CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) -- When Chesterfield County Sheriff Cambo Streater plopped down into the chair inside a state police interview room in February 2024, he was facing off with a pair of agents trying to figure out why - and how - he would put himself in the way of the prosecution of a man charged with multiple attempted murders.
Why? That's the same question Queen City News had when we first obtained the audio recording of the sheriff meeting with the Robinson family.
Chesterfield County Sheriff Cambo Streater points to a document during his Feb. 20, 2024, interview with S.C. Law Enforcement Division agents. The document contains information related to a drive-by shooting at a victim's home that happened 28 days after the sheriff was secretly recorded giving the defendant in the victim's case information about the victim's statements from the CCSO case file. (Source: S.C. Law Enforcement Division)The Robinsons secretly audio recorded the January 12, 2024, meeting. Since South Carolina is a one-party state, there was nothing illegal about the recording.
As long as one person in the conversation knows a conversation is being recorded, a recording doesn't violate the state's wiretapping law.
Chesterfield County Sheriff Cambo Streater met with a criminal defendant at the man's home in January 2024, assuring the man he'd help get two attempted murder charges "dropped." The sheriff was investigated by the S.C. Law Enforcement Division, but an elected solicitor decided not to charge the sheriff with a crime from the investigation. (WJZY Photo/Jack Anderson)Chucky Robinson had hammered Streater for a while before the meeting - including during the campaign - asking Streater to reopen the attempted robbery and attempted murder investigation of Robinson's son, Da'Vonta Robinson.
Da'Vonta's also known as "Squirrel" and "Ru."
EXCLUSIVE: Secret recording reveals sheriff promised defendant to help derail attempted murder caseRobinson told Barr Streater agreed to reopen and review the 2020 shooting investigation on Coon Creek Road in Pageland during Streater's 2023 sheriff campaign. Streater admitted to state investigators that he agreed to give Squirrel's case another look.
Chesterfield County Sheriff's investigators charged Da'Vonta "Squirrel" Robinson in 2022 in connection with a shooting on Coon Creek Road near Pageland. Robinson faces prosecution on two counts of attempted murder, two counts of attempted armed robbery, and a felony weapons charge. (Source: Chesterfield County Sheriff's Office)Squirrel was charged with a weapons violation, two counts of attempted murder, and two counts of attempted armed robbery in the 2020 shooting.
The sheriff called Chucky Robinson at some point after Jan. 10, 2024, asking to meet to discuss Squirrel's case. Days before, Robinson went to the sheriff's office to meet with the sheriff, but the sheriff asked him not to come to the office again, according to Robinson.
Robinson believed his son was wrongly charged, and the sheriff appeared to believe him. The sheriff went to Robinson's home, where the Robinsons secretly audio recorded the hour-long meeting with Sheriff Streater inside their living room.
The recording shows the sheriff revealing intimate details of his office's case file to Squirrel and the Robinsons. At times, the sheriff was highly critical of his two veteran investigators, Captain Wayne Jordan and Investigator Angel Tubbs.
Just 21 seconds into the recording, the potential motive for the sheriff jumping on Squirrel's case became clearer, "We had to write a – we putting a press release out," the sheriff tells Chucky Robinson. "It’s going out this evening, going out this evening - it’s going out this evening. We’re going to tell everybody exactly step-by-step what we did and tell them we ain’t done anything wrong.”
The sheriff continued to vent to the Robinsons about our Queen City News investigation, 'Unheard," which aired two days before the meeting with the Robinsons.
That news investigation revealed what the sheriff admitted was his office's mishandling of parts of a child sexual assault case.
Chucky Robinson and Sheriff Cambo Streater were sitting in a SLED interview room one day apart in February 2024, explaining statements made in a secret audio recording the Robinson family made in January 2024 during a secret meeting with the sheriff in their home near Pageland. (Source: S.C. Law Enforcement Division)"I can tell you, Jody, because of this case and you bringing it to our attention, you bringing it to my attention, some things - obviously some shortcomings that we have here, I'm going to look into it to make sure it doesn't happen again," the sheriff said in our 'Unheard' investigation in 2024.
Was the sheriff's trip to the Robinsons an attempt to curry favor with Chucky Robinson, a politically active man in Pageland, an important voting area in Chesterfield County elections? The sheriff appeared to be concerned with the public perception and the impact on his politics during the meeting.
"Look here, this may cost me votes, I don't care about votes. It's the right thing to do, and that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. We got to get this cleared up," the sheriff told the Robinson family in the secret recording.
