Investigate Earth Conspiracy Podcast - FBI Investigates Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright | Insider Nick Duncan Speaks Out

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

In this explosive episode of Investigate Earth, we dive deep into the latest developments surrounding Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright — now under federal investigation. We’re joined by Nick Duncan, a former investigator with the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office who spent a decade inside the department and later ran against Wright for sheriff. Nick pulls back the curtain on what really goes on behind the scenes, sharing firsthand accounts of internal corruption, questionable leadership, and what may have led to the current FBI probe. Was this investigation inevitable? What did the public never see? And is this just the tip of the iceberg? If you care about accountability, justice, and the truth behind the badge — this is an episode you do not want to miss.

Hello and welcome to Investigator, I'm your host, shout alongside my beautiful wife, Sherry. On tonight's episode, we're diving into a developing story that's shaking the foundation of law enforcement here in Spartanour County. That is Sheriff Chuck Wright, once seen as a staple of leadership in the community, is now under federal investigation with allegations swirling around misuse of funds, ethics violations, and even more serious claims that have captured the attention of FBI and Sled.

Now, while the full details are still unfolding, what we do know is this. Trust in local leadership is on the line, and the people of Spartanburg County deserve answers. Joining us tonight is someone who knows the inner workings of the sheriff's office better than most. That is Nick Duncan. Nick served in the department for over a decade or right under a decade and even ran against Chuck Wright in the last election. Tonight he's going to give us an inside look at the culture within the sheriff's office,

his experiences, and his respective on what's happening now. guys welcome to the show it is april the 22nd 2025 very very excited about this episode i guess you can say i don't know we are for sure excited about this because no one wants to talk about this especially when it hits so close to home and so what i want to go ahead and do is introduce nick duncan nick thank you for joining the show very very happy to have you thank you i appreciate you having me on here not a problem so nick give us a little bit of your background and And how long, obviously, we talked about 10 years in Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office, but what was your role in kind of why did you get out of Spartan County?

Yeah, so I was at the Spartan County Sheriff's Office for just under 10 years. I started there in 2014 and was on patrol and then went to CID. I spent most of my time in CID, which is Criminal Investigations Division, where I did property crimes. I worked in Central, which is right around the city. So it's the highest crime rate area of Spartanbury County. And did property crimes, we do everything. It's basically generalized crimes.

If it's not homicide, special victims unit, or white collar, then it goes to property crimes. And that's burglaries, car break-ins, vehicle thefts, malicious damage to property, you name it. It's pretty much on the tape for them. Yeah, for sure. And before we dive in, I guess, to all this controversy, what were some of the major issues that you saw internally with the Sheriff's Office during your time there? I mean, was it something that you noticed in the beginning of your lineage there? Or did it get worse?

Did you see this stuff that we're going to talk about tonight at all? I did. It was, so when I first started there, it wasn't that bad. I got there right at the turning point, like I said, 2014. It started getting bad, I would say probably 2016-ish. It's where it just went from being somewhere that everybody wanted to work to more hiring of people, just whoever was applying there, because we didn't have an influx of people applying.

At one point, there was even Z. applications on file. It was the first time ever in the history of Sportland County Sheriff's Office that they had zero applications on file because nobody wanted to work at Sportmer County Sheriff's Office. Wow. And do you think that came from some type of internal leadership deal or what did you see the issue was with that? So, yeah, I mean, it had a lot to do with the morale at the office. You know, I've always said that, you know, being in law enforcement, is a calling. It takes somebody special, not just law enforcement, but anybody in, and as a first responder, you know, firemen, EMS, nurses, dispatch, everybody. It's all a calling.

You have to be a special person to be able to handle, to be able to listen and see the type of people and go out and handle these cases and then come home to your family and then still level on them the way they need to be loved on it. Yeah. So, you know, you have to be able to disassociate. associate and distance yourself and turn that side off. So it is a calling for a lot of people to do that. So, you know, I can't really imagine doing a whole lot different than what I'm used to with the law enforcement or, you know, before I got into a Department of Sheriff's Office, I was a paramedic with former EMS. So, but that's, I've enjoyed all of that. I enjoy being with the public. I enjoy talking to people.

So with that being said, with first responders, if you can do your calling and go somewhere else and make more money, then that's typically what a lot of people do. They follow the money because as a first responder, you're not going to make a whole lot. Even, I mean, even nurses are underpaid for, you know, what they deal with. So if you can go somewhere else and make the money, then that's typically what happens. And being that we're right next to Greenville City, Greenville County, we had lost a lot of people to the other agencies. You know, and you have Charleston and then Richland and Lexington and other large departments that pay well. Yeah. So that was a large contributing factor to it.

But then you started getting into some things that the other agencies were. allowing like more comfortable uniforms, outer vests, you know, new cars, allowing beards, tattoo policies, whatever, whatever they can do to entice deputies to or law enforcement individuals to come to there. No, that makes complete sense. And two, you know, I want to explain to people kind of what we're going to talk about tonight. As of April 21st, Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright, he is under active investigative by federal and state authorities with a federal grand jury convened to examine potential criminal

charges. And so we're talking about federal investigation and this grand jury proceeding. So a joint investigation by the FBI and South Carolina law enforcement division is underway focusing on allegations of nepotism, misuse of government funds, and possible opioid abuse involving sheriff Chuck Wright. A federal grand jury convened in Columbia, South Carolina, and is hearing testimony from multiple witnesses, including law enforcement personnel and the federal case agent overseeing the matter. So when we're talking about this, Nick, where did this kind of all start? Was it the credit card use is how this whole thing kind of blew the lid off?

So while I was there, it was rumored and that any, any employer is going to have rumors around the office, but it was rumored that the sheriff was on peels and, you know, taking lore tabs and whatever. whatever he was taken. And that was always a rumor. And but then it's kind of one of those things where when you see someone, right, you're thinking about it and you're like, God, what is wrong with that person? Like, I can't quite put my finger on it.

And then somebody tells you, you know, you know that guy's uncle pills, right? And you're like, oh, shoot, yeah. Okay, I can completely see that. So that's kind of where I was at towards the end of my tenure at the sheriff's office. They had heard these things. I felt like the helicopter was being abused by the sheriff, and the deputies were not being paid and were not being celebrated with their stuff that was going on, the Benevolence Fund, whatever it was.

There was just all kinds of things just not really adding up. And then the deputies were not getting paid on top of that. And it didn't seem like anybody was. going and fighting for the deputies. And yes, county council is who does the pay for the sheriff's office. And they have to approve it. But if the person that is supposed to be fighting for you isn't publicly fighting for you and is only willing to fight for you behind closed doors, then that makes everybody wonder, is this person even fighting for you? So, That got me thinking.

And then it was just an accumulation of all of these things together. And, you know, my wife and I, we talked about it, prayed about it, and we said, you know, if nobody is going to step up, but we can't, we can't deal with all of these rumors. And I'm a person that if something's not right, then I'm going to say something. I just, it's just how I am. I call people out. and I don't do it to be, you know, a butthole, but I will call somebody out if I see them doing something wrong or, you know, immoral or whatever. I'll call you out.

And it's just how I am. And I'm, you know, again, not to be a butthole, but it's just how it is. So all of this together ended up running. and during the election had some people that would bring stuff to me and say, hey, this is what I know. And I told my wife, Brittany, during the election, I said, we're going to have a lot of stuff to sift through because, I mean, there's a lot of rumors throughout the county. And, of course, people are going to say, you know, this guy jumps into volcanoes at night and turns into an alien or whatever. And, you know, we got to determine, is that something that is true? is it plausible or is it just complete BS?

And so during the election, the credit card stuff had come up. And I was like, well, that seems pretty plausible. And so just like I told anybody during the election, I said, well, if you got the proof, you know, sent it to me, I'll be happy to expose it, talk about it. And about two weeks before the election, I had received proof that. or what I felt was undeniable proof that the sheriff was misusing his credit card. So by that time, you could not get a FOIA done. The FOIAs were not being turned around very quickly,

and Sparrow County Sheriff's Office would take the maximum amount of time that they can, or they would just deny the whole FOIA altogether. So after the election, I was speaking with one of the local papers, and we were talking about some stuff, and we had to come to an agreement that, you know, I had discussed with him about the credit cards. I said, well, you know, now the election is over. I've lost the election. I'm still going to fight for this. I'm still going to expose, you know, everything that I can expose that I don't think is right. and so we agreed that he had, you know, their office had more money than I do and allowed them to get the FOIA. They have all the, you know, they've got the attorneys, they know exactly what to ask for and what they can do and what have you. And this is the newspaper you're talking about here, right?

In the newspaper, right. Okay. But so the agreement was that they would FOIA, but they would have to share with me the information so that I could forward it to the proper authorities to have it investigated. fully by a governing agency. So that's what he did. He foiled the information, and he got back the credit card statements from 2017 to 2024. And he called me and we discussed these charges.

And, you know, hey, what do you think this could be for? What do you think this could be for? And it was mind-blowing the amount of stuff, the amount of money that spent on Apple.com purchases. and, you know, I'm not talking about Apple.com purchases, $1.99 for an app, $2.99 for an app. I'm talking $2.99 as in $299, $399, large, large amounts. And nobody really knows what these are for. Well, the law states that if you are using government funds to pay for things, then you have to provide receipts.

And if you do not provide the receipts, then it's to be inferred that these purchases were for personal gain. And Chuck was not able to provide any of the receipts from any of it. And, you know, county council has asked for these receipts, and he's not able to provide any of them. He ended up paying back $1,100, $1,11, to be exact, is what the Post and Courier reported. And county council asked, said, okay, well, what are you paying back? And then he said, well, I don't really know, I guess. I don't know.

He didn't have a response. And what was the total amount, by the way, that he was $53,000? Yeah, it was over $53,000 that he charged since 2017. Okay. A lot of people, a lot of supporters, their sheriff right supporters. Yeah. They will, you know, $53,000 since 2017. I mean, you're only talking $8, 9, $10,000 a year.

That's really not that big a deal. But to me, it is. I mean, I don't care if it's $5. Right. We've put people in jail. As an investigator, I've put people in jail for $3 candy bar. Mm-hmm. Exactly.

And when I was watching Chuck's video about the misuse of these funds, he basically was kind of pointing to his wallet and saying, listen, I got two red credit cards. I was thinking it was my personal card. and I thought I was using this, but how do you misuse a red credit card over and over from 2017? We don't know before then, but from 2017 to 24, how do you misuse the wrong credit card? And were they really red, Nick? So they, so I've gotten a picture of the card that should have been used, a county P card. The purchase order card that the county has, those cards are silver, I believe, and they have a Spartanburg County seal on the corner of them.

