Columbia, SC (WLTX) - Former Lexington County Representative Rick Quinn Jr says he will work to clear his name after pleading guilty to misconduct in office. Quinn was sentenced to two years probation, $1,000 in fines and 500 hours of community service.
Quinn sat down with News 19 to talk about the previous allegations against him. When asked if he acted as a lobbyist for his father's firm, Richard Quinn and Associates, while in office, he replied "no."
Quinn's guilty plea was associated with his failure to report USC as a client with his father's company. He says while he owns up to that mistake, he denies allegations of criminal conspiracy, a charge which was later dropped. That charge stemmed from allegations that he was being paid for voting in favor of his father's clients.
"Those are all false allegations," says Quinn. "Even the clients that my father had have all come out and said that they never thought they were buying my vote. More importantly a couple of them said I never voted with them."
The only thing he admits to was failure to report, which is part of the misconduct in office charge.
"I plead guilty to the only thing that I believe I did do that was against the law and that requires that if you are associated with a business, it requires you, if you were aware, to disclose any lobbyist principle income to that business," says Quinn. "I was a guarantor on a business with my father, I don't own the building, I just signed to help him with the credit side of it. They lease to USC and I knew about it and I should've reported it."
When asked why he didn't report it, he replied, "I've asked myself that a lot, because it was very upsetting to me and when I thought about it, it was just stupid to be honest with you. It was a bad mistake and I don't think that it should have elevated to the level that it has. In any other universe it would have been handled by the House Ethics Committee."
Quinn says he plans on releasing documents showing he recused himself from votes that could have been a conflict of interest.
He says this is all to dispute the allegations brought on the table by First Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe.
"If he really believed all of the things that he said about me in that courtroom two months ago, he would've gone to trial with it. He lied, he lied about what he said in that courtroom," says Quinn. "I'm going to show the public that. We're going to put it on a website and I'm going to try to show my district. Look, I'm not running for office, but I want to show that while I was in public service, I did the best job that I could and I feel like I did it honorably."
When we reached out to Solicitor Pascoe for comment, he said he doesn't plan to say anything until he files motions against Quinn's plea deal.
After the Monday sentencing hearing, Pascoe spoke briefly that he doesn't believe Quinn fully admitted to the misconduct in office charge.