The sheriff's press release was posted on the sheriff's office's official Facebook page a few hours after the sheriff's secret meeting with the Robinsons. It listed 10 points, which appeared to be an attempt to discredit our 'Unheard' investigation.
The Link, a small Chesterfield County newspaper, made Sheriff Cambo Streater an above-the-fold top story on its Jan. 17, 2024, edition. The paper never reached out to Queen City News for comment before publishing the sheriff's press release as front-page news. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)The local newspaper, The Link, also printed the sheriff's press release on its front page. The newspaper never contacted the people named in the sheriff's press release to verify the truth of what the sheriff alleged in the release, or to provide comment from those named.
Queen City News and Jody Barr were included in those people.
The sheriff also revealed in the secret recording the punishment he planned to impose on Queen City News' Jody Barr over our 'Unheard' investigation.
"I don't need Jody Barr," Streater told the Robinsons, "Jody Barr call me and wanting something on something going on up here, wanting some information, I ain't talking to Jody Barr. He can't be honest, I ain't talking to him."
"I've been sitting up here for a week now, let them take shots at me, and I just let them bounce off. But the truth is going to come out tonight. I'm tired of it. Jody Barr, Jody Barr – pardon my French – Jody Barr can kiss my ass," Streater said in the secret recording - a conversation the sheriff thought was and would remain private.
SLED submitted its investigation to Fifteenth Circuit Solicitor Jimmy Richardson following a two-month investigation of Chesterfield County Sheriff Cambo Streater. Richardson found "insufficient evidence" to file charges against the sheriff over his actions captured in a January 2024 secret recording of his meeting with a man charged with two counts of attempted murder. (Source: Horry County Government)The sheriff would later admit to SLED agents the press release was "a back at ya," when he was questioned inside a SLED interview room in Florence, S.C., in February 2024.
Streater told SLED agents he was simply trying to give Squirrel's case another look to make sure there was nothing left undone and that Squirrel was correctly charged.
SLED agents spent two months investigating the secret recording, the sheriff's motives, the sheriff's actions, and the prosecutor and Attorney General investigator the sheriff claimed was his "friend on the inside," who would help in the sheriff's efforts to help Squirrel in the state's prosecution of him in the 2020 attempted murder case.
The sheriff's allegations in the recording that Fourth Circuit Senior Deputy Solicitor Kernard Redmond thought that Squirrel should never have been charged also roped Redmond into the SLED investigation. The sheriff claimed in his SLED interview that Redmond criticized the prosecution landed Redmond an invitation to the SLED office in Florence to be interviewed by agents.
"Kernard told me he didn’t think Squirrel should have been charged. I said, ‘Why did you send it to Columbia, then? If that’s what you think," the sheriff told the Robinsons, "Be a man and call it like it is and drop the charges...because that’s what I’m trying to get, I’m trying to get charges dropped.”
"I don’t know enough about that case to have formulated an opinion. And to say that I’m going to withhold what I want to say, but no, that is absolutely, unequivocally not true. We never – I never said that to the sheriff, and the sheriff never asked me why did I send it to Columbia or anything like that," Redmond told SLED agents in his Feb. 22, 2024, interview.
Fourth Circuit Senior Deputy Solicitor Kernard Redmond listens as SLED agents play a portion of the Sheriff Cambo Streater secret recording where the sheriff claims Redmond thought Squirrel should not have been charged. Redmond disputed nearly every statement the sheriff made in the recording. (Source: S.C. Law Enforcement Division)"There was never any conversation, and it sounds like he’s saying there was repeated conversation about that – that’s just not true. I am between furious and disappointed – I’m kind of fluctuating between those two emotions right now," Redmond told investigators, obviously angry over the portions of the secret recording SLED played for him during the interview.
Redmond said he told the sheriff he believed Squirrel's case was being prosecuted by the S.C. Attorney General's Office, and he couldn't talk about the case in any way since Redmond had long ago recused himself from anything related to the Robinsons.
The sheriff told the Robinsons he would do whatever it took to force Redmond to call the AG's office to get the case back in Chesterfield County, including confronting Redmond at a funeral the day before the sheriff's secret meeting with the Robinsons.
"Earlier this week, I was going to meet with Kernard, and I wasn’t going to leave his office until he called the attorney general’s office himself with me sitting in his office. I’ll be honest, I ain’t believing what anybody tells me right now. People done lied about this thing…I was going to meet with Kernard and sit there, and I didn’t do it, and the reason is, that girl died that worked at the – Angie. And Angie worked with Kernard, and I went to the funeral yesterday evening, and Kernard was crying like a baby. She worked with him for 17 years. So, it wasn’t the time for me to give Kernard a hard time, but I’m going to," Streater said in the recording.