So there's undeniable proof, this is the card that I'm using. It belongs in Spartanburg County. The card that he should have been, or the card that he was using is a blue card. It comes from Citizen Bank. Was it Citizen Bank? I think it was. But it's a blue card. So it wasn't even red. Neither card is red.

So where did it even come from? And so that came from David Britt. David Britt is a county council member, and he was asked. All the council members were asked. They said, did you know that Sheriff Wright had these cards or had a card that he was utilizing for county purchases? And all of them had said, no, I didn't know he had a card. Well, this card has been in use since 2006. and, you know, he became sheriff in 2000.

He was elected in 2004 and in office since 2005. So as soon as he got into office within about a year, it justifiably so. If you're in there, you may need, you know, to go purchase something, especially if you're going out of town. Like that way you don't have to go get a card and do whatever. I understand going and getting a card for related purchases. Yeah.

Somewhere between 2006 and 2006. 17, we haven't got those credit card statements foyer yet, or they have been foiled, but they haven't come back as far as I know. But somewhere in that 11 years, you know, county officials, or not county officials, elected officials, government officials, whomever, they don't just start committing crimes and they don't just start, you know, utilizing a $2,500 credit limit or whatever it is, immediately. So the way I see this happening is there was a purchase and nothing was said and the county, you know, they submitted it to county finance. County finance paid it and they were, he was like, well, no. And then the next time, three or four purchases, county finance

didn't notice that. And then eventually it just become a normal. And every purchase was just swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, no matter where it was at, whether it was, you know, Dollar General or the gas stations or hotels, local hotels, wherever. Yeah. And that was a question I wanted to ask for people like me that don't know. As far as like deputies are people that are police officers, when you fill up your gas tank, like everyone, I mean, do you guys all have credit cards? Like, how does that work?

No. So if you are going somewhere, I did a hurricane detail. We had a hurricane that came through and, you know, Merrill Beach and Columbia had all flooded. back a few years ago. I went down there. So when we had to take and we shifted down that way, we had a team that went down there to help block roads and help provide assistance, whatever,

they give us, I think there were 10 people that went down there for that detail. They give us two credit cards. And the two highest supervisors that went down there got the cards. So when we needed to get gas, we would all go to the gas station at the same time. They would swipe the card, everybody would fill up, and then it would go, and then we would have to keep the receipt and then take it back with us.

But that was a county-issued card. So those purchases between the receipt and then the card receipt, the card statement, gets compared, and they say, okay, well, this is what they were doing down there. Well, if you were getting gas here locally, Spartanburg County has gas pumps at different places. There's one at the county annex. There is one up on the north side near Highway 11. There's one on the south side.

And so that's where you get your gas from. You just punch in your number, punching the mileage on your vehicle, punching your vehicle number, and then it unlocks the gas pump and you get your gas. So he doesn't, the majority, of the deputies don't get a card for their gas. Yeah. And, and Liz, I want to explain to everybody that's listening right now that, you know,

the reason why we're doing this episode, number one, is because it's in our neck of the woods. Number two is that we've done this for seven years. We have talked about corruption and conspiracy and kind of everything that is involved in government for so long. And oftentimes, I think that we always look at the highest parts of government as being the most corrupt and maybe they are right i mean we've been through a lot of that over the past you know eight to 10 to 20 years maybe forever actually if you really think about it but you know as we've kind of got in some of these local stories whether it be in arkansas or california or you know

certain other areas we start to see that there is corruption absolutely that exist in some of these smaller places like sparkmore county for example um and nick i want to ask you a question because This is what, you know, Chuck Wright, for people that don't know who Chuck Wright is, and there's probably most people that are listening to this podcast, have no idea where Spartanour County is, number one, who Chuck Wright is. They've never probably heard his name. And except for the people obviously in Spartanburg County that's listening, Chuck Wright is a massive figure in not just Spartanburg County, but South Carolina.

And then also, if you want to talk about recognition as far as a sheriff in the nation, he's kind of up there. And a large part of that is, number one, the Todd Kolop murders where Todd Kolop, you know, the serial killer. And, you know, he had Caleb Brown locked in this shipping container on the land. And he was in national news all over the place. But he's also just been highlighted in so many different occasions. Also with Hurricane Helene, one of his videos went viral there where he was just kind

and given a candid interview response. And almost in all cases, you know, Chuck Wright is one of those people that you like almost kind of listening to. He's like a Southern boy, Southern guy. He has, you can kind of relate to him. He always talks about God. He always talks about his faith. He always talks about that. But he's also very hard-nosed. He's also one of those sheriffs that say, look, you know what? If you do this and you do this in our county, then, you know, you're going to have some consequences to pay because, you know, I understand that people have this and that, but the reality is, is that you do this in our county, then you know what's going to happen. And I want to play a video specifically about what Chuck Wright said.

And I'm actually getting it from your profile, Nick. And it says, Chuck Wright said it best. We will pray for you, but we will not tolerate this mess. Listen to this quick video. There are a lot of people get hooked on pills. It goes to meth or heroin or whatever from a knee injury, an arm injury, just something, and it goes from there. So I want you guys to be very careful when you have an injury to make sure that that's not what you depend on.

There are other things you can do. There's therapy and there's just non-prescription drugs you can be taken. So you can get out of this life if you choose to. We will do our best to help you. will pray for you. But let it be known, we're not going to tolerate it. You know, I'm sorry that some of these people have this problem, but we're not going to tolerate this mess.

So that's what Chuck Wright said there. And my question for you, Nick, is that obviously so many citizens, especially in Spartanburg County, know who Chuck Wright is. And once this indictment came out or potential indictment, not indictment, but the grand jury, the FBI investigation, all this stuff, they're convened. now to see if they're going to actually indict sheriff Chuck Wright. But, you know, if you go on Facebook or social media and you look up Chuck Wright's name, it is just flooded with either this one guy's post where it's just like, hey, we got to

pray for the sheriff no matter what. Doesn't matter what he's accused of. It doesn't matter of any of this. But at the same token, if Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office or Chuck Wright comes out and says something particular about a criminal or whatever it is, they're automatically guilty as long as Chuck Rice says it. So he's kind of like the authoritarian figure that says, as long as I say it, you know, this is the way it is. But so most people only see Chuck as this public image. And, you know, he talks about God all the time. He talks about all this. But did you see Chuck

differently when you were there in that 10 year timeframe? Did you ever think to yourself, okay, maybe the guy that is portraying himself as this huge Christian Jesus believer, perfect type, I mean, I'm not saying he proclaimed to be perfect, but did you ever see anything? It's like, man, I'm seeing someone this completely different than what he's portraying on media. There are times, there were times when, you know, just being in law enforcement, you get to where you can read individuals. Like, you can read individuals from across the room. You can see someone and just, I don't want to say fake, because I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to, say that he is not a Christian, not a good Christian, not, you know, whatever. He's just a man

that is a flawed man like anyone else. But what I don't like is, how do you say this? So, like the portrayal of a fire and brimstone and, you know, we're going to pray for it, pray for it, pray for it, and then go out and then not do the exact same thing, I guess. I don't know how to word it. But yes, to answer your question, there were times when I was like, you know, I don't feel like he is as clean as he would like to be, I guess. Yeah. And again, not saying, not saying that he's not a Christian, not saying that he doesn't believe everything that he says.

But if you're going to talk to talk, then you need to walk. And just like with the pills, you know, he stated, you know, we'll pray for you, but we're not going to tolerate MS. It's the same thing. If you were on, and it's funny that he should say in that video, and that's about the time that this supposedly started, that, you know, if you had knee surgery or whatever, that's the rumor that I heard was that was one of the things that that potentially got him started on the paint pills. And again, it's all allegations and talking.

We're going to have to leave it up to the FBI to finish up their investigation because, you know, the sheriff's office and Sheriff Wright are not talking to the public. They're not, you know, explaining anything. The deputies didn't even know that he was going in. and supposedly going into rehab or that he was even taking a leave of absence. The amount of people that reached out to me and said, what is going on? Like, what is happening? I was like, you didn't know. You work at the sheriff's office.

I mean, had no idea. There's so many people that were blindsided, not just at the sheriff's office, but in the public. But there are people out that will support him no matter what. And that's great. You got somebody that you truly. believe in and you want to stand by them, you know, through the gates of hell, then go right ahead. Like, but again, if I see something that I don't agree with, then I'm going to have to say

something. Yeah. Well, it's just aggravating to me that here is Chuck Wright, the sheriff of our county since 2004 and before that he was a deputy. And, you know, he's been preaching all this, you know, we're going to get you if you do this stuff. Sorry, but that's the way it goes. and here he is going to drug rehab right when this indictment of juries coming together to investigate

all of his wrongdoings and he gets a get out of jail card by going to rehab where there's so many people that are in Spartanburg County jail that have died because they needed that help. For example, there's this one girl I was researching her name was Ashley Apple. She just died recently of a ulcer that exploded because she, she was not treated appropriately in the county jail and she didn't have like the detox coming off of the drugs or whatever. And she ended up dying in the jail like three days later. And she didn't have that opportunity that Chuck is getting right now.

And I think that's what's really aggravating to me is that it's like I said, it's almost like a get out of jail free card for right now. Yeah. And to Sherry's point, as of April 22nd, 2025, at least 33 people have died in customer. and Spartanburg County Detention Center. And that's just over the past five years. And so from 2015 to 21, 18 deaths were recorded at the facility during that period. It was the highest among county-run jails in South Carolina from August 22 to March,

23, seven people died in custody, including an individual such as Lavelle Lane and Christopher Fortner. 2022 reports indicate five inmate deaths. 2024, at least one death was reported. And now in 2025, at least one, potentially. others we don't know for sure yet but but the thing is is rusty is it rusty Cleveland yes and that is the county corner he goes and he does all these investigations and yes some of them are legit like some guys had cancer or whatever and died of legitimate reasons but

also they're saying a lot of times there's no foul play but is it no foul play if you're not attending to these inmates correctly yeah and and then number two is like if you do have a sheriff that is now involved in the FBI and sled investigation to where there is corruption. Like what, Nick, like what do we have to reinvestigate now looking back, knowing that, you know, if this guy was hiding stuff for so many years, like how much stuff was swept under the rug that potentially was not what it was said to be? There's no way to know. There's no way to know the amount of people that are going to come forward.

and want their cases to be re-investigated, reopened is going to be, you know, overwhelming. And rightfully so, because, I mean, you never know, you know, how deep the rabbit hole goes until, you know, you start going down the rabbit hole. You know, surely, it's not just the sheriff, but, I mean, the majority of the people at the sheriff, the hardworking people at the sheriff's office are the ones working in the streets and doing the investigations and doing, doing this stuff. But the question is, what happens to these cases once they're investigated? You know, is the sheriff putting his hand in it? And is it being, you know, swept under the rug? Is it whatever? But going to the jail, a lot of these deaths may be medically related. And some of them may be drug related. Some of them may be, you know, from whatever cause of death. The problem that see at the jail, besides the transparency, you know, there's been very little communication

between the sheriff's office and the public. Anytime that there is a death, there is just a small statement, so-and-so died at the jail. And it does not seem to be investigated. It could very well be fully investigated. But if it's not made known that, you know, when somebody asks, Let's say the news agencies comes up and it says they say, okay, you had a death at the jail last night. Is there anything to be concerned about? Nope, nothing to be concerned about. Then, okay, so that begs the question, okay, well, why did they die? Then you start asking all these different questions. However, if they said, hey, you had a death at the jail last night, yeah, we had somebody at the jail.

We, you know, brought them in. They had swallowed a bunch of drugs trying to get it away from the deputy that arrested them. Unfortunately, that balloon burst and whatever. and just to be transparent and do the communication because that's what gets rumors started is the lack of communication. And the stuff, the other deaths at the jail that are medically related, the medical is provided by county employees. The county jail hires ultimately under the sheriff's office, hires individuals for medical

care. Spartanburg County is not in the business of medical care. They don't need to be providing medical care to anyone. It needs to be through a medical provider, through Sparma Regional Hospital or Prisma or whomever, you know, you do a contract and then say, okay, we need to bring these people in. We need a doctor available and we need a nurse available, whatever, and leave it up to the medical professionals to handle the medical care at the jail. Yeah. And listen, I have a question to this point as well, because we obviously being in the podcast realm and also live in or at least part time living in this county, you know, we've had a lot of people that have reached out in Spartan County that either they have listened to our podcast or that we know them through the great vine or whatever it is. And they have had very bad circumstances that have come into their lives, whether it be their son's death in particular. or their, you know, loved ones' death. And in a few cases, for example, I mean, these things were classified as suicides.

And I'm sure you probably heard this and we hear this a lot. Yeah, I have three personal friends, three personal friends that they feel like their sons or daughters were not by suicide, but by murder. And they felt like they threw it under the rug and did not even investigate it. And I'm talking about even like they have reached out to FBI. Yeah. And so you being in the sheriff's part for as long as you have and then also just thinking about everything. And we're going to get into more of the Chuck Wright stuff. Don't get, don't get me wrong. But is it beneficial for a sheriff, especially a long servant sheriff to brush things potentially under a rug as suicide rather than murder that may not be solved? Is that a thing or is that just a conspiracy theory?

I mean, a lot of it's probably a conspiracy theory. But, you know, when, when, when. stuff comes up and like the pill use and anything else that may come up during the indictments in federal grand jury, it makes you question everything. You question the medical, you question, you know, what cases are being swept under the rug, are they friends of the sheriff, whatever. It makes you question everything. And again, rightfully so for the families, especially those that, you know, have not been able to get reports or they've gotten reports and, you know, asked for a second opinion and we're told no that they're not getting a second opinion or whatever. Yeah, I agree.

And I want to ask you one more question about the jails. And I know this is not about Chuck also. But, you know, I was kind of reading that our jails are so overcrowded. Like, I think you're supposed to have one officer to 64 inmates or something like that. and it's like 200% over the capacity? Is there something being done about that? Or do you know anything about that? I don't know what they're doing at the jail for overcrowding.

You know, whether it is related to, you know, minor things where people are not able to get out. I am a firm believer. If you do the crime, then you pay the time. But if somebody is there just because they don't have. I'm not saying like just child support people should be able to not pay the child support. But if it's somebody for child support, not paying $200 for child support and they're logged up for a month, and now we're having to turn away people and letting people go for drug charges or whatever, you have to classify those and figure out what's being done.

I know that at one point they were not serving all of the warrants. They were kind of classifying what warrants needed to be served and getting the important, you know, the people that were a threat to society. Picking those people up priority versus, you know, just a time frame. Okay, we had 10 warrants coming yesterday. We serve 10 warrants today. We had four warrants coming yesterday. We served four warrants today. Just kind of classifying these. Okay, is this person a threat to society? Okay, we need to go ahead and get them. We need to get rid of a couple people before we pick this guy up. You know, and I'm sure that that is something that every jail has to go through. And especially with the jails being a revolving door. You know, you get people that are on drugs that commit crimes. They go in there. They get clean. They come out. they go back out, they get with their friends, they're back on drugs, they go back in. And it's just a revolving door.

If you can get, if somebody could figure out a way to reform people and get people to quit committing crimes, and it seems to be the same people over and over again, get people to quit committing crimes, then you'll be a very rich person because the revolving door is the biggest issue. You know, as soon as people get out, they come back in. And, you know, it is really, up to, you know, state representatives and all to figure out the legislature and, you know, what we should be locking people up for, especially for long term, you know, prison or whatever. Now, we were talking to you the other night about that, about as far as like the amount of drugs

that people are on. And you had some type of solution that you wanted to offer people. Can you just tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, I'd been invited to go. during the election, I was invited to go to a fentanyl awareness event. A lot of individuals that, a lot of families that have been impacted by fentanyl, host an event, and they have different tent vendors and what have you. And I'd met a vendor. They're at one of these events. And they had discussed that they have a shot now, a medication that they can give somebody,

but I think they have to be clean for 30 days before they can give someone this injection. And the injection takes away all cravings. And so if they're an alcoholic, then they don't crave alcohol anymore. I would imagine if they are a sugar addict, I mean a sugar addict, then it maybe would take away the addiction to sugar. But if they are an addict to whatever, you can get this injection. and it blocks whatever it's got a block and makes this person so that they don't crave whatever is that they crave.

So a lot of the individuals, when I would go to the jail, a lot of people would be on whatever drug when they'd get to the jail. And I'd have to come back three, four, five days later until they were thinking a little more clearly to interview them. And most of the people, when you talk to them at the jail after they've been clean for a little while, you know, kind of break down a little bit of, little bit and they're like, I hate this.

You know, I've got a daughter that's three months old. I'm never going to see my daughter anymore. And, you know, so after the interview, I would talk to them, like man to man or man to woman, whatever. Hey, you know, when you get out of here, like, you really need to clean up. Like, don't go hang out with the same people. Just being a human to another human, you know, person to person, like, you know, clean yourself up.

And almost all of them, I would say a good name. 90% were like, man, if I could just stay off the drugs, I would. Like, well, you know, to me, I've never done any drugs. So to me, it's a simple solution. Just don't do them. Don't hang out with people. Don't do them. But I know that as an addict that that is easier said than done. So if these people are, have spent 30 days in jail, then they should be clean when they get out. And if that is something that they truly want to do, then maybe we could, offer that solution to somebody to give them an extra 30 days to get into a rehab where they can maybe continue this shot. I don't know what the medication is and how long you can actually take

it. But maybe Spartan County can provide that first 30 days for them. Yeah. The cost was only like 50 bucks. And I don't know what it costs to house an inmate a day, but I would imagine it's probably more than $50. That probably eats into the credit card fund, so we can't do that. Right. So you can't do that. For sure. Yeah, that's a joke.

That's a joke, guys. Even though maybe not. We don't know. Nick, we've talked about a lot of stuff and we've got to get into some deep stuff. But my first question is, were there any rumors of former complaints internally about any type of misuse or mismanagement of funds or, anything in regards to Chuck Wright that you know of at all up until the new allegations and kind of everything that's in the media now. Yeah, I mean, it was it was alleged. It was talking about that, hey, you know, we don't have any money to go, you know, I discussed earlier about

the helicopter. Yeah. You know, the deputies weren't getting pay raises. The fiscal year for Department of County is July to June. And we would, there were times when I would apply for training in July and get denied for the training because we didn't have any money left. Like, okay, we just got our budget. Like, how are we not getting money for training? Like, that's what we do is train and learn. And, but then, you know, you hear the helicopter go over and it's like, okay, well, who's fine?

sheriff's out flying a day. Okay, well, how does he have money to fly, but we don't have money for training? So these rumors get going, and, you know, it's exponential. You know, you got two people talking about it, four people, eight, 16, 24, 32, whatever. And so, I mean, it grows. And before long, it's a done deal. And, yeah, the sheriff is out flying the day of whatever. so you don't really know what's truth and what's rumor.

But just seeing the stuff like that, you know, where is the helicopter getting money from? You know, where's this money going? Where is this money coming from? Is always something. But the helicopter, the people questioned the chaplain's fund, you know, there were people that asked for, you know, had issues. somebody had a tree fall in her house. Hey, can y'all help us out with the power bill or whatever?

We don't have any money. Okay, well, we just had a golf tournament. Why don't we have any money? Where did that money go? And again, it goes down to transparency. There's not anything that comes out and says, okay, this is where everything's going. Annually, yes, I know that Spartan County has published as the budget. where all the money in the county goes.

But for the sheriff's office specific, it seems to be not very publicly known. And I know that it is kept up with. And so when people have questions, especially the deputies, they have questions like that. You know, where is our money going? Why aren't we getting a raise? Why, you know, why are higher-ups getting raises,

but not, you know, the regular deputies? that's always something that comes up. Yeah, and Nick, I mean, I don't know if you know this, but I've been in aviation probably for in or around aviation for 20 plus years. And so how I know Chuck Wright is Spartanburg County helicopters. Let me let me just let me just say that. I'm not going to go into detail about it, but what I will say is that the amount of times I've been in the airport and seen Chuck Wright is,

is insane. It was a lot, actually. It was a lot. I got to know Chuck Wright because of the amount of times I saw him at the airport going up with whatever pilot it was during those times. And so that's also kind of how I got to know my personal opinion on Chuck Wright, whatever that is, which I'm not going to go into necessarily on the show. But that's also why I kind of ask is, like as you see someone on media and you see someone in kind of the public sphere and then you kind of ask yourself, well, is he representative of what he actually is or who he actually is? I guess is why it's interesting you bring up the aviation unit and the helicopter stuff. But I also want to get into this.

So we have the credit card misuse. We have the potential opioid abuse, potential. We don't know, but maybe. is there something deeper because Fitz News had posted an article probably about a week and a half ago. And Fitz News, I mean, let's just be honest. Let's be clear. Fitz News has hated Chuck Wright. It seems like for quite a while.

They have called out Operation Roll and Thunder to the Ump degree. And we have as well at one point in time, which we'll get into that in just a moment. But we talked about Operation Roll and Thunder. but more specifically, what do you think about just is what we're seeing here with the misappropriation of funds, the opioid abuse, and now Fitznews is reporting that, hey, maybe this is actually not the biggest deal that the FBI is really investigating. Like, is the FBI potentially on something bigger than the misappropriation of funds or the abuse of a credit card or the opioid abuse?

Is there something bigger that we don't know about? And do you want to talk about that if you even have an inkling of a thought on that? I think that there could very well be something bigger. It is one of those things where when you have an individual, I had somebody to come up to me last night, called me last night and talked about stuff. and it's not even not even about you know the sheriff's office it was about a different agency and they stated I have this problem with this elected official um you know I think that my issue is isolated and I had to stop them and say you know you say that but people don't come forward

because they think that their issue is isolated they don't come forward because they don't come forward they think they're the only person that this has happened to. Just like with the opioids and the pills. You know, being that I was running for sheriff, I kind of was the middle where I'd hear this story and then this story and then this story and then this story. And none of these people know that they went through the exact same thing. So if that person was like, well, okay, I'm not going to say anything about these pills because he's not going to, you know, it's not going to go anywhere or, you know, he only asked me because we're friends. Then nobody knows that there are 40 other individuals out there that this has happened to. So the FBI, I feel like, has run into

essentially the same thing. They're investigating and they're talking to people and finding out that a lot of the people have the same issues. And when you have the rumors that are surrounding, you know, whether it be money, guns, or pills, at the sheriff's office, somebody knows something. And they haven't said anything. Well, when the FBI comes, you don't want to lie to them because you don't want to go to prison. So you tell them what you know. Well, okay, who else may know anything about it?

So then they go to talk to the second person. And the second person may say something to confirm. the first person's story. So the more people you talk to, you start getting the picture of what's actually going on. And I think that that is what we're going to find out is that the FBI was able to talk to all these individuals that were afraid, either afraid to say something because of repercussions or just trying to cover for him and weren't going to say anything at all until, you know, the threat, oh, well, damn, now I'm going to have to go to prison.

So I'm going to, you know, I'm going to say, I'm going to tell the truth and y'all do with it what y'all want. So I do think that there is some, there are some possible future charges that may. And Nick, let me ask you this. Is the misuse of a county credit card to FBI issue? So I've recently heard, I have not been able to verify, but I have recently heard that, so South Carolina Ethics Commission is who it was, who I reported that to. And when that individual at the Ethics Commission started investigating, any time that they would have specific questions about that complaint,

they would ask questions. They never provided me with the information, but it was always a one-way street. It was, do you know this? How does this work at the sheriff's office, whatever? to help him paint his picture. But once I realized by the questions that were being asked, once I realized that this was actually being investigated

and not going to be swept under the rug and not going to be a friend of Chuck, whatever, I started feeding information to the investigators so that they can start looking into it. And by the way, Nick, the reason I'm asking this is I guess what I'm saying is, is that is there something bigger that maybe the media or no one knows at all about right now that could be leading the FBI even further into this investigation that no one knows about yet? Do you have any inkling of that? Well, we've not even mentioned him hiring his son for a fact. I know that's being investigated.

Yeah, I don't know. That would be an FBI thing or not as well. But that's what I'm saying. Like, is there something bigger that we just don't know? Yeah, I mean, I absolutely, I think so. I think so the money stuff with the Ethics Commission, I think I've recently heard that that money stuff, even though that is a Spartanburg County money, because it's an elected official, it goes to the state, the state forwards all their money stuff to the FBI. So I think that's how the FBI has gotten involved, and I think they've been able to uncover more and more with each question and each individual that they've. interviewed. So I think that we do have a lot that the FBI is going to end up finding.

Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about his son? Andy, right? Andy, right. Yeah. I mean, is what is the deal with his son? Because there was a big stink about this. Like, he hired his son, I guess, in Spartanour County. But did his son work in other departments before that? Or how did that whole story go. Yeah, so his son, his son works full-time for a fire department, and that is his main source of income. He's been a fireman for a while, and then he got into law enforcement at some point, I don't know, six, ten years ago,ish, somewhere around in there, decided that he also wanted to be in law enforcement, which is not uncommon. You know, I was paramedic, came to law enforcement, there are law enforcement of people that go to paramedic, there are paramedics,

go to firemen, the firemen that are paramedics. I mean, it's, it's very common to cross-train and do two different jobs like that. But he worked with, I think, Duncan and Lyman, and ended up leaving those departments under what conditions, I'm not exactly sure. And, but then if you were out of law enforcement, for so long, then you have to retake some courses. He was out for almost a year in 2024. I think September would have been a year. And at a year, you have to retake some legals and continue in education and stuff.

You have to get caught up on all that stuff. And what I was told was that, you know, he was unable to go to other. departments for whatever reason and so the sheriff hired him no i i get that too so and and that's the is that is that the is that the nepotism thing is that what that yeah so there's there's uh my understanding is there's another nepotism thing um with the sheriff having a cousin i believe um that worked at the sheriff's office for a while and um but you know i don't think that he was a class one officer. I think he was a civilian, the cousin. But being the requirement for the nepotism, it has to be an immediate family member. I mean, the law states exactly what,

you know, what you can do and who you can hire and who you can not hire. And, you know, a son or daughter is considered, you know, that family member that you were unable to have worked directly for you. Yeah. And being that he is the sheriff and he is over everything, then I don't see how you can, you can bypass that. He's, he's tried to bypass it. Sheriff Wright, tried to bypass it by doing a, writing a letter to the command staff that

said, hey, I don't want to have anything to do with, with my son, any kind of disciplinary action, any kind of, you know, anything needs to be directed through the second command the chief. But when you consider his son was hired as a part-time traffic officer, the Department County Sheriff's Office doesn't have Class 1 officers as part-time employees. There's been numerous people that wanted to retire and wanted to stay part-time. They were told, no, we don't have part-timers at the Sheriff's Office. we're not doing that.

And then to have his son come, not just at the sheriff's office, but if you have a full-time employee base, and then you decide that you want five or ten part-time employees, typically what happens is these part-time employees fill in the gaps for the full-time employees, right? You would say, okay, well, we have a gap in Woodruff area. We need you to go fill in Woodruff. tonight or we need you to go fill in, you know, over here today, wherever, wherever there is a gap is what the part-timers are typically used for, not just in law enforcement, but any kind of, you know, job. And, but he went straight to traffic, which is, which is a coveted position.

That's, you know, there's a lot of people that want to go to traffic. And, you know, because you get to drive the cool cars and you get to drive fast and go chase after people and whatever. And, but that's the position that he was able to feel was, was that. So it wasn't just that, but it was a coveted position and he's part time. Yeah, that's interesting. And it kind of leads me to my next point. I mean, we've talked about on this podcast before. And I think a lot of our listeners outside of Spartanburg County, you know, our main goal

of this show is to expose corruption. And because look, at the end of the day, we are people. We are the citizens of our government. And the government is always supposed to be working for us, not against us. We're not supposed to be working for our government. But, you know, there's a lot of people, especially recently, that believe that, you know, we are to answer to the government rather than the government answered to us. And on the, and we're going to get a little more into this, but on the, I guess, topic

of Operation Roll and Thunder. For those that do not know, Operation Roll and Thunder is a, I don't know if it's a once a year event, but it's where Spartaner County brings in multiple agencies across the state. And they basically inhabit I-85, I-26, with departments from all over the state,

including their helicopters and you name it. And so the big deal with this has always been, and this is what Fitz News has been. heavily invested in their reporting on is the fact that the civil asset forfeiture aspect of Operation Roll and Thunder is abusing the powers of the departments, especially against the citizens. There's been cases and articles and everything that shows that Spartanburg County has potentially abused their authority, or at the very least, they have left people on the side of the

road, not actually charging them with a crime, but in some cases saying that, hey, we believe your vehicle was used in the trafficking of drugs because we smell drugs in this vehicle. We had a drug dog run around your vehicle or whatever. And so we're going to actually seize your vehicle. And then you got to go fight for it to get it back, which is a civil asset for what's your thing. Can you tell me a little bit about this? I mean, we had talked about this before the show a couple days ago. And I know that, you know, you as a law enforcement guy, you're probably going to have maybe a different perspective on this than maybe some of our listeners.

or even us. But can you just tell me about Operation Roll and Thunder and especially considering there's, I guess, rumors out there that Chuck Wright has a vehicle potentially that was seized from asset or from Operation Roll and Thunder. But we've just had so many people to reach out, especially after our one podcast, we had up for like three weeks until there was an officer from another department. I was like, hey, you know, Sparta County's, you know, some of those guys have heard your podcast about Operation Roll and Thunder.

or maybe you should just take it down or whatever. I thought about it for a couple weeks. We did take it down, but I got to bring it up again because there's been national reports on Operation Roll and Thunder. This is not just like a local issue. There have been national news agencies that have talked about Operation Roll and Thunder under Chuck Rice leadership and how they utilize this program to seize vehicles for monetary gain for the county.

and my question to you is, is obviously it has faced criticism. And can you talk about how maybe it operated internally or whether deputies were ever pressured to seize property or prioritize assets or I guess the assets forfeiture? Do you know anything about that? What is your consensus on that? So I'll preface it by saying that, you know, I don't think that anything that was done at, Deering Rolling Thunder is illegal. Nothing that's done there. I don't think anything nefarious is going on.

I don't think that they're seizing stuff that they're not allowed to seize. I think they are acting within the law. I think the sheriff is acting again within the law. But what I don't agree with is the taking of property or trying to coerce someone to sign over money or whatever. And not saying that the deputies that are doing that are doing that. But I do not agree with, well, we'll start with the stuff that I don't agree with. I don't agree with the guilty until proven innocent.

Hey, you've got $15,000. We're going to take this unless you can prove that this is your money right now. And, well, I'm not going to prove it's my money right now. Why do I need to prove that it's my money? It's in my possession. It's my money. You know, maybe I'm going up to the casino and maybe I just left the casino, like, whatever. But why do I have to prove to you why it's money?

