POWER PLAY: Co-op board member claims 'conspiracy' targeted him in wake of CEO's firing ...Middle East

PAGELAND, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) - On Nov. 29, 2023, three of the top law enforcers in Chesterfield County, S.C., hopped into patrol trucks and headed west down Highway 9 toward Pageland.

The three, Sheriff Cambo Streater, Captain Wayne Jordan, and Sergeant Daniel Scott, were headed to answer a call for help from the chief executive officer of the Lynches River Electric Cooperative, Brian Broughton.

But Broughton's call never hit the county dispatch center—the place where most calls for law enforcement's help go, where units are dispatched, and where case numbers originate. The dispatch center told us Broughton's call was an "officer request" for a case number.

In layman's terms, Broughton's call for help likely went directly to someone in law enforcement.

The sheriff and his top investigators went into Broughton's office and listened to the co-op's head man detail what would end up as a criminal harassment investigation by the S.C. Law Enforcement Division, the state's top law enforcement agency. Broughton told the sheriff and his men someone he didn't know sent him three text messages and sent co-op employee Bow Burch two texts.

The texts contained a Bible verse, an audio recording of a holiday song, a picture of John Cena, and the following written messages sent to Broughton:

"You can't hide. You will be dealt with. Stripes will suit you."

Bow Burch reported receiving the John Cena picture and a written message: "Hey pretty boy."

Broughton told the sheriff's investigators he believed there may be two potential suspects, "...a former employee who wants to return, but Broughton doesn't believe he will be a rehire," and a board member, "...who is attempting to have him removed as President and CEO of Lynches River."

The sheriff's incident report does not name that board member, but Kevin Sims, who led the charges, fired Broughton twice—once in the summer of 2023 and again in April 2024. He believes Broughton's statement in the incident report could have been meant for him and possibly two other board members who were working to have Broughton investigated and removed from office around the time of those text messages.

Our investigation uncovered local and state resources used to investigate the phone numbers behind multiple messages sent to the co-op CEO, employees and board members. The state's senior circuit court judge, Paul Burch, issued four search warrants in the case. Burch's wife, Kim Burch, works as an economic development "advisor," at the co-op. Mrs. Burch is also an elected member of the Chesterfield County School District Board and the board's newest chairwoman.

That familial tie-in caused the target of the text message investigation, Trustee Kevin Sims, to question whether the judge's decision to issue search warrants in the case might have been a conflict of interest and potentially violated the rulebook governing the conduct of state judges. That target, co-op board member Kevin Sims told Queen City News he believes the text investigation was a conspiracy to "attack" him and to have him investigated and/or prosecuted over his efforts to fire Broughton the first time in 2023.

The latest investigation in our 'Power Play' series goes inside the harassment allegations, from where they came, who's involved, and Kevin Sims' claims someone tried to frame him when investigators found his email address on a registration form to activate a burner phone used in the text messages sent to Broughton and co-op employee Bow Burch.

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