Fourth Circuit Senior Deputy Solicitor Kernard Redmond wipes a tear during his SLED interview after hearing a portion of the secret recording where Sheriff Cambo Streater tells the Robinson family Redmond was "crying like a baby" at a funeral the day before the sheriff's secret meeting. Redmond's assistant, Angie Thurman, spent 17 years with Redmond in the solicitor's office and was a woman Redmond said was a major part of his professional success as a prosecutor. (Source: S.C. Law Enforcement Division)"When did your assistant pass away?” SLED Lt. Jarod Barkdoll asked Redmond, "She died on January 6, and he’s (Streater) right about one thing; I cried like a baby. But that was my right and left hand. That’s the only thing he said that he’s right about," Redmond responded.
The sheriff also told the Robinsons he had a "friend" inside the S.C. Attorney General's Office who could help the sheriff in his mission to get Squirrel's charges dropped.
"I got a friend who works at the attorney general’s, and they not going to send the cases back, says once we get them, we won’t send them back. I said, 'Well, here’s what you need to do, you need to get one of your investigators,' – and the one they assigned to it is a good friend of mine – I worked with him in Columbia. And he sat in my office about 2 weeks ago and we went over this case, me and him, and he gets assigned to do it, he says I’ll go to the prosecutor and tell him you can’t win this case.”
That "friend" is AG Investigator Matt Ellis, who was also dragged into the SLED investigation over the sheriff's statements in the recording.
"I can tell you in 27 years, I've never, just never been involved in something like this. And I'm thinking, I know I didn't do anything wrong, but I know how reputations get put around, and this is my reputation that I’ve built for 27 years that could be tarnished. And I don’t want that," Ellis told SLED agents during his interview.
S.C. Attorney General Investigator Matt Ellis listens to a portion of the secret recording where Chesterfield County Sheriff Cambo Streater tells a criminal defendant he has a "friend of mine on the inside" who could help the sheriff get Da'Vonta "Squirrel" Robinson's case file returned to Chesterfield County for a reinvestigation. (Source: S.C. Law Enforcement Division)Ellis brought a folder full of documents with him to the interview. The documents showed why he was in Chesterfield County in January 2024, which was to pick up video recording evidence from the sheriff's investigative unit on a murder case the AG's office was prosecuting at the time.
It was not to meet with Streater over the Squirrel prosecution. But Ellis said the sheriff cornered him about the case. Here's a partial transcript from the SLED/Ellis exchange:
SLED: "Did you read the file?”
ELLIS: "No."
SLED: “You didn’t spread it out and talk about the file?"
ELLIS: "No."
SLED: "You didn’t make any opinions of –"
ELLIS: "I had no opinion – I didn’t even know, all I know is it’s a – there was a case that was charged that he said what he said about it, that he needed to talk to the attorney. And that's what I was trying to facilitate, was him getting in touch with the attorney."
ELLIS: "I have no – I can't do any – like I mean, people think I have some authority or something, I don't have any, I can't. That’d be like me taking your case and going somewhere and saying, here, get rid – I can’t, it’s unheard of.”
SLED finished its investigation on April 10, 2024, and delivered its file to the Fifteenth Circuit Solicitor's Office in Horry County for a determination as to whether the sheriff would be charged.
On August 28, Solicitor Jimmy Richardson decided he would not give SLED the green light to charge Streater, finding the state investigation, in part, "…uncovered insufficient evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to prove that the sheirff was acting with corrupt intent," although, "…some of the comments made by Streater are very concerning…and their impact on the pending charges have yet to be determined," Richardson wrote in a letter to SLED Lieutenant Jared Barkdoll declining to prosecute the sheriff.
Richardson's letter explained his decision not to charge the sheriff with obstruction of justice, bribery, or misconduct in office.
READ: FIFTEENTH CIRCUIT SOLICITOR JIMMY RICHARDSON'S DECLINATION LETTER TO SLED:
08262024-HORRY-COUNTY-SOLICITOR-LETTER-RE-CAMBO-STREATERDownload"I'm trying to get charges dropped," the sheriff told Squirrel in the recording. The sheriff also told the Robinsons he would help them get Squirrel's court-ordered GPS ankle monitor removed.
