Last year, a goodly number of phone calls went out in Aiken County, illegal robocalls in support of Sen. Greg Ryberg and House candidate Scott Singer in the Republican primaries. Ryberg never needed the help, as much as it was, and Singer lost to Rep. Tom Young. Law enforcement got involved and former Aiken GOP board member Ginny Allen was arrested.
It looks like she’s not going to get much in the way of legal punishment, sending out her statement admitting guilt as a part of her pre-trial intervention program.
“I regret my participation in the negative campaign tactics surrounding the automated robo-calls during the recent state Senate race, and I want to be very clear that Sen. Ryberg had no knowledge or any involvement,” Allen wrote in the letter carbon copied to Solicitor Strom Thurmond Jr. and her defense attorney Greg Harlow.
Investigators said Allen manipulated the caller ID to show the number of “REI Incorporated,” a business owned and operated by Sen. Ryberg but did not have the senator’s permission to do so.
“The apology appears to be sincere, it lays out exactly what happened,” Ryberg said of the letter, Tuesday. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s behind us.” The South Carolina Senator said he felt PTI was appropriate for the case.
Few things are more interesting than internal battles within the S.C. Republican Party. With the S.C. Democrats damn near anemic, all the soap operas (or, at least the best ones) go on in the right side of the ledger.
In this case, it involves the race for SCGOP chairman. Recently, S.C. Republican operative Mike Green recorded a debate between the three candidates on his iPhone. The thing is, while he was testing it out, he shot several things. Almost all have been pulled off the Internet. One was early in a debate when you could see former Aiken County GOP treasurer Ginny Allen standing near candidate Karen Floyd with a Floyd sticker on.
In December, Allen was arrested by SLED for sending out robocalls on Sen. Greg Ryberg and House candidate Scott Singer. According to most S.C. politicos, she was also behind the Aiken-based political blog Kaolin Kronicle.
It just goes to show that in S.C. politics, you are rarely six degrees away from someone who has pending prison time.
