly caught on tape placing the “unauthorized device,” according to a copy of a termination letter provided to the SC Daily Gazette through a public records request last month.
Knapp, for his part, stands accused of phoning multiple Election Commission employees and asking them to remove the recorder before it could be discovered, allegedly making him an accessory to a felony, the arrest warrants state.
“While everyone charged with a crime is innocent until proven guilty, no one is above the law, and we won’t stand for taxpayers being exploited,” Attorney General Alan Wilson said in a statement. His office will prosecute the case.
Former officials’ travel reimbursements
Knapp is far from the only state official to have misused taxpayer-funded transportation.
In 2006, the Democratic challenger to then-Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom turned the state’s top accountant’s personal use of a state-owned car and credit card into a campaign issue.
Eckstrom reimbursed the state $669.40 for using the vehicle on a family vacation to his home state of Minnesota, The Associated Press reported.
Then, in 2010, then-Gov. Mark Sanford paid $74,000 in ethics fines, the largest in state history, to resolve dozens of travel-related ethics charges. He also separately reimbursed agencies, to include $7,800 to the state Aeronautics Commission for personal use of state-owned aircraft and $1,000 to the Department of Natural Resources for use of that agency’s aircraft, according to The Associated Press.
Then-Attorney General Henry McMaster, who was running for governor at the time, declined to criminally charge Sanford.
And in 2012, then-Gov. Nikki Haley, returned nearly $9,600 to the state Aeronautics Commission after The Associated Press informed her she was breaking a state budget rule that barred her from using the plane for news conferences and bill signings. A year later, Haley agreed to pay the state for taking a state vehicle to campaign fundraisers.
All three GOP officials paid back the costs and never faced criminal charges.
In Knapp’s case, SLED began investigating him on misconduct allegations in March 2024 at the request of the state attorney general’s office. After Knapp was fired, SLED was additionally asked to investigate allegations involving the recording device in the meeting room.
A judge released Knapp and Salonich from custody Friday on what are known as personal recognizance bonds, which allows the two to get out of jail without making any upfront payments on a promise to appear at all future court proceedings.
The judge set the value of Knapp’s bond at $75,000 and Salonich’s at $25,000.
The investigation remains active and ongoing, according to a SLED statement.
Jessica Holdman writes about the economy, workforce and higher education. Before joining the SC Daily Gazette, she was a business reporter for The Post and Courier.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