"We need to get it off of you," Sheriff Streater told Squirrel.
Turns out, during the SLED investigation, the sheriff told SLED that the GPS ankle monitor provided some level of evidence in a drive-by shooting Streater believed Squirrel had a hand in.
That shooting happened 28 days after the sheriff's secret meeting with the Robinson's where a victim in the 2020 attempted murder case's home was shot multiple times in a drive-by.
Chesterfield County Sheriff's deputies and investigators responded to a 911 call at this home on Central Place Lane in Pageland on Feb. 8, 2024. Noah Avila, a victim in the 2020 attempted murder case against Da'Vonta "Squirrel" Robinson, was inside with his girlfriend and 5-year-old child at the time. The black tape marks on the vinyl siding show some of the bullet holes in the home. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)Streater told SLED Squirrel was a suspect and they expected to charge him in connection with the drive-by "soon."
“Central Place, this is where that last drive by was,” Streater told Lt. Barkdoll, "That’s Noah’s house?” Barkdoll asked. "Yep, that’s why we think Noah was a potential victim of this last drive by 3 or 4 weeks ago, that Squirrel—,” "Could be involved in that," a second SLED agent interjects, "Squirrel’s GPS puts him in the neighborhood," the sheriff told the agents.
"We close to getting warrants on him on the last drive by," Streater told agents in response to a SLED question of whether the sheriff was "protecting" Squirrel.
On July 25, 2025, Pageland Police got a call about a shooting along Evans Mill Road. A woman told investigators she was shot at multiple times from a car she recognized as belonging to Squirrel.
Cameras hanging on houses along Evans Mill Road in Pageland captured a shooting on July 25, 2025, where investigators charged Da'Vonta "Squirrel" Robinson with taking part in firing 20 rounds from a black car at a female victim. The light emitted from the muzzle flash activated the infrared illumination on cameras nearby. (Source: Law Enforcement Source)Camera recordings law enforcement obtained near the crime scene showed the shooting and a dark colored car making a U-turn, leaving the scene. Law enforcement sources told Queen City News Chief Investigative Reporter Jody Barr that Squirrel's GPS played an integral role in identifying Squirrel as a suspect in the July 2025 shooting.
Within 48 hours of the shooting, the female victim provided investigators a Snapchat message purportedly from Squirrel, "Don't go to no police saying my f---ing name WTF," according to an arrest warrant. Pageland Police then charged Squirrel with witness intimidation and jailed him on July 27, 2025.
Law enforcement sources tell Barr Squirrel's GPS ankle monitor placed him at the scene at the time of the shooting, as well as on other streets where other witnesses claimed to have seen Squirrel's car before and after the shooting.
Chesterfield County investigators booked Da'Vonta "Squirrel" Robinson into the Chesterfield County Detention Center on July 27, 2025, charged in connection with a shooting in Pageland along Evans Mill Road. Squirrel remains jailed without bond as of the posting of this article. (Source: Chesterfield County Detention Center)On August 1, 2025, Pageland Police Investigator Angel Tubbs got two additional warrants on Squirrel, charging him with first-degree assault and battery and aggravated breach of the peace.
"Davonta [sic] Robinson, with co-defendants did commit the criminal offense of Assault and Battery 1st," Tubbs wrote in the arrest warrant," ...with the presence and ability to commit great bodily injury one Davanta Robinson, an occupant in a black in color Honda on Evans Mill Road and Mangum Road within the town limits of Pageland, did discharge more than 20 rounds from the vehicle Davonta Robinson along with co-defendants towards one female victim inside a vehicle."
Pageland Police Department Captain Shane Whitley provided this version of an incident report from the July 25, 2025, shooting along Evans Mill Road. Officers reported finding no property damage from the shooting. (Source: Pageland Police Department)Robinson is still in the county jail, awaiting a bond revocation hearing before a circuit court judge. If his bond is revoked, Robinson could be held until trial on all of his pending charges. A date for the revocation hearing has not yet been set.
The one question left unanswered from the secret recording: the true impact the secret recording may have on the state's ability to prosecute Squirrel - a prosecution that will likely make Sheriff Cambo Streater the star witness in Squirrel's fight against the State of South Carolina's prosecution team.
A man with nearly three decades of prosecutorial experience told SLED agents in his interview that Sheriff Cambo Streater might've destroyed the state's ability to convict Da'Vonta "Squirrel" Robinson beyond a reasonable doubt.
That's likely a question only a trial and a jury of Squirrel's peers can answer at this point.
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