Now, if you got a ton of money and drugs, okay, now you can infer that probably the money came from the sale of the drugs. But when it's one or the other, then I don't agree with that part. I do think that Rolling Thunder has its purpose. I think that they are getting a lot of drugs, and it's evident that they are getting a lot of drugs off of the interstate. But again, what I don't like is that these drugs are typically going between Atlanta and D.C. And stopping in Charlotte or whatever.

Most of these drugs are not coming into Spartanburg County. They're coming through Spartanburg County, but they're not going to Spartanburg County. And while you can get drugs off of any street is beneficial, I think that we need to focus more on South Carolina streets. And instead of doing interdiction on the interstates, we can do the interdiction on more county roads. Now, Rolling Thunder is only one week a year. They do it one week a year. And it's not just Spartanburg County.

They do it other places, I-95, a lot of high-traffic area. But it is a way for them to get not just drugs off the street, but drug money off. But you also see the problem too with people that are like, well, you know, the guy that leads Operation Roll and Thunder is potentially a drug addict. That's not checking himself into rehab. And yet their main goal with this program is to get drugs off the quote-unquote street. And I'm just going to say I am a Facebook detective, like a lot of women. out there. And I want to let you know that people

are saying that he had a Ford Raptor which is over a $100,000 vehicle, a truck that had Raptor on the side of it, that he actually seized that from Rolling Thunder and used it as his private vehicle. Is that true? So he

did have a Ford Raptor. Yes, that part is true. But it's my understanding that that Ford Raptor, while it came from a I don't know if it was a seizure or a forfeiture, but it did come from, it did come from one of those two. It's my understanding that there was a loan still on the vehicle, but it did not come from Rolling Thunder. It came from a different incident. You know, whether they said, okay,

we're either going to take it and you're going to be responsible for the loan or they said, you can sign it over to us and then we'll pay it off and we'll use it as a county vehicle or whatever somehow Spartanburg County ended up in possession of this Ford Raptor that was driven by the sheriff's for a year or two now do you think the county paid that vehicle off do you think Chuck Wright paid the loan off the county it I believe it came through fleet services came out of the fleet services budget. So it would have been the taxpayers that paid off Chuck Wright's personal vehicle.

Right. Well, it wasn't a personal vehicle. I mean, it had blue lights in it. Oh, it did. Okay. All right. And, uh, I mean, it was, it was a police vehicle. And, uh, and it, and it remained at, in the, it, it went to the narcotics unit

for a little while. And then it went to, uh, investigations for a little while. And then once it hit close to 100,000 miles, supposedly the, the, the value drops at 100,000 miles. So they traded it in right before the 100,000 miles so they could get the maximum, you know, trade in value and purchase whatever vehicle they needed to purchase, you know, with those funds. I got you. Yeah, I mean, but you understand where I'm coming from, right? I mean, you know, perception is reality.

Yeah. It's like blue lights. Okay, cool. I mean, I could go put blue lights in my dodge if it is. I mean, I can't technically because I would get to jail for that. But you could do that per se. Okay, so listen. And so I don't know if you want to talk about this at all.

You had mentioned earlier about guns. Is there anything about guns that you want to talk about? So. And if you don't, we can edit this out. But it's up to you. I know that Sheriff Wright likes guns. And I was told, I will tell you that I was told when I first started the sheriff's office when we were touring the different areas. You know, we toured evidence and they were

like, this is where we keep the guns, this is where we keep this, this is where we keep that. And, you know, this is how evidence locker works. And it was told at that time, the person that was given us the tour, pointed to some ammunition and was like, this is the ammunition. After, you know, after it goes for so long, we can use this ammunition for training, you know, Sheriff's Office purchases. once it reaches, I wasn't in evidence. I don't really know how long it has to stay before it becomes public property or whatever, before it has to be auctioned or used for sheriff's office purposes. But it was told at that point, you know, when it comes through, you know,

the sheriff gets his pick first and then whatever's left over, you know, we can use. So that's kind of been a running joke. I know that the sheriff has a lot. lot of firearms that he would typically keep in his vehicle. There's a gun safe, an unremovable gun safe in his vehicle, but that he would, you know, use firearms regularly. I don't really know. Sorry, sorry, Nick.

Sorry, Nick, we're asking you hard questions. Let's jump this topic. And I want to go to this next topic. Who in the heck is Elby Watson? Because I've been reading all about Elby Watson. And supposedly he's getting $50,000 a month and not even a sheriff or a deputy or anything. Is it a year or a month? It's a year or a month.

Sorry, a year. So, you know, anybody, any public official that makes more than $50,000 is foyerable on their annual salary. I think his salary in 2022 or 2024, was 52 or 54,000, which is the same as a master deputy. And, you know, so the highest, you know, somebody that's been there six, ten years, you know, as a class one officer. I think that the issue that is coming up with LB is that he was not a class one officer, but getting paid as a class one officer.

It was a civilian, as far as I know. And this is Chuck Wright's cousin, right? Yeah. So that's what everybody has been told. You know, usually when you have a high-level family member, everybody knows. So that's what everybody has been told is that was his cousin. And it's not been disputed. So I would assume over the last 25 years that that would have been disputed.

Yeah. And Nick, let me ask you this. You ran against CheckRite. I don't know if we have made that in clear and plain view that you ran against Chuck Wright. What year was that, by the way? That was last year's primary. So the primary of 2024. He was running as a Republican.

I was a Republican. And so that was the June primary. Okay. Can you just tell me briefly, like, besides the fact, obviously, how much of, because I believe this is going to be national news. I think it already is, to some degree. We heard on Fox News. There was rumors that Trey Gowdy was his attorney, which I think you said technically, no, that's not true, right? That's correct. So I was told that when he announced this, that he was taking a leave of absence, that he was consulting with, with Trey Gowdy at the

sheriff's office. Several people saw. him at the sheriff's office. And so it was inferred that he was, in fact, going to be, you know, his representation. You know, supposedly he told his command staff that, hey, I'm going into rehab. I'm checking myself in, which, by the way, I feel like is a, not a, I have a problem with pills, so I'm going to go get help, but more of a, hey, I talked to Trey Gowdy, and Trey Gowdy said that I should really go into rehab so that I can, you know, make the best out of any potential charges that I may be getting from the FBI. That's my personal thought.

Yeah, well, we see what happened to Alec Murdoch. Right. So, you know, I feel like that's a strategic move. It's not a move like, you know, trying to actually get help. But, you know, if he needs help, I hope he gets it. So he was seen there at the office, but from what I understand now, and that's, that surprised me a lot. that Trey would, especially with the allegations of the money stuff, that he was going to need representation, that Trey Gowdy would actually represent him, especially being that that's what's going on in the federal government right now is trying to expose corruption and excessive use of funds and, you know, frivolous spending. So how would that look if, you know, Mr. Trey Gowdy, that's on Fox News every single day, talking about elected officials,

using taxpayer dollars for personal gain defend someone. So that did surprise me. But I've recently learned that I do not believe that he is represented. I think he may have just been a personal counsel. They both served together in Spartanburg County. They know each other. I believe they're friends. And I think that was just a personal call. Hey, can you come give me advice? I believe that he is retained

some attorneys out of Columbia. And I think that is his actual representation. All right. So here's a big question. We have had, you know, we told you about our podcast that we had had about a year and a half ago where we talked about Operation Roll and Thunder, an officer from another county actually reached out. I know you're listening right now.

I'm not going to say your name. But anyways, he reached out and said, you know, what he said, hey, you know, Maybe you just don't talk about that necessarily because, you know, you're part time in the county, whatever. My question is, is that we, because of that episode, and I'm going to tread lightly on this. But because of that episode, we have had some type of issues. I'll just put it there with some people, potentially. and the department. And very interestingly enough, the actions we saw in this particular run-in, I'll put it that

way, because of our opinions, was almost like, as you look at everything this happening right now with Chuck Wright in this department, it wasn't surprising. It really was not surprising to me to where it was like, oh, my God, I can't believe this person would do this or say this or threaten this or whatever because when you know that, you know, a lot of people say, well, if the top is corrupt, you know, you think about, for example, if you're a Republican and you look at the Biden Harris administration and you think about the FBI, which we've had FBI guys on the show, we've had CIA guys on the show. And all of those guys that we've had on the show that are under the leadership are usually

really good people. I mean, you know, I tell people all the time. To get into the FBI is not easy. I mean, that is a lifelong dream. Like when you're a kid and you're saying, hey, I want to be Superman, you know, in some ways for people that want to be law enforcement, being an FBI agent is like the Superman equivalent to that, you know, kind of mindset. And so I've always said, it's like, it's not the FBI agents that is wrong or corrupt.

It's not necessarily the CIA guys that are corrupt. It is the system. It is the top down. And especially when you start thinking about command staff or when you start thinking about, you know, say, for example, you have an FBI director. But then whoever they appoint underneath them usually align with what they want and what they envision, whatever that is, whether it's politically, whether it is to protect the head of the agency. you ran against Chuck Wright. And is this issue at all, there's a few questions in this. So just hear me out.

You better write it down, Nick, because he got a lot of questions. So you ran against Chuck Wright. When you have someone, say that everything is true about Chuck Wright, which we don't know right now. We do not know if it is. and I hope I would love actually to hear tomorrow that hey the indictment came out or the investigation came out all this stuff is is is bullshit whatever it is and people have accused Chuck Wright wrongly and this guy is a saint and all this stuff right people would love to hear that but if that's not the case the question is is that um were there co-conspirators in this

or at least people that knew about it, allowed it to happen, continued to happen. And since you ran against him, what would your vision be on your command staff versus maybe Chuck Wrights? Because obviously, if you were there for 10 years, I know this is a hard question. But if you were there for 10 years, you probably knew a lot of these people. And you definitely knew a lot of deputies. And I think there's something to your credit, and I will say this, on all your videos, you have said continually. like the guys at the sheriff's department, you got to support those guys because they are there, they are working their asses off, they are out there risking their lives for the safety of

Spartanork County citizens. And so you don't like put the burden of Chuck Wright or whatever the allegations are on him, on the deputies. But how much burden can you put on command staff? Is that a thing? What is your thoughts on that? Especially since like, hey, maybe in the future you become sheriff.

Like how do you change the sheriff's office and how much of the influence of Chuck Wright could you get rid of or should you get rid of? So yeah. So I mean, absolutely as the sheriff, you know, the sheriff puts in the command staff. Command staff is not people that have put in applications and said, hey, I would be interested in being, you know, the captain, whatever. Command staff is hand-selected by the sheriff. So they are people that the sheriff has put in that position and this is kind of where your term limits come in and where you need term limits.

So as a new sheriff, I would say that you need people in those positions that not just have experience and know what they're doing, but also are light-minded to the sheriff. Okay. So someone who also looks at integrity the same way that I would look at integrity. And so you can't have people in a position for so long because people change. Okay. And then absolute power, absolutely corrupt. You know?

Yes. And I see, you know, you look at the 17 sheriffs that have been indicted over the past, however long it's been 10 years or 20 years or whatever it is, since just in South Carolina, 10 years seems to be the most beneficial time. After the 10 years, people start getting complacent and elected officials as a whole. and start becoming complacent and get used to the power. And it becomes less of a what can I do for the people and more what can people do for me. So you also, you know, you don't want somebody that is, while I'm appointed this person, you don't want somebody that is going to tell you what you want to hear. Because that's not beneficial.

It's not beneficial for the citizens of the county. it's not beneficial for the deputies. You want somebody that will still tell you what you need to hear and not what you want to hear. And so, you know, you need people that are going to hold you accountable just as much as you're going to hold them accountable. And, you know, as a captain or as a command staff,

the people for Sheriff Wright, it would be very hard for them to not see what was going on because they were there with him every day or should have been there with him every day, it'd be very hard for them to have not seen some of these issues. But I would hope that anybody that saw it would have said something. So I'm hoping that the people that have seen something

or saying something to the FBI, but I feel like these people should have said something sooner if they did see something. That would be more of a slid issue. issue to look into and you know that's where audits internal audits for a new sheriff you know whether it's me or whether it's someone else it's going to take two or three years to fully go through everything and make sure you know open any investigations that need to be opened because people are going to come out of the woodworks people that that you know thought that their issues that their

case was an isolated issue and they find out that the sheriff has been doing whatever he's been doing Yeah. It negates the trust that the citizens have for that department. So, you know, it is a people believe citizens, constituents believe that the sheriff runs the sheriff's office. So I would venture to say that it is an unpopular belief of mine that the sheriff doesn't run the sheriff's office. He is the face of the sheriff's office. but he does not run the sheriff's office. The deputies and those below him run the sheriff's office.

The 99% of the sheriff's office, the other 600 deputies between the jail and the sheriff's office proper are the ones that are running the 500 and 90 other deputies are the ones that are running the sheriff's office. Yeah. A vast majority of those are doing a great job. So, you know, your command staff needs to be people that that will tell you things that you need to hear, not what you want to hear. Yeah, I agree with that, Nick. And Nick, we're not going to keep you much longer, but to the people, like I said, I mean, we don't know. I mean, we don't know what's going to happen with Chuck Wright and, you know, you've ran against him before. But to the people that have a disconnect, because, by the way, I don't know if you know this, but there are people in Republican Party that have a disconnect with law enforcement as much as Democrats do.

It's not just Democrats. And I think part of that is because just the government whole. If you run for sheriff or somehow get into that position again, like how do you bring everybody together to where it's like, hey, look, our job, and this is just my opinion, I'm inserting here, but our job is to enforce law. it is to protect our citizens. It is not to impose or to corrupt or within our own department or it is not to utilize our taxpayer dollars for our benefit and not your benefit. How do you look at this differently as a candidate for sheriff in comparison to Chuck Wright? And how do you bring more people on the side?

Because, you know, like I said, Chuck Wright's always out there. It's like, hey, look, guys, you know, you know, you're doing crime, you're going to do time. And I believe in that. But don't you think there's a way to kind of bring more people together to where it's like, hey, look, we know in large part across the board. And I mean, this is just my opinion, but government is a lot of times corrupt. That is what most people believe right now.

After COVID, after the past four years, after everything, people do not trust government at all. And now you have this issue in Spartanburg County. and it's like for people of Smarmore County they're like damn it like we just went through all this other stuff and now we have in our own backyard a corruption incident so like can we trust anybody at all

like who can we even trust anymore like if you were to sheriff like how would you convey the message that you can trust us you can trust me this is what I'm going to do different than Chuck this is what I'm going to this is how I'm going to do this like what have you thought about that at night? Like, what is your thoughts on that? Yeah. So, I mean, bad news travels

10 times faster than good news. You know, you go to a brand new restaurant. A new restaurant comes in at your local community. And, you know, 99 people can go in there and have a great dinner, have great service, have great food. But then the one person that goes in there and had to wait because it was a brand new restaurant and had to wait 30 minutes to get in to get their food that, you know, was sitting on the counter for five minutes waiting on the waitress to be able to come back and get it whatever. That is going to be the news. The news is that I went to this restaurant, service was slow, food was cold, and it was expensive. That is going to travel a hundred times further than the other people that had a great experience. It's the same thing. So the bad news

of the stuff that's going on is with government as a whole. Travels way faster than the good news with the government. So that does not help with the public's perception of any government. So the biggest way to combat that is through transparency and communication. So if you can do, like, Spartan County does not do, Spartan mechanics Sheriff's Office does not hold any kind of community events. They don't do a lot of things in the community, whether it be National Night Out, you know, town hall events or social media.

Citizen advisory committees or that sort of thing. That is what you need to bridge the gap between the agency and the communities. You know, there's only, you know, at any given time, there's only, you know, 20, 25 deputies that are out patrolling the road. And so with all those deputies that are out, there's 800 and something square miles in Spartanburg County. They can't be everywhere. And, you know, unfortunately, they're going to be in the most populated areas because

that's where the most people are at and that's where the most crime occurs. So with that being said, the citizens are, I'm in my neighborhood every single night. there might only be one patrol deputy come through my neighborhood per 10 days. So the deputies at no fault of their own don't know everything that I know about my community. So if I could go to a town hall event that the sheriff's office was hosting, whether it be once a month, once a quarter, even once every six months, it doesn't really matter. As long as it happens regularly so that the citizens know that they can go to the sheriff's office and discuss issues that going out, they feel like they have power.

Like the power is back in the good guys' hands. And that's how you build that bridge between the agency and the communities. It's going to take time to repair that relationship, just like with your kids, you know, when they lie to you, it takes a long time to rebuild, you know, that trust back and forth between the kids. Yeah. You know, it's the same thing with the deputies. So, but it's a...

You know, it's unfortunate. Deputies have to do the work to repair what the sheriff did. Yeah, for sure. You know, they have to work extra hard when they go on a call to rebuild that trust between just that one person. And so when you're doing that one person at a time, one call at a time, it's going to take some time. Yeah. I have one another question for you, and I won't hold you up much longer. but I have been following this guy named Derek Coral's on Facebook,

and what it sounds like is he's maybe a civil rights activist. He's really been on Greenville County more than Spartanburg County because of just the fact that they only have three black police officers in the force, where I think Spartanburg County is way more diverse than Greenville County. But the reason I bring this up is because when I'm on Facebook and other platforms, it seems like to me it's either the older white Christian population going for Chuck Wright or is the black population going against Chuck Wright and saying that he's a racist. Can you give me any insight why they think that? I mean, I don't have an answer for that.

I've not personally seen anything where, you know, he has done anything. civil rights against any individuals. But again, the sheriff is the face of the office, but he is not who is running the office. You know, he's not the one going out there and recruiting individuals. And, you know, that's the recruiter's job. Ultimately, the sheriff has the last say. They present these individuals to the sheriff and say, hey, we want to hire this person. We've gone through the interview process. We've vetted them. Can we hire them? Yes or know, you know, he makes that last checkmark, but he's not the one that vets individuals. So, you know, I don't really know how to answer why anyone would feel that we're not.

I don't think so either. But you said Spartan Mar County is more diverse, right? Yeah, yes. Yeah, Spartan County is very diverse. I mean, it is very diverse. Yeah. But I think as far as, like, targeting black criminals versus. versus white criminals?

Well, you know, it's got to go back to, you know, what the sheriff has said in national news before. You know, his verbiage does not suggest that, how do you politely say it, that he is not racist. you know, when you say stuff on news that gets brought up in New York Times about, you know, we had every right to shoot that black fellow. You know, you can't say stuff like that. I mean, whether they were black or not is irrelevant. Like, you could have left that out. He, you know, it's my opinion, he doesn't have the filter that he needs.

Like, he just says, like, whatever comes in his mind comes out. and whether he means it or not, that only he knows. Which can be a good thing, by the way. You know, let's keep in mind. Like, it can be a good thing. It's like, and, and listen, I'm not saying Chuck Wright's racist at all. I don't necessarily think he is. I don't know.

I don't have no idea. I've never heard, I've heard a lot of stuff Chuck Wright has said in private. This is just what I'm seeing from the black community on Facebook. Yeah, yeah. It's things like that. It's things that, you know, that the typical. person would not agree with. That verbiage that suggests that he's not treating everyone equally, that he's not, you know, treating all the criminals exactly the same regardless of, you know, race, creed or religion.

So. But the reality is, is like, yes, I mean, when the law enforcement is put on you in any way, shape, or form, you're going to have this vendetta against them, no matter. what it is, you're going to have that. And that's just the way it goes. Anytime the system is put on you, because however you look at it, law enforcement, the courts, everything, once you get into the system, you are in the system. And they have or hold some part of authoritarian, I guess, standpoint on your life. And a lot of people don't like that. And, you know, unfortunately, I mean, we've talked about us on the podcast. I mean, there is large portions of communities. whether it's black, Asian, white, whatever it is, that have their own things.

You know, whether, you know, there's a certain section of a community that has more crime because of maybe their circumstances or their upbringings or there's so many issues when it comes to why certain groups commit whatever it is, right? I mean, it doesn't matter what it is. I mean, it goes back to the basics of it's not racism. It's just culture. And it's not even just culture. circumstance. And it's not a race thing. It's just that, like, that's, we have to figure out more

so than anything. Like, how do we stop the cultural divide of whether it be crime or whatever the case is? I think Spartanburg City, by the way, I'm pretty, I've been pretty close to Spartan Mark City for quite a few years. And Spartan Mark City did a lot with the Highlands area and kind of bring in, trying to kind of separate everybody. because they said, hey, look, we need to separate people that are kind of locked in this almost like, it's almost like an open air prison in some ways. I mean, if you think about hoods and ghettos and all that stuff, you put all these people together. They're low income. They don't have a lot of money.

How do they wake up every day and say, I got to do something. I got to make money. I got to do whatever I got to do. And I have no money. I am on the government program. I'm on the government assistance. I'm doing all this stuff. And you almost like incentivize these people.

people to commit crime. I mean, literally, that's what I think. And so that's why it was Spartan-Rick City, with the help of the mayor and some of these other people, I was a part of that boot camp about seven or eight years ago. We went through the whole city. And they were like, how do we, how do we regentivize or stop a lot of the crime in certain areas? Well, we got to separate these people.

We got to get these people away from each other to the point of like, hey, you can create a life. don't worry about all the other outside BS or the kind of whatever. And Smartburg City did do a good job of trying to separate people, trying to do the best they could to do that. And I don't think it's a color issue. I think it's a cultural issue. I think it's an issue of like upbringing. And you can see the same things in trailer parks with white people or whatever it is.

I mean, it's not just hoods or ghettos. It is trailer parks. It is all these things. It is low income. It is low opportunity. And somehow we have to do better at creating opportunities for these people and getting them off the streets and getting them out of the ways of they feel like they're desperate to do something. And I think that law enforcement has to play some type of role in that. But I don't think law enforcement can be the solution to that, if that makes any sense, Nick.

I think that has to be. You have to, you have to, you know, law is supposed to be even for everyone, you know, regardless of how much you make, regardless of what level status you are in the communities, you know, regardless of your color. It's supposed to be flat across the board. And so, you know, you have to, it's hard for law enforcement to be able to say, you know, what can we do about that because it's not let me ask you you see four white guys in the car four black guys who do you pull over first I'm just kidding

that's very bad but listen there are a lot of people that say that you're obviously all day every day going to pull over four black guys or if you have tinted windows you like racial profiling I guess and we know law enforcement does do that

but like how to profiles I would tell you It is not illegal to profile. It is illegal to racially profiled. It is illegal to profile for, you know, for other reasons. But, you know, you can justify, hey, this car that is super loud with the bumper hanging off. They just pulled out of the business that's closed with the broken window. You know, I profiled that vehicle coming out of that broken window business. They probably committed that crime.

Let me go pull them over. you know, you can profile that stuff. You can not profile, you know, for the other personal reasons, you know. Yeah. Yeah, it's like Myrtle Beach, by the way. Shout out, Myrtle Beach Police for the squatted trucks, the squatted trucks. The squatted trucks. There's all the white dudes that are down there, the squatted truck.

The Myrtle Beach police was eventually like, hey, you know what? We're going to ticket everybody. And we'll ticket them 28 times if we have to because these guys, they're a bunch of, you know, the country boy, you know, white redneck dudes. squatted trucks and they created the same amount of issues as any other group they came down there.

And that's that was the point was like that's when it got national news. It was like, oh my God, the squatted trucks are being scrutinized and all this stuff. I'm like,

well, look, I mean, they are kind of nuisance and kind of a hole at some points of time. Well, I just have one last question,

I promise. If you do run for sheriff again, obviously I would support you. And this is the reason why. And I told you this on the phone the other night. When I went to vote, I didn't realize. I mean, I'm like most civilians. We don't know. You have to go to the primary to even vote you in because when I went to vote, there was one person on the ticket and was Chuck Wright. I didn't see Nick Duncan anywhere. So we got to get that out that if you want change in your county, you got to vote in the primaries. Can you just tell us about that and how people will be aware of that? the next time. Regardless of where you're at, you know, it is, you know, you have independence and you have Republicans and you have Democrats, you know, but on the general ticket, you're only going to have one Republican, one Democrat, one independent, one libertary, whatever, you're

only going to have one person from each party. So, you know, if, if me as a Republican, align mostly with the Republican party, the Republican person that is running, then of course that is who I'm going to pick. But if I want to pick from people that are like-minded like me, then I need to go vote in the Republican primary or I need to go to vote in the Democrat primary because that's where I'm going to have 6-10 or however many people to choose from. That's where I'm going to choose which of these six-term. candidates, I think most aligns with what I think about. And while as a whole, yes, they probably

all align mostly with me 60% of what I think or whatever. But, you know, one of those people may align 60% with me, 50% with me, and the next one's 40% with me. So the only time that I have a true say-so is if I go vote in that primary. That's when I get to choose. who I want. Because when it comes down to the general, it's probably, you know, the likelihood that my, you know, political opinion is going to align with that party. So if I'm going to have a voice, it's going to be on picking those six people that mostly align with my thinking.

Yeah. No, I agree with that. And, Nick, listen, I commend you with coming on our podcast because, I mean, you know, I don't think a lot of people in law enforcement, it's been a law enforcement. Well, we've had five few, actually. I commend myself tonight, actually. Why do you commend yourself? I mean, this is a hard subject to talk about when it's in your backyard.

It's scary. Yeah, it is. It is. I mean, but, you know, Nick has been out there talking about it. By the way, Nick, what is the situation? Who is, I guess, Chief Deputy right now is run the Sheriff's Department. How does the sheriff's race look in the future? How does it work?

So, you know, there's only. been in the last 20 years in Spartanburg, there have only been two people run against Sheriff Wright. I was in 2016 and then again in 2024. And you know,

people, people, I feel like in the future, let's say that nothing happens and that we're going into 2028. And Chuck Wright comes out and says, okay, I'm not going to run anymore. So the

I feel like the amount of people that are going to come out of the woodwork is is going to be crazy. I think I think that the next election when Chuck Wright is not running, people are going to come out of the woodwork. And especially so if it's an indictment, you know, if there's an indictment that he's removed from office or if he steps down or what have you. You know, then it's almost like, oh, shoot, the hard work has been done. Chuck Wright's gone. Now I have a chance. So I think you're going to have those people come forward and say, okay, now I want to be a sheriff. Now that Chuck's not there, I want to be sheriff.

So I think that moving forward, there's going to be several people. So, you know, just like during the election, I encourage everybody to do your due diligence, go through, look at each candidate, go to all the town halls or open forums, debates, all that stuff, So you can make an educated decision on who you want to run whatever, whether it be the sheriff's office or, you know, county council or whatever. You know, yes, the president of the United States has an impact on my life. But he does not have as much of an impact on my life as local officials. Yeah, I agree with that. And by the way, that's what I say.

I mean, you came on our show. And so if we get to a situation, and is there a potential special election, how does that work? If he is indicted, like say he's indicted, does it have to get to a verdict for there to be a special election? So, yes, there has to be a verdict before there is a special election. So the options are, so right now he's, he is taking a leave of absence. That is only, that is considered temporary. If he decides to go ahead and step down, then they can go ahead and hold a special election because he is relinquishing his position. If he holds out and says, okay, let's see what happens with this indictment.

Okay, they indict him. It's innocent until proven guilty. So an indictment is just like a warrant. It's just, you know, there's a probability that you committed this crime enough so that we were able to get a warrant to go to court. you know, we have to go, there has to be that conviction. Once that conviction happens or doesn't happen, you know, if it doesn't happen, then he can come back to office, I would assume. But if he's indicted, then he's, A, he's no longer allowed.

If it's a felony, he's no longer eligible. But the governor would eventually have to step in at some point and remove him from office. once he is actually removed from office, which is typically going to be after that conviction, then they would hold the special election. Okay. And then a special election is the same scenario as a regular election just on, yeah, just based on different circumstances, right? I think so. I don't, you know, there's not, I don't believe there's going to be like a primary.

I'm not very versed in the special elections, but I don't think that there's a primary. I think it's basically a general election. And you may have, well, yeah, I'm pretty sure that you'll have more than one Republican, more than one Democrat available to be on the general ticket. I would research that and just double-check that. But I think that is how that goes. Now, would you run for that special election if that comes in the future? I would. Absolutely.

Because, you know, like I said, the hard work has been. been done. You know, David's slain Goliath at that point. And, you know, I'm not, I'm not taking credit by any means. But I did, I did turn him in. Nick, you literally are the person that, I mean, because I want to make everybody aware, even though it sounds crazy when you say that like, hey, Nick, on our podcast right now on this national news story, but Chuck Wright is the guy that kind of did the thing that he's supposed to do. But I mean, but I mean, I mean, you was transparent and saw corruption and turned it in. You did the thing that you were supposed to do.

I cannot tell you how many times in law enforcement I've heard. There is this hierarchy. And it's like if you step outside of that, you are condemned. I'm trying to say is that you did put your neck in the line. Even after the fact that you lost the election, you were still like, well, I want to expose the corruption. And you exposed yourself by doing that, Nick. And that's commendable. because as you said, you know, absolute power, or I guess you can say, power corrupts absolutely.

And the longer you have it, I guess the more likely you are to corrupt that power. And, you know, with term limits and all that stuff, we've talked about in Congress and Senate and whatever, but you have put your neck on the line for Spartanburg County. I think that you have the real true feelings of the county and the people. people at your best interest. Well, I do have a question about that real quick. Sorry, Nick. I promise this is the last question.

If you were to run for sheriff, you know, you would be running as a Republican. But I think, in my opinion, and I think a lot of opinions is it should be a bipartisan role. How would you appeal to people that are Democrats? So it goes back to, again, it's a. very unpopular opinion and probably shooting myself in the foot with especially like the Republican party. My personal beliefs most align with the Republicans. Okay. You know, as a government agency, you know, whatever. When I look at someone to vote for, I don't look to see are they a Republican or

the Democrat, I hear everyone out. And then it's, I will say, almost always a Republican. So I am a Republican. That's my line of thinking is that way. But as a law enforcement official, it goes back to you have to treat everyone equally. And I will agree that a, as the head of an agency, it's like being a judge. You know, the law is the law. and there isn't an opinion of that.

I mean, there is, but it's from the Supreme Court. You know, it's not my job to insert my opinion into the laws that I enforce, if that makes sense. And, you know, my thinking as a Republican should not be like, okay, well, I'm going to arrest this dang Democrat over here because, you know, they don't think the same way I do. or whatever. But as a partisan position, you know, you, you open yourself up for that kind of line of thinking. You know, the Democrats, if the, if the sheriff is a Republican, then the Democrats are like, well, he's just arresting me because I'm a Democrat. Or the sheriff is a Democrat, well, he's just, you know, he doesn't like me because I'm a Republican. And, you know, if it is a neutral party, then, you know, you kind of nip that, you know, there's a lot that goes into it.

And at least you take that aspect out of it. But, you know, that's just not how that is. And by the way, I think the Constitution kind of shows all of that. It's like, hey, I soar an oath to our Constitution. and for that reason, I have to do the same thing for all people of my county. And this is what most people only want. They don't want corruption. They don't want the BS.

