By Niki Mayo, Anderson Independent-Mail
Attorneys for Joey Preston filed a motion Friday seeking to dismiss an appeal in the severance-pay lawsuit between Anderson County and its former administrator.
Preston, who served as the county’s administrator for more than a decade, was awarded a $1.1 million severance package in November 2008. The package included a large cash payout, a GMC Yukon that he drove on the job and state retirement credits that, when combined with his years of earned service, allow him to get more than $7,000 a month from the South Carolina Retirement System.
Some of the council members who approved that package had lost their bids for re-election and were on their way out of office. Since 2009, the majority of Anderson County Council members have been trying to get that severance package declared invalid. Though a couple of faces on the council have changed since the lawsuit was filed, the pursuit of the money has not.
The county filed a lawsuit accusing Preston of fraud and ethics violations. The county’s lawyers also attempted to get the severance package declared void by arguing that some of the council members who voted on it stood to benefit by favoring Preston.
The county has spent about $3 million, most on investigating Preston and suing him and the balance on related lawsuits. In May 2013, Judge Roger Couch of Spartanburg ruled in Preston’s favor, and last November, the council voted 4-3 to appeal that decision.
In the motion filed Friday, Preston’s lawyers argue the county’s appeal should be dismissed because two of the council members who voted to pursue it, Cindy Wilson and Eddie Moore, should have been disqualified from voting. Instead, the two improperly cast “tainted votes,” Preston’s lawyers said in the latest motion. Preston’s lawyers, Lane Davis and Candy Kern-Fuller, argue in the filing that without the votes of Wilson or Moore, the motion to pursue the appeal would have failed.
Preston’s attorneys said they had no comment on their motion. One of the county’s attorneys, Ted Gentry, did not respond to the Independent Mail’s request for comment. Neither did Wilson or Moore.