They don't want the abuse of power. They just want you to uphold your authority and power to the Constitution. And as long as you could do that, I think most people should be on board with that. matter what culture you're from, no matter what society you are, you're in, if you uphold the constitution that affords the rights and protections of all people. And I always think about this. I see these YouTube videos of these guys going in and recording videos in these like county, these county departments or county spaces. And I'm always like some of these guys are just complete assholes. I mean, don't get it wrong. But are you talking about the guys that go and

audit. Yeah, like the civil ass. Yeah. Yeah. Freedom auditors. Yeah, the free, but it's like, it's so funny to me how many departments still do not, they get baited in. You know, like, you know, it's, I'm for the public audit. Like, if you have a right to be there, then go for it. What I don't agree with is how some of the individuals, I'm not saying, I'm not going to lump everybody together, but how some of the auditors, you know, try to go people into doing something, into infringing. It's kind of like my wife, you know, going me into, you know, an argument, you know, say something under a breath.

I mean, what did you sell? Like, just ignore it. Like, you know, you're not, you're not going to pull me into that argument. Like, whatever, you have a right to be here. That's fine. And that's a problem. That's a problem is so many of these departments do not know how to not get baited into this. It's like, please just stop.

Yeah, just leave, leave him in there in the public space and just let him record. for however long he wants the record. But that goes back to training and having the money off the credit card into police training on how to deal with these people. Absolutely right. It does because, I mean, if you look at some of these people that go into these departments and then some of these people get arrested for things that are unconstitutional. And then they sue the department.

Sometimes for millions of dollars of taxpayer money. I tell people all the time, I'm like, dude, if I am somewhere, and someone is arresting me and I am not doing anything wrong, I am not resisting, like because now I'm doing something wrong. Yeah. And I arrest me, take me to jail, infringe on my rights because I'm going to sue. And, you know, I'm not going to do anything wrong. I'm not going to, you know, do whatever.

But, you know, if my rights are being infringed on, then I'm not going to provoke that any further, then, you know, then needs to be. because you're not going to change that person's mind. No, no, you're not. You're not going to be able to pull your arm away and say, you're not going to arrest me. Oh, my bad. Go ahead.

Have a good day, sir. That's not going to happen. So, yeah, go ahead and take your arrest. I mean, you just can go, what, sit in jail for an hour and a half and two hours and get paid how much for two hours worth of work? Yeah. People are like, well, you probably shouldn't do a podcast in Spartan County because it's, you know, it's in your backyard.

We don't worry about repercussions. or none of that stuff. I mean, we're not the county department employees. We're none of that. I mean, the reality is that taxpayers and the people and the citizens of this county deserve better. And if what the allegations are of Chuck Wright are true, the people deserve better. Nick, I think it's incredible what you have done.

I think it's incredible that you have put your neck on the line for this county. I am proud to have you on this show. That's something that most people would not do. I think it is a good representation of people out there that listen to this show that say, hey, all law enforcement is bad. Screw all those guys because of let's look at our government. Let's look at those people that are just complete assholes or complete corruption. Let's look at that.

And then a lot of people oftentimes just kind of correlate that with every government agency. And so for Nick's point is like, people like Nick we have to have in because he's the guy that's out there saying hey this is what's wrong I don't give a shit whether I have to you know 10 years of law enforcement I will risk that I will do what I got to do to call it out and Nick we have to have more people like you you have to put your neck in line there has to be more officers like you and I think that even command staff I would hope that if you become sheriff in it in the near future whenever is for Spartanburg County, that your command staff feel the same way as you do. I hope that,

you know, you appoint people or whatever that have that same mindset. That is, that is not like, hey, we're pro government. No, you're pro citizen. Right. Yeah, I'm pro people. And, you know, we need to make sure that, you know, as a law enforcement agency, the citizens are, you know, the reason that we're even in existence. You know, it's protecting citizens from one another, essentially, you know, one crime, you know, a crime against another person. So, you know, if you don't have the trust from the law enforcement agencies, then there's no need to even have the people there.

No, I agree. Nick, last question. Literally the last question. What is the, what is the, current state of the indictment. What are we looking at? What is the time frame? It is, what, April the 22nd right now? Where is Chuck Wright at? Is he going to be indicted or, you know, when is this thing going to potentially happen? My personal opinion is that an indictment is coming. Obviously, you know, I don't work for the FBI. I don't even have any friends in the FBI.

but my personal opinion, knowing what I know and the people that are being spoken to and questioned, I don't see how he can get out of an indictment. Maybe he can get out of a, you know, maybe he can get out of a conviction, but I don't see how he would be able to get out of an indictment. You know, unfortunately, a lot of times with convictions, you know, the more money you have, the easier it is to get off. and especially being in a political power as well. But I don't see that any, I don't see that he's going to be able to get out of,

even out of the conviction, honestly. As far as where we're at, I don't really know. Again, because I'm not part of that investigation, obviously. But it's my understanding that they are still interviewing people, not just not for the indictment, but that the FBI is still interviewing individuals. and when they talk to someone and they get good information, good plausible information, firsthand witness accounts, then they are subpoenaing the individuals for the grand jury. And the same jurors are hearing everyone's testimony, sworn testimony.

I see on social media a lot, they're like, I want to know what deputy it is that's turned its line against. sheriff right. And it's not one deputy. It's not, it's not one person. Like, the FBI doesn't just go talk to one person and say, okay, yep, he's going to jail. That's not how it works. Um, you know, time wise, we're probably, I don't know, I say we're probably a month, month and a half out from an permanent indictment, um, from an indictment decision. Um, you know, seeing as how they are still talking to the grand jurors and witness testimonies. But the same jurors that are hearing the witness testimonies are the same jurors that will decide on the indictment when it comes time.

Yeah, it's interesting. And I've said before, once you convene a federal grand jury, usually your... It's not for nothing. Yeah, usually it's not good. And once the federal prosecutors, you know, take the case, which if the grand jury indicts, They will. They have like a 98% conviction rate. I don't even know what it is, but it's ridiculous.

It sounds crazy. But, I mean, and that's a good thorough investigation. Like, I mean, there's no sense in tying people up. I did the same thing when I was in investigations. You know, that was one of my very first questions when I would call somebody that, you know, that had a burglary or whatever. I mean, like, okay, when I find this person, if I find this person, we go to court, are you going to show up?

Do you want to prosecute? and a lot of times they would say no. So why tie up the court, why tie up that person? You know, they've got a job. They don't want to have to go to court at 11 o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday and, you know, do whatever. So, you know, if they're not really interested because they only lost, you know, $20, okay, they lost a lot of privacy and they lost, you know, their security. But if it's not worth it to them, then it's not worth it to the court. Right.

So I think the federal government is the same way. FBI says, hey, you know, if we can't get a conviction, then there's no sense in taking this to court. There's no, I mean, the millions of dollars of the FBI, billions of dollars that the FBI spends on indictments and investigations, it's not worth all that if they're not going to get the conviction. Yeah, I agree. Well, Nick, listen, now we're not going to keep you any longer, but what we will say is that if you become the new sheriff, We're going to be your new LB Watson. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding. But we do. Listen, I do want to reconvene when and if an indictment comes through. Yeah, absolutely. I commend you for coming on. I commend you for talking out. I commend you for putting your neck on the line with all of this because it is very trying times for this county. And we've had it across the board, Sherry, over the past few years.

I mean, with departments across the country. There's corruption everywhere. Well, and I think the thing with Spartaner County, there's so many, I guess, people that are like, you know, don't judge. You can't judge if you're a Christian. You got to pray for him and this and that. But he has to accept accountability. If he's doing something wrong in the department and he's using tax dollar money that we're giving, there's got to be accountability, period. It's not judging.

It's not saying I don't believe in God and I'm not praying for Chuck. I am praying for Chuck. But if you do wrong in that type of position, you have to be accountable for your actions. Yeah. And so what about the people that are praying for the county, that justice be done? You know, and just like with victims and just like, just like Sheriff Wright has done for suspects and victims of homicides and whatever. we're going to pray for both the victim and we're going to pray for the for the suspect. Yes, that means that we hope that that suspect, you know, gets the help that they need,

but guess what? They're still going to prison. Right. Yeah. You know, it's the same thing. Like, you have people praying for the victims. You have people praying for the suspect family. And then you also have people that are praying for, you know, that justice be done, you know,

regardless of who it is. and, you know, prayers don't negate themselves. You know, God doesn't say, well, okay, Chuck had 10 people praying for him. The county had 14 people praying, we're going to go with the county. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. Yeah, it's like, guys, they got pulled over by Operation Rowland Thunder, and I'm praying. So they're definitely not going to do anything.

And they're like, hey, you have like 28 pounds of. marijuana in your car. But I just prayed. I just prayed. And so, I mean, come on. Like, your sheriff prays. And I'm not trying to downplay. I understand that people are praying for Chuck.

And there's a lot of people out there that support you. We're going to pray for everybody. And that's fine. I pray for him too. But I still feel like he's got to be accountable for his actions. Yeah. Very much. Very much so.

I agree. Well, Nick, thank you so much for coming on. We're going to definitely keep you in our thoughts. in our prayers because I think you're going to need them. I think you'll probably need them. And listen, the same thing for Chuck Wright and the county and everybody involved, the command staff, the deputies, everybody.

It's a weird and crazy situation. But hopefully we get some accountability. Hopefully the county gets a just sheriff in office, someone that actually wants to work for the people and not himself. And we're not saying that's necessarily a case of Chuck Wright. we don't know. We're going to let the course decide. We're going to let the investigation unravel.

And Nick, is there anywhere people can find you if they want to go find you for your videos? Yeah. So, I mean, I still have my website up. I haven't posted any videos on my website lately of my recent stuff. But it's my election videos. Things that I would like to see changed in Stormwood County is under WWW Nick Duncan for Sheriff. I have a TikTok discussions with Duncan was originally supposed to be for, you know, all kinds of political discussions and, you know, what's going on in the county.

It is turned into lately as of late, you know, what's going on in the former county sheriff's office. So discussions with Duncan on TikTok and I put it on my Facebook. Facebook is just a personal Facebook, Nick Duncan, but it's public and, you know, TikTok. And I think that's it. Cool. Well, Nick, thank you so much for coming on. Yes, thank you so much. It was a great episode.

We are very excited to hear what happens with this whole Spartanour County Sheriff's deal. Nick, if you want to stay around for three minutes, so we'll talk to you on the backside. But guys, we love you. Until next time, peace up. Peace out